Under the watchful eye of scientists, volunteers clean the skeleton of a mastodonsaurus A huge fossilised skeleton weighing 1,300 kilograms (2,865 pounds) that was found in southern Poland is currently being chipped out of solid rock by a group of more than 2,000 public volunteers.According to a report by the Associated Press, this unusual public…
A scientific paper describing a previously unknown group of rove beetles has produced an unusual meeting point between taxonomy and popular culture. Researchers have introduced a new beetle genus named Luffy, borrowing the name of Monkey D. Luffy, the central character from the long-running manga and anime series One Piece. While the choice may appear…
A worker ant of the species Temnothorax nylanderi infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis, recognizable by its yellowish coloration, alongside an uninfected worker (Credit: Susanne Foitzik) Deep inside the damp leaf litter of the Lenneberg Forest near Mainz, Germany, tiny worker ants of the species Temnothorax nylanderi are living surprisingly long lives. While a normal…
Hand reaching into a mosquito enclosure. Credit: Credit: Edwin Remsberg / University of Maryland Low-income urban neighbourhoods in Baltimore and Washington, DC, have higher mosquito numbers partly because of the types of trees growing on their streets and in empty lots, according to new research published in the Journal of Medical Entomology.The study, co-authored by…
Scientists are checking if an underwater curtain is what will keep an Antarctic glacier from slowly melting due to warm water. The proposal is to install an underwater curtain about 80 kilometres long and up to 150 metres high in front of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Between January and March 2026, an expedition…
For thousands of years, humans have relied on the movement of the Sun to understand the passage of time. But one ancient habit may have quietly shaped something people see every day: the direction in which clock hands move. The familiar clockwise motion of modern clocks was not decided by engineering rules or scientific necessity….
Still, the outlook for Hawaii’s snails is uncertain, symbolizing a new era in the conservation of endangered species. In 1955, wildlife officials in Hawaii released a meat-eating “cannibal” snail to control an invasive pest. But the plan went terribly wrong. Instead of eating the pest, the predator turned on the islands’ rare native tree snails,…
The decline of coral reefs is often described through bleaching events, rising sea temperatures and fading marine life. Less attention is paid to something that disappears at the same time: sound. A healthy reef is rarely quiet. Snapping shrimp, feeding fish and countless other marine animals create a constant underwater backdrop that helps young fish…
The night sky has inspired people for thousands of years, but scientists now say it could look very different in the future. The researchers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) warn that ambitious plans to launch huge numbers of satellites into Earth’s orbit could make the night sky much brighter than it is today.While many…
Two threatened marsupials are being reintroduced to the Shark Bay World Heritage area in order to advance species conservation and ecosystem restoration. A new study from Edith Cowan University (ECU) confirmed that the presence of fungal food resources is important for supporting this effort.The study published in the journal Ecosystems and led by Edith Cowan…
