Biology (Page 17)

A guide to life, on Earth and beyond, including the top news about plants, animals, and physiology.

Latest in Biology

A fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee foraging on a green plant.

Bumblebees carbo-load on the fly

By Laura Baisas

A life-sized reconstruction of the head and jaws of the oldest megapredatory pliosaur called Lorrainosaurus. The reptile is long and torpedo shaped, with closed jaws and sharp exposed teeth.

This Jurassic-era ‘sea murderer’ was among the first of its kind

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of a newly discovered shark species called Strigilodus tollesonae. The shark looks somewhat like a stingray, with outstretched wings, fan-like top fins, and a long tail with black spots.

Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

A group of worker bees surround the queen bee on a honeycomb. All worker honeybees are female and they can go to extreme lengths to serve their queen even shedding their own ovaries.

Female honeybees may pass down ‘altruistic’ genes

By Laura Baisas

A fluorescent microscopic image, magnified 20 times, of a rodent nerve.

Unraveled nerves and mesmerizing caffeine crystals: 10 sensational glimpses of the microscopic realm

By Popular Science Team

Three stage of digital reconstruction. From left, the Pierolapithecus cranium shortly after discovery, after initial preparation, and after virtual reconstruction.

12-million-year-old ape skull bares its fangs in virtual reconstruction

By Laura Baisas

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem

By Syris Valentine/Hakai Magazine

Climate change could help fungal diseases thrive

Climate change could help fungal diseases thrive

By Shreya Dasgupta/Knowable Magazine

AI-designed multi-legged robots on table

AI design for a ‘walking’ robot is a squishy purple glob

The cave lion remains from Siegsdorf, Germany are displayed alongside a reproduction of a wooden spear similar to those used by Neanderthals.

Neanderthals may have hunted mighty cave lions

By Laura Baisas

A pinkish human brain against a black background.

New human brain atlas is the most detailed one we’ve seen yet

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Two frogs mating in a body of water.

Female frogs appear to play dead to avoid mating

By Laura Baisas

Patient wearing a highly integrated bionic hand in between many others

Titanium-fused bone tissue connects this bionic hand directly to a patient’s nerves

Grazer looking chunky and getting ready for winter on September 14, 2023. The bear is in the river intensely staring for salmon.

Fierce mama Grazer takes 2023’s Fat Bear Week crown

By Laura Baisas

Human hand bones during an archaeological dig.

Sensitive to pain? It could be your Neanderthal gene variants.

By Laura Baisas

An underwater closeup of Cayo margarita (a new species) in the coral reef of the Florida Keys. Note the two long tentacles, used by the snail to spread the mucus net for feeding.

New neon-yellow snail from the Florida Keys gets a happy hour-ready name

By Laura Baisas

A capybara standing on a riverbank. Capybaras are semi-aquatic rodents that can weigh up to 174 pounds.

4 capybara facts you’ll love, and 1 you’d like to forget

By Laura Baisas

A newly discovered sauropod dinosaur left behind some epic footprints

A newly discovered sauropod dinosaur left behind some epic footprints

By Laura Baisas

White Sands NPS staff excavating fossilized human footprints from lakebed

Do the ancient human footprints at White Sands date back to the last ice age?

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Sweat sensor worn like a ring on finger

A new noninvasive patch could monitor a vital hormone

Electronic artificial tongue sensor

An ‘electronic tongue’ could help robots taste food like humans

Two chimpanzees share a meal. A new study found that same-sex sexual behavior helps establish and maintain positive social relationships in animals including chimpanzees, bighorn sheep, lions, and wolves.

Mammals may use same-sex sexual behavior for conflict resolution, bonding, and more

By Laura Baisas

The Morona-Santiago stubfoot toad (Atelopus halihelos) in Ecuador is listed as critically endangered.

How we can help the most endangered class of animals survive climate change

By Laura Baisas

A green monk parakeet standing in dirt. Parrots could have a unique tone of voice just like humans do.

No two parakeets sound exactly the same

By Laura Baisas

T. rex model, T. rex skull, and Triceratops skull at dinosaur display in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna

4 reasons dinosaurs never really ruled the Earth

A killer whale in the Salish Sea is observed harassing a porpoise, a behavior that has long perplexed scientists.

Why are these orcas harassing porpoises? Scientists have 3 theories.

By Laura Baisas

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA

By Laura Baisas

A person receiving chest compressions.

What really happens during a near-death experience

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A volcano spews lava and ash. In roughly 250 million years, massive tectonic activity could push together all of our current landmasses into a supercontinent like Pangea and make the climate inhospitable to humans and other mammals.

A boiling hot supercontinent could kill all mammals in 250 million years

By Laura Baisas

A row of organic orange carrots with their green stems still attached on a table.

How carrots get their trademark orange color

By Laura Baisas

A hyenea shows its jaws. Giant hyenas went extinct about 500,000 years ago, but were roughly 240 pounds and skilled scavengers like their modern counterparts.

How many ancient humans does it take to fight off a giant hyena?

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Bohemolichas feeding on the seafloor, moments before it is engulfed, buried, and preserved by an underwater mud flow.

A fossilized trilobite stomach can show us clues to Cambrian cuisine

By Laura Baisas

Aerial view of a hot air balloon over Namib desert. The circular “fairy circles” are derived from any vegetation & surrounded by tall grass.

Mysterious ‘fairy circles’ may appear on three different continents

By Laura Baisas

$A close up of the black and white stripes of a zebra. The same patterns that dictate zebra stripes could also control the way sperm swim.$

The mathematical theory that connects swimming sperm, zebra stripes, and sunflower seeds

By Laura Baisas

A tarantula with a mostly black body, but bright blue legs and pincers. Chilobrachys natanicharum is the first tarantula species found in Thailand’s mangrove trees. CREDIT: Yuranan Nanthaisong/ZooKeys.

