Apr 03 Watch 9:25 Antarctic penguins have existed for 60 million years. Can they survive climate change? By William Brangham, Emily Carpeaux, Mike Fritz Ron Naveen used to be a lawyer for the EPA, but he left government in the 1980s to start Oceanites, a nonprofit that tracks the health of penguins that breed on the Antarctic Peninsula. Now, that 800-mile stretch of land… Continue watching
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 Watch 6:55 How cutting-edge engineering borrows nature’s innovations By Miles O'Brien In the never-ending hunt for new designs that jump, pump, or run faster and better, scientists are finding inspiration in nature. The field of biomimicry blurs boundaries between living things -- like the butterfly’s proboscis or the flea's powerful legs… Continue watching
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 25 Not so long ago, cities were starved for trees. That inspired a fight against urban warming By Sonja Dümpelmann, The Conversation Sixty years ago, urban tree planters stood on the front lines of fighting climate change. 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
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
Dec 10 When these frogs move to cities, they change the way they flirt By Vicky Stein As more humans move into concrete jungles, other animals, like túngara frogs, are joining them — and adjusting their behaviors along the way. Continue reading
Dec 04 Years after his death, Lonesome George’s genome offers clues to long life By Vicky Stein Lonesome George, a wizened Galapagos giant tortoise, was the last of his kind. Now, researchers are using the iconic tortoise’s genetic material to better understand what it takes to live a long life. Continue reading