Biology

Why did supersized coyotes suddenly shrink 10,000 years ago?

Just 11,500 years ago, coyotes were about 1.5 times as big as they are today. By 10,000 years ago, they had shrunk to their current proportions. What could have made these predators get so much smaller, so quickly? According to researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina, the coyotes of the Pleistocene…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

These immortal flatworms regenerate like real-life Time Lords

We know there are a few species that don’t die of old age, like the giant tortoise and naked mole rat. But those species aren’t truly immortal — as they still eventually die. These tiny worms might be a different story… one which could have major implications for humans trying to live longer. Negligible senescence…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Here’s what it looks like when you turn human skin cells into neural stem cells

You’ve probably heard of experiments where scientists create stem cells out of other kinds of cells. Now, you can actually see what that looks like. Here, you can see the work of University of Cambridge neuroscientist Yichen Shi, who has turned ordinary human skin cells into neural stem cells that, in the future, we might…

io9 Annalee Newitz

This bat has one of the craziest noses in the animal kingdom

Meet Hipposideros griffini, who’s also known as Griffin’s leaf-nosed bat of Vietnam. This newly discovered species possesses a unique configuration of leaf-like protrusions on its schnoz that may help with echlocation. And if not, this creature deserves a medal for evolving one of most ridiculous mammalian noses out there. Researchers from the Vietnam Academy of…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Women Might Replenish Their Eggs Like Men Do Sperm

Until about 2004, most scientists believed that women were born with all the reproductive eggs they would have for the rest of their lives. Then a scientist named Jonathan Tilly published research that claimed women might actually replenish their supply of eggs throughout their lives. It was shocking. The previous school of thought was that…

Tech News Kristen Philipkoski

This giant penguin ruled New Zealand 25 million years ago

Because of its extreme isolation from any other major landmass, New Zealand’s unique native ecosystem is literally for the birds. And these rather elegant-looking penguins briefly dominated this bird paradise, back when New Zealand was mostly underwater. This artist’s conception depicts the Kairuku penguin, a Maori term that loosely means “diver who returns with food.”…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Bacteria attack each other with poisonous, spring-loaded daggers

Bacteria pretty much have nano-sized versions of anything humans can come up with. That list somehow includes knife-wielding street gangs, as some bacteria shoot poison-tipped molecular “daggers” at each other, proving that nothing does awesome violence quite like bacteria. The firing mechanism for this dagger is tiny, even by bacterial standards — it’s the equivalent…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

This Bat Has the Ugliest Face I’ve Ever Seen

There are pros and cons to being a bat. Pros: can fly and catch prey in the dark, have a luscious fur coat. Cons: have possibly the ugliest nose in the known universe. Well, that is, if you’re this newly discovered leaf-nosed bat from Vietnam. The bat was first spotted in the wild in Chu…

Biology Jamie Condliffe

The Weird Glowing Bacteria That Beg to Be Eaten

Heaps of sea creatures glow to produce light—often in order to see in the murky depths. But scientists have discovered that many bacteria glow for a very strange reason; they want to get eaten. A team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that the light emitted by marine bacteria attracts predators—usually…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

What it feels like to be surrounded by 2000 leaping dolphins

The normal pod of dolphins tends to tally at 16-20 — this statistic makes the sighting of this “mega-pod” of 2000 dolphins off the coast of Dana Point, California all the more special. Researchers speculate that the dolphins — who were hitting speeds of 25 miles per hour — were racing a whale-watching vessel for…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Aging elephants are a bunch of rampaging hooligans

In my continuing efforts to highlight which members of the animal kingdom are just total jerks – looking at you, freeloading wolves! – I present the case of farm-raiding, crop-stealing elephants, and the young elephants who follow their bad example. https://gizmodo.com/science-proves-that-most-wolves-are-lazy-jerks-5845967 Crop stealing has become a very real problem for the farmers around Kenya’s Amboseli…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

How to change your blood type without even trying

Blood types were once thought to be with people for life. And, in almost every case, they’re still thought to be with a person for life. But there is one patient whose blood type actually changed. A liver transplant, apparently, has a shot of changing a person’s blood type. There was once a simple time…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

