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Animals

Male dragonflies’ wax coats might protect them against a warming climate

The reflective wax, which cools males on sunny courtship flights, may also armor them against the effects of climate change.

Animals

Male mammals aren’t always bigger than females

In a study of over 400 mammal species, less than half have males that are, on average, heavier than females, undermining a long-standing assumption.

Health & Medicine

The U.S. now has a drug for severe frostbite. How does it work?

Iloprost has been shown to prevent the need to amputate frozen fingers and toes. It’s now approved for use to treat severe frostbite in the U.S.

Animals

A decades-old mystery has been solved with the help of newfound bee species

Masked bees in Australia and French Polynesia have long-lost relatives in Fiji, suggesting that the bees’ ancestors island hopped.

Health & Medicine

Four years on, the COVID-19 pandemic has a long tail of grief

Researchers are studying the magnitude and impact that grief from the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will have for years to come.

Animals

Big monarch caterpillars don’t avoid toxic milkweed goo. They binge on it

Instead of nipping milkweed to drain the plants’ defensive sap, older monarch caterpillars may seek the toxic sap. Lab larvae guzzled it from a pipette.

Space

‘Space: The Longest Goodbye’ explores astronauts’ mental health

The documentary follows NASA astronauts and the psychologists helping them prepare for future long-distance space trips to the moon and Mars.

Life

This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’

Similar to mammals, these ringed caecilians make a nutrient-rich milk-like fluid to feed their mewling hatchlings up to six times a day.

Environment

How air pollution may make it harder for pollinators to find flowers

Certain air pollutants that build up at night can break down the same fragrance molecules that attract pollinators like hawk moths to primroses.

Particle Physics

Forests might serve as enormous neutrino detectors 

Trees could act as antennas that pick up radio waves of ultra-high energy neutrinos interactions, one physicist proposes.

Animals

See 3-D models of animal anatomy from openVertebrate’s public collection

Over six years, researchers took CT scans of over 13,000 vertebrates to make museum collections more easily accessible to researchers and the public.

Physics

‘Countdown’ takes stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile

Physicists grapple with their role as stewards of the United States’ aging nuclear weapons in the new book by Sarah Scoles.