Image Credit: guinnessworldrecords.com Shark is a unique animal that has survived five mass extinctions and swam in our oceans before trees existed. For many of us, the thought of a shark brings up the images of big, sharp teeth with terror. However, for one American marine biologist named ‘Emily Morrison,’ these marine predators are not…
For nearly three decades, the Sun seemed to be winding down. Sunspot counts fell, the solar wind weakened, and by 2008 our star had reached its faintest measured state since satellites began watching it. Astronomers braced for a repeat of history’s great solar lulls, centuries-long stretches when the Sun barely stirred. Then, quietly, the numbers…
A female typically mates with five males simultaneously, although groups of 10 to 15 are not unusual Female African treefrogs mate with several males at the same time, working together to whip up a larger foam nest that protects hundreds of eggs from drying out.This group nest-building behaviour provides a fresh explanation for why females…
Credit: Erik Karits from Pexels Hummingbird hawkmoths may have their own version of being left-handed or right-handed, using one preferred eye and one side of their long feeding tube together to search flowers for nectar.The discovery, made by a team of biologists at the University of Konstanz, shows how creatures with small brains save mental…
Out of everything that Jeff Bezos could be funding, a mechanical clock does not come to mind. But it seems some clock has been ticking in the mind of the Amazon founder who is quietly supporting the construction of a 10,000-year clock inside a Texas mountain.The work is called the Clock of the Long Now…
Herbivore species dynamics is key to grassland food web stability In 2005, scientists began reshaping a semi-arid grassland in Inner Mongolia by changing its mix of plants. Years later, when researchers checked how the local food chain held together, plant-eating insects emerged as its strongest biological buffer.The long-term study, published on 18 July in the…
King ratsnake is known for hunting and eating deadly venomous snakes (Inaturalist photos) A nonvenomous snake that regularly hunts and eats some of the world’s most dangerous venomous snakes has given scientists a new mystery to solve. Researchers have now mapped the genome of the king ratsnake to understand how it survives the venom of…
A researcher following scuba divers for this project Most scuba divers believe they rarely touch fragile seabed ecosystems, yet underwater observers tracking hundreds of tourists found that more than 40 per cent of their physical contacts caused visible damage to living coral structures.Research published in The Conversation by marine scientists and dive professionals revealed that…
Representative Image (AI-generated) Around 1200 BCE, several of the eastern Mediterranean’s most powerful civilisations, including the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire, Canaanite city-states and parts of New Kingdom Egypt, began experiencing a period of dramatic decline. Historians have long debated whether warfare, invasions, earthquakes, internal unrest or climate change played the biggest role in this…
Dutch microbiologist Professor Henk Jonkers holds a sample of self-healing concrete, an innovation that uses bacteria to repair cracks automatically. Concrete is the backbone of modern civilisation, supporting everything from homes and skyscrapers to bridges, tunnels and dams. Yet even this remarkably strong material has a costly weakness. Tiny cracks inevitably develop over time because…
