Jun 26 Are commercial honeybees making wild bees sick? By Berly McCoy Everyone wants to save the bees, but we may be saving them to death. Continue reading
May 14 How a snail's shell gets its twist By Vicky Stein Gene-editing with CRISPR reveals why snail shells are asymmetrical and coil either left or right. Continue reading
Mar 15 This new 'army' of spiders is named after Star Wars stormtroopers By Vicky Stein They wouldn’t survive the deserts of Tatooine or the frigid planet Hoth, but these newly described, tarantula-like spiders are named after the stormtroopers who marched through the “Star Wars” movies. Continue reading
Feb 06 How to teach a honeybee to do math By Vicky Stein Despite their “miniature brains,” honeybees can harness both long-term rules and short-term memory in order to solve math problems. Continue reading
Jan 16 300 million years ago, our ancestors walked tall. This robot shows you how By Vicky Stein The fictional Sherlock Holmes could read footprints — in soil, snow, carpet, dust and even blood. Researchers today are similarly using tracks caught in stone — plus a robot — to recreate a creature that lived 300 million years ago. Continue reading
Jan 04 Cities could be teeming with more rats, thanks to the shutdown's festering trash By Jamie Leventhal Rats could get access to an all-you-can-eat buffet of garbage during the government shutdown as uncollected trash piles up. Continue reading
Dec 26 As polar bear attacks increase in warming Arctic, Inuits and scientists search for solutions By Gloria Dickie, Yale Environment 360 With sea ice reduced, polar bear attacks are rising. Concerned Inuit communities want to increase hunting quotas, but researchers are testing new technologies they hope will reduce these often deadly confrontations. Continue reading
Dec 20 If you're adopting pets this holiday, keep kittens in mind By Gabriela Quirós, KQED Science Every year, hundreds of thousands of kittens end up in animal shelters, in need of permanent homes. So researchers and shelters are trying to figure out ways to make it easier. Continue reading
Jul 17 Why are yawns contagious? We asked a scientist By Teresa Carey The average adult yawns 20 times per day. And when you feel a yawn coming on, it can be nearly impossible to suppress. But why does being around other yawners make you yawn?… Continue reading
Jul 05 Spiders fly on the currents of Earth's electric field By Amanda Grennell Spiders don’t have wings, but they can fly across entire oceans on long strands of silk. For more than a century, scientists thought it was the wind that carried them, but a new study shows the Earth’s electric field can… Continue reading