Biology

The Wormlike Snake From A Land That No Longer Exists

This creature often gets mistaken for an earthworm, but it’s actually a blind snake – and it comes from a land that time forgot. This creature originally lived on Gondwana, the southern supercontinent that became Antarctica, India, Madagascar, and Australia. This particular species of blindsnake is native to the Madagascar region, but scientists studying its…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Watch Cells Mutate Into Cancer and Divide Crazily, In These Amazing Videos

Every day, the cells in your body are dividing like crazy – sometimes too much, which is the definition of cancer. Here you can see breast cancer cells in action, multiplying into what could become a tumorous growth. Yes, this film is dramatically speeded up – most of these cells would divide about twice in…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Scientists Explain How Males Evolved From A Self-Fertilizing “Third Sex”

Most creatures on Earth have one sex that fertilizes and one that gets fertilized. Not so with olive trees. Last week scientists described how these trees evolved a system of males and a third sex which can go both ways. The sexual system these trees have is called androdioecy: It includes males and a third…

io9 Annalee Newitz

How Plants Secretly Control The Food Chain

Just because plants are at the bottom of the food chain doesn’t mean they’re helpless. Scientists have discovered that plants have evolved multiple lines of defense against their predators, giving them a surprising amount of control of their surrounding ecosystem. Most studies of the dynamics of food webs focus on how carnivorous predators control the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

“Nature By Numbers” Explains The Math In Nature – Beautifully

Created by Cristóbal Vila, this video manages to explain how everything, from snails to flowers, is built according to predictable mathematical principles. Numbers have never been more sublime. [via Etérea Studios]

io9 Annalee Newitz

Domestication Makes You Smarter

If you’re a guinea pig, at least. A recent experiment found that, even though domesticated guinea pigs have smaller brains than their wild counterparts, they are noticeably better at figuring out the best route through a maze. A research team at the University of Münster in Germany placed 30 domesticated guinea pigs and 26 wild…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

And The World’s Strongest Insect Is…

…a dung beetle! Australia’s Onthophagus taurus, to be precise, according to a months-long series of tests designed to determine which insect could pull the most weight. What’s the dung beetle’s secret? Diet. Doctor Rob Knell from Queen Mary, University of London and Professor Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia set out to determine…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Want To Redesign Nature? Now You Can.

Synthetic Aesthetics is a new program to bring synthetic biologists together with designers and artists. Apply now to get a grant that could help you become a better designer of living things. Sponsored by science agencies in the US and the UK, Synthetic Aesthetics will bring together six artists and six scientists for a month-long…

io9 Annalee Newitz

A Moth That Has Evolved To Breathe Underwater And In Air

Many insects can survive for long periods of time under water, but the brightly-colored Hawaiian Hyposmocoma moth has a unique evolutionary trait: It can live half its life underwater. Scientists call it the only known “perfectly amphibious” creature. A study by environmental scientists published today in PNAS explores the life of this astonishing moth, whose…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Scientists Surprised To Discover Shrimp Deep Beneath the Antarctic Ice

A group of polar scientists were testing out a new method of drilling through layers of ice in the antarctic. When they dropped a camera deep into the dark waters, they were flabbergasted to discover this tiny orange crustacean. What you’re seeing here, and in the movie below, is a camera looking up from inside…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Scientists Successfully Embed Silicon Chips Inside Human Cells

Scientists have already created mini-cyborgs out of living cells and semiconductor materials, but now biological cells can also contain tiny silicon chips, which could become sensors that monitor microscopic activities, deliver drugs to target cells or even repair cell structures. According to Nanowerk, experiments found that living human cells can ingest or receive injections of…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Brain Scans Reveal What You Are Remembering

Pop your head into an fMRI machine, think of a recent memory, and it’s likely that a neuroscientist can guess what’s on your mind. If we track memories as they form, does that mean a new era in mind control? Eleanor Maguire of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging worked on the study, in which…

io9 Annalee Newitz

It’s a Slime Mold’s World, We’re Just Living In It

It seems we’re always learning something new about slime molds, the bizarre roaming cell-colonies where countless biological principles can be found writ in miniature. Here’s a point-by-point breakdown of why the slime mold deserves your respect. Slime molds fascinate biologists because they’re essentially swarms of single-celled creatures that can coalesce to act as one larger…

io9 Alex Eichler

Genetically-Modified “Terminator” Trout Have 20% More Muscle

A new transgenic trout has been designed to have so much muscle that its body has developed a bulging hump on its back. What turns a trout into the Terminator? Terry Bradley, an aquaculture professor at the University of Rhode Island, has been researching how to counteract the effects of a protein called myostatin, which…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The Tongue Of The Dung Fly Speaks Volumes

In one of the portraits from our bizarre gallery of insect faces, you can see what happens when a fly sticks out its tongue. It’s a disturbingly human expression on an otherwise alien visage. Science photographer Steve Gschmeissner used a scanning electron microscope to take these headshots of familiar insects. What’s revealed are all the…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Antarctica’s Blood Falls Are An Extremophile’s Paradise

From a crack in the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica flows an iron-rich water the color of blood. Scientists believe it comes from a lake frozen beneath the glacier 2 million years ago. And it’s packed with microbes. First discovered in 1911, the so-called Blood