Meet the first electric blue tarantula known to science

By Laura Baisas

Rafflesia kemumu in the rainforest of Sumatra.

Earth’s stinkiest flower is threatened with extinction

By Laura Baisas

A high-density field of corals, including the spiraling Iridogorgia magnispiralis. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas.

The deepest known ocean virus lives under 29,000 feet of water

By Laura Baisas

Internet data server farm with green and pink glowing LED lights

Nature generates more data than the internet … for now

Yellow pollen spring out from a coniferous tree. The pollen that makes us sneeze every spring, may have helped lay the groundwork for the migration of our very distant ancestors into Eurasia.

Pollen could hold clues to mysteries of early human migration

By Laura Baisas

A Caribbean box jellyfish on a black background. It has a round, bell shaped body, with about 11 visible tentacles. It also has four parallel brain-like structures with roughly 1,000 nerve cells in each.

These 24-eyed jellyfish learn from their mistakes

By Laura Baisas

A black and white French bulldog puppy sits in a garden with green grass and orange flowers. In an experiment where dogs had to find food hidden in a box, flat-faced dogs were more likely to look back at people than a breed with a mid-length muzzle.

Humans might just love French bulldogs because they remind them of babies

By Laura Baisas

Multiple reddish pink parasitic plants called balanophora growing in a forest. Balanophora shed one third of its genes as it evolved into a very streamlined parasitic plant.

These parasitic plants force their victims to make them dinner

By Laura Baisas

A pied tamarin monkey sits on a large rope. Pied tamarin monkeys live in a small geographic range in Brazil, where they eat fruits, flowers, and various tree gums and saps.

As humans get louder, monkeys mark more territory

By Laura Baisas

A dissected ant and where you can see the encapsulated parasites (white oval structures) spilling out of the hind body.

This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants’

By Laura Baisas

An Australian lungfish named Methuselah swims in a tank at the Steinhart Aquarium. The fish has a flat snout, olive-green scales, and a long torpedo-shaped body.

World’s oldest living aquarium fish could be 100 years young

By Laura Baisas

Can animals give birth to twins?

Can animals give birth to twins?

By Michael Jaffe and Tracy Jaffe/The Conversation

A beagle running through grass.

Why your pet might need a glucose monitor

By Gwendolyn Rak

A gray tufted titmouse perches on a scientist's hand.

What songbirds can teach us about being smart

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Microraptor wearing helmet is shot out of a circus cannon to represent how dinosaurs evolved to fly. Illustration in red, yellow, blue, and green.

We still don’t know how animals evolved to fly

Virgin Galactic spacecraft in suborbital flight above Earth

Virgin Galactic’s latest cargo? Ancient human bones

two jackdaws (Corvus monedula) on a branch

These crow relatives put food over friendship

By Sara Kiley Watson

An orca whale swims around an ice flow with a crabeater seal and penguin on the ice.

New series offers an intimate look into how climate change impacts the lives of wildlife

By Laura Baisas

How an internet sleuth rekindled hope for the survival of the clown wedgefish

How an internet sleuth rekindled hope for the survival of the clown wedgefish

By Brian Howey/Hakai Magazine

3D printer making algae-based water decontaminate

‘Living material’ water filter uses bacteria to neutralize water pollutants

Kidney transplant sensor on researcher fingertip

This organ-failure detector is thinner than a human hair

An artist’s illustration of the 25 million year old Ditjimanka Lumakoala blackae, featuring (left to right) the wallaby-sized herbivore Muramura williamsi, an extinct koala relative named Madakoala devis,i and the calf-size lizard called Ilaria lawsone.

Scientists discover a cat-sized ancient koala in Australia

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of Fujianvenator prodigiosus, an avialan theropod who lived during the Late Jurassic period and had a lower leg that was twice as long as its thigh.

Leggy dinosaur species could be the latest feathery clue to bird evolution

By Laura Baisas

Two monkeys sitting in a forest. Dartmouth researchers report that apes and early humans evolved more flexible shoulders and elbows than monkeys to safely get out of trees. For early humans, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and deploying tools for hunting and defense.

Our tree-climbing ancestors evolved our abilities to throw far and reach high

By Laura Baisas

Fiver different types of paper cups sitting are sitting on a table. Some have eco-friendly labeling and one warns of plastic chemical leaching. Paper cups are replacing plastic cups on the market, but paper cups can also be toxic to living organisms, shows a new study from the University of Gothenburg.

Paper cups still use plastic—and it’s a problem for the planet

By Laura Baisas

A couple standing on the beach in warm sunlight.

Couples often share more common traits than we might think

By Laura Baisas

A kākāpō sitting in its burrow. They can live up to 90 years and forage on the ground for food since they are flightless birds.

The next frontier in saving the world’s heaviest parrots: genome sequencing

By Laura Baisas

Two Atlantic puffins stand on a white rock above the ocean, with another group of puffins in the background, Atlantic puffins are sometimes nicknamed “sea parrots,” and their chicks hatch in Maine in early July.

Maine’s puffins show another year of remarkable resiliency

By Laura Baisas

A manatee swims through blue water, surrounded by a school of fish

Florida’s aquatic animals prepare early for storms like Hurricane Idalia

By Helen Bradshaw

An artistic reconstruction of Kylinxia, a relative of present day insects and crustaceans. It has two extended forelimbs, a round and segmented body, and three eyes on its head.

A three-eyed organism roamed the seas half a billion years ago

By Laura Baisas