These skull portraits are hauntingly beautiful

The Walking Dead’s makeup artists are second to none when it comes to the rough and grisly zombification of their walkers, but there’s a subtlety to the work of photographer Carsten Witte that TWD’s moaning roamers can’t lay an undead finger on. The photos below come from a series titled Intuition, and feature the types…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

A deadly fungus could wipe out these rattlesnakes for good

This is terrifying and sad all at the same time. Scientists have known about Chrysosporium for years, but they’ve never known it to do this. The ghastly fungal infection — notorious for popping up in captive animals around the world — has made the leap to a population of endangered rattlesnakes in Illinois, posing a…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Watch drunken monkeys steal cocktails from Caribbean beach resorts

On the West Indies island of St. Kitts, vervet monkeys prowl the beaches, snagging sugary cocktails from unsuspecting beach-goers. The BBC’s Weird Science captured these booze hound primates in their not-so-native state. And there’s a method to their videographing madness besides filming stumbling furry alcoholics; it turns out, we can learn a lot about human…

io9 Lauren Davis

Is your intestinal lining protecting you from cancer?

I can’t say I’ve ever given my intestinal lining much thought, but it turns out that it may have an incredibly strong link to protecting you from a number of diseases — not the least of which is cancer. It functions as a barrier to keep that which is meant to remain in your gut…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Meet the deepest land animal ever found

This pale little fellow is the newly discovered Plutomurus ortobalaganensis, a springtail found almost 2,000 meters underground and the title holder of “deepest terrestrial arthropod ever found.” This creature along with Anurida stereoodorata, Deuteraphorura kruberaensis, and Schaefferia profundissima are four new species identified by researchers who descended into Krubera-Voronja, the world’s deepest cave. These four…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Has all of humanity actually forgotten the right way to sleep?

Exactly how long we’re supposed to sleep each night can vary depending on who you talk to, but we all seem to agree on one thing: you want to get one long, uninterrupted sleep. But it wasn’t always that way. Generally speaking, the recommendation is that we should sleep for about eight hours each night.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Nobody knows if this baby aardvark is a boy or a girl

Baby aardvarks are adorable. Why did nobody tell me this? It looks like somebody took a sphinx cat, fattened it up, slapped on a pig’s nose, swapped in a pair of donkey ears, and… wow, I don’t even know how to describe its feet. Doesn’t matter. The point is I need ten of them. Here’s…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Gelada monkeys offer evidence that abortion is part of evolutionary fitness

The story begins with an insurrection, and ends with infanticide. A male gelada monkey, unsatisfied with his social standing, challenges the authority of a superior gelada. The payoff: a so-called “reproductive unit,” comprising a dozen females, that will mate with him and him alone. If the usurper is victorious, he will kill any offspring that…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Why did supersized coyotes suddenly shrink 10,000 years ago?

These immortal flatworms regenerate like real-life Time Lords

Here’s what it looks like when you turn human skin cells into neural stem cells

This bat has one of the craziest noses in the animal kingdom

Women Might Replenish Their Eggs Like Men Do Sperm

This giant penguin ruled New Zealand 25 million years ago

Bacteria attack each other with poisonous, spring-loaded daggers

This Bat Has the Ugliest Face I’ve Ever Seen

The Weird Glowing Bacteria That Beg to Be Eaten

What it feels like to be surrounded by 2000 leaping dolphins

Aging elephants are a bunch of rampaging hooligans

How to change your blood type without even trying

These skull portraits are hauntingly beautiful

A deadly fungus could wipe out these rattlesnakes for good

Watch drunken monkeys steal cocktails from Caribbean beach resorts

Is your intestinal lining protecting you from cancer?

Meet the deepest land animal ever found

Has all of humanity actually forgotten the right way to sleep?

Nobody knows if this baby aardvark is a boy or a girl

Gelada monkeys offer evidence that abortion is part of evolutionary fitness

China’s Biggest Social Media Celebrity Is… Kris Jenner?

Up to $1,550 Off on pCloud: Pay Once, Protect Data Forever for World Backup Day

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Adds ‘Succulent Chinese Meal’ Guy

Feds Sniffing Around Polymarket After Suspicious Bets

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Don’t Get Too Attached to Any AI App

‘Paradise’ Writer Teases What’s Coming in Season 3 After That Huge Twist

Trump’s New White House App Is Mildly Concerning and Weird for a Lot of Reasons

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Let us help find what you are looking for...