nature

A good dose of nature can still soothe the psyche of the modern human, but sometimes nature, red in tooth and claw, can also just gross you out. Wasps turn helpless caterpillars into a 24x7 buffet for young ones, mama mantis snacks on the head of its former lover, and a frog gives new meaning to oral fixation when nurturing the kiddies.

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It’s hard to imagine it raining in Riyadh. Less than five inches of water fall from the clouds above Saudi Arabia’s capital city each year. When the thermostat rises above 110°F, it’s not a heat wave—it’s midday. But it wasn’t always like this. A little over three million years ago, before climate-change cycles turned the area into a desert, the Arabian Peninsula’s empty riverbeds were overflowing valleys, and its dry expanses of shrubland were lush grasslands.

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Animals use camouflage to hide from and confuse predators and prey. For some such animals, their natural appearance mimics, matches, and fades into their surroundings. Others actively shift shape, texture or color to blend in. This amazing ability to hide in plain sight has evolved in parallel across thousands of species, and each animal’s cloaking technique is unique.

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As human populations grow, pollution soils the environment and infrastructure develops, our natural habitat suffers. This may sound familiar, but scientists sent a resounding message today when they announced in a comprehensive five-year global wildlife review that these human-based causes and more are threatening one in four of the world's 5,487 known mammal species and have put 188 species in the critically endangered category.

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Trees may be able to protect themselves from forest fires by serving as living batteries—housing small devices, which would measure temperature and humidity and broadcast the data from tree-to-tree.

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Sometimes the smallest discovery lends itself to the biggest insight. That certainly was the case for University of Texas at Austin graduate student Christian Rabeling, who found a new ant species in the Amazon that is likely the descendent of one of the first ants to evolve on Earth more than 120 million years ago.

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Primate intelligence gives me cognitive dissonance. It’s fascinating that monkeys can recognize numbers, construct tools and even follow to-do lists. But it also bruises my ego, just slightly, knowing that monkeys aren’t that different from my parents, friends or heroes. (Michael Phelps excluded. He’s the übermensch.)

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Lost in drive-by country? Look for a cow. It will probably be pointing north—or south.

After analyzing satellite photos of 8,000 cows in 308 different locations, German scientists have found that the milk-makers usually confront the world in a north-south direction. This preference isn’t an indication of the cows sunning themselves, researchers say—it shows that they can sense the Earth’s magnetic field.

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All elephants are known to have good memories, but it's the older ones that are wisest during times of trouble. According to researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society of London, older female elephants with knowledge of distant resources of food and water could help herds survive during crises like droughts.

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