Biology

Dec 27th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Evolution often follows curious paths, especially when it comes to food. Over the past 100 million years, mammals have explored an incredible range of diets. Some mammals graze on grass, others hunt prey, and a few even sip tree sap or dive for krill. But one of the strangest dietary turns comes from species that eat and depend deeply on ants and termites. This peculiar choice may seem limiting, even risky. Yet, it has driven major transformations in anatomy, behavior and ... [Read More]

Dec 27th, 2025 - The beaver who would one day be named June was simply doing what beavers do. But her dams, built around her lodge in Utah's Bear River Mountains, ran afoul of a rancher. He said the flooding caused his sheep to get stuck in the mud. That landed the furry engineer in the unfortunate category of "nuisance beaver." In most places around the country, she would have been killed. Instead, she was enlisted: strategically relocated and released in an effort to restore degraded streams elsewhere in the ... [Read More]

Dec 27th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google For about fifteen years, a group of early humans called Denisovans lived only in gene sequencers and human imagination. Now, a skull nicknamed "Dragon Man" has helped put a face to the name. Scientists have learned to use ancient DNA like a time machine. When it survives, it can tell us who ancient humans were related to, where they moved, and even when different groups had children together. But DNA is fragile. After tens of thousands of years, it starts to fall apart, ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - The findings might overturn a widely held belief that only females pose a disease risk to people, though more research is needed. Reading time 4 minutes The mosquito scourge might somehow be even worse than we thought. Intriguing research out this month finds it isn't just females that are capable of sucking our blood—males can apparently do it, too. Scientists from Pennsylvania State University and other institutions made their case in a preprint released last week on the website ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Our understanding of how our species evolved has improved dramatically since we first began analyzing ancient DNA. This year, researchers made impressive ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A gene called fruitless controls about 1,800 brain cells that allow male honeybees to beg worker bees for food inside the hive, according to new research. The study comes from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf ( HHU ) in Germany, and the results help explain how a hive keeps males fed. Inside a hive, food handoffs depend on careful timing between hungry males and the workers that feed them. The research was led by Professor Martin Beye, who studies how genes guide ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Around 125 million years ago, a dinosaur longer than a pickup truck stalked rivers to gobble up fish in what is now Thailand. The remains of the roughly ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . S mell plays a crucial role in our daily lives, and it helped propel our evolution, too. Hundreds of millions of years ago, this sense enabled our early mammal ancestors to find food, communicate, and escape predators. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Mammals came onto the scene more than 200 million years ago, and several features in their brains grew larger than those of their ancestors—including the olfactory bulb, a ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Despite the high stakes, the tiny caterpillar in the lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was not given a name. It's the last known individual of its kind, the critically endangered Sacramento Mountains checkerspot. If the caterpillar survives, it will transform into a butterfly with wings of stenciled orange, black, and cream. Scientists hope to breed it by finding and capturing another from the wild, if any are left. But last summer, as researchers prepared for weeks of searching for the ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Australia's renewable energy boom is reshaping the landscape. But when new green energy projects threaten the wildlife they are meant to save, who decides what gets sacrificed? Cassie Hlava has an answer for most questions about the birds in her backyard.  The one question that almost stumps her? Picking a favourite.  She stares into space for a moment, genuinely contemplating the question, a mixture of concern and amusement crossing her face. "It's like picking a favourite child," ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Two dinosaur eggs, each about five inches (13 centimeters) across and almost perfectly round, have surprised scientists in eastern China. Instead of fragile shells packed with embryonic bone, the fossil eggs were hollow cavities stuffed with glittering mineral crystals. The work was led by Qing He, a paleontologist at Anhui University and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology , Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her area of research focus is fossilized eggs. Her ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - These fungi boost plant growth and restore depleted ecosystems, but federal funding for a library housing them has been cut – and it may be forced to close I nside a large greenhouse at the University of Kansas , Professor Liz Koziol and Dr Terra Lubin tend rows of sudan grass in individual plastic pots. The roots of each straggly plant harbor a specific strain of invisible soil fungus. The shelves of a nearby cold room are stacked high with thousands of plastic bags and vials containing ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - Palaeontologists reported some remarkable dinosaur fossils this year, including a Velociraptor relative, a dome-headed pachycephalosaur and one of the most heavily armoured creatures that ever lived If there's ever a creature you would not want to bump heads with, it is Zavacephale rinpoche. This dome-headed dinosaur found in Mongolia lived 108 million years ago, making it the oldest of its kind ever discovered. When palaeontologists first saw the fossil skull protruding from the ground, they ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - Experts and novices alike hunt for specimens that could change our understanding of evolution – and all only a short day trip from Melbourne Between the cliffs and the sea at Jan Juc, on Victoria's Surf Coast, researchers scour the shore platform for evidence of life from 25m years ago, as beachgoers revel in the sand and surf nearby. "You can be there discovering a fossil that might change our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth. And you're sharing it with a family that's ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter One of the closest living relatives of the dodo has been spotted multiple times in Samoa — raising hopes that this critically endangered creature can ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - Long before flowers dazzled insects with colors, ancient plants used a different signal. We tend to think of plants as passive, vulnerable actors. But in their partnership with insects, it's plants that often play the leading role. Sometimes, this can get pretty surprising. As evening approaches, certain tropical plants raise the temperature of their reproductive cones well above the surrounding air. The heat produces infrared radiation that nocturnal beetles can sense, even though humans ... [Read More]