Amber-

Ancient Poisonous Flower Preserved in Amber Looks Dangerously Delicious

Amber delivers a slice of ancient life, showing us everything from early predation to the earliest preserved erect penis. Now, in a 30-year-old amber collection, scientists have found the earliest ancestor of those famous drawing-room mystery poisons, strychnine and curare. In 1986, Oregon State University entomologist George Poinar went down a mine. It was an…

Tech News Esther Inglis-Arkell Feb 15

Behold the First Erect Penis Ever Found Preserved in Amber

Researchers working in Burma have uncovered the fossilized remains of a 99-million-year old male daddy longlegs with its penis fully extended and erect. It’s possibly the oldest—and longest held—erection in the history of science. What a way to go. This daddy longlegs, also known as a harvestman, died with its proverbial pants down. Its penis…

Tech News George Dvorsky Feb 2

An Ant With A Parasitic Mite Stuck To Its Head Preserved In Amber

This ancient ant and its parasitic companion became locked together in amber about 44 to 49 million years ago. It’s the oldest known example of a mite attached to its victim. Image: Jason Dunlop/Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin It’s amazing what we’ve found preserved in amber, from a fossilized scene of a spider attacking a wasp,…

io9 George Dvorsky Sep 10

Massive Collection of Ancient Amber Finally Gives Up Its Secrets

In the late 1950s, an entomologist named Milton Sanderson collected some 160 pounds of 20 million year old amber in the Dominican Republic. Now, 50 years later, that amber is finally giving up its secrets, including a fascinating insect named for David Attenborough. As most stories like this go, the amber sat for years collecting…

Biology Jason G. Goldman Jul 31

This Exquisitely-Preserved 100 Million-Year-Old Fly Is Just Ridiculous

Finding ancient bugs trapped in amber is hardly new, but this Cretaceous-era assassin fly may be the most pristine three-dimensional preservation of an insect we’ve ever seen. The amber fossil was discovered by Torsten Dikow from the National Museum of Natural History. It’s a newly recorded species of assassin fly called Burmapogon brucksch, an insect…

io9 George Dvorsky Apr 22

Dinosaur DNA cannot be extracted from amber

Well, it looks like we may never have our own Jurassic Park. Scientists at the University of Manchester failed to pull DNA samples from insects trapped in 10,600 year-old amber, leading them to conclude that the chances of extracting intact DNA from samples millions of years older is likely impossible. For those living in a…

io9 George Dvorsky Sep 13

Every Lumia Will Get Nokia’s New Smart Camera App

Good news Nokia Lumia owners: everyone will be able to use the fancy new camera tech that the new Lumia 925 comes packing, thanks to an “amber” software update that’ll be hitting your phones soon. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-nokia-s-new-lumia-updating-505327540 The new Nokia Smart Camera mode allows the camera to capture ten images at once, and offers the post-processing…

Tech News Sam Gibbs - Gizmodo UK May 14

Holy Crap, Here’s a 100-Million-Year-Old Spider Eating a Wasp

100 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still around, this spider had captured a wasp in his web. The wasp was going to be the spider’s dinner. The wasp was going to die watching the spider kill him. The wasp was going to—SPLAT. At that exact moment—one hundred million freaking years ago—tree resin flowed over…

Tech News Casey Chan Oct 8

Mayflies might just have the saddest, most perfectly evolved existence of any species

Mayflies spend a year awaiting their birth, and then most die after living just one day. Their sole purpose is to pass on their genes, and most never even bother eating…and that’s been the status quo for 100 million years. An ancient mayfly became trapped in amber all those millions of years ago, and her…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jun 26

Animal sex has never looked this good…or bizarre

Deep sea fish assimilating males for extra sperm, flies frozen mid-coitus for 20 million years, and a walrus’s penis bone… it’s all part of “Sexual Nature”, a new exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum that spotlights the many awesomely strange forms that animal intercourse can take. Let’s go on a Valentine’s Day stroll through the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 14

A fifty million-year-old ant, whose existence could change the history of India

This ant, preserved in amber 50 million years ago, is evidence that we may have dramatically misunderstood the environmental history of India. Until recently, scientists believed that many of the plants and animals in the Indian subcontinent had evolved in isolation from other landmasses, during a period hundreds of thousands of years ago before India…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 29

USB Amber Alert Child ID Kit

By providing you with an easy way to keep your child’s information all in one place, this USB Amber Alert Child ID kit can be a lifesaver in the hopefully unlikely event that your child goes missing. The device gives you a nice software app where you can enter in photos, emails, personal blog URLs,…

Gadgets Jason Chen Mar 9

Ancient Poisonous Flower Preserved in Amber Looks Dangerously Delicious

Behold the First Erect Penis Ever Found Preserved in Amber

An Ant With A Parasitic Mite Stuck To Its Head Preserved In Amber

Massive Collection of Ancient Amber Finally Gives Up Its Secrets

This Exquisitely-Preserved 100 Million-Year-Old Fly Is Just Ridiculous

Dinosaur DNA cannot be extracted from amber

Every Lumia Will Get Nokia’s New Smart Camera App

Holy Crap, Here’s a 100-Million-Year-Old Spider Eating a Wasp

Mayflies might just have the saddest, most perfectly evolved existence of any species

Animal sex has never looked this good…or bizarre

A fifty million-year-old ant, whose existence could change the history of India

USB Amber Alert Child ID Kit

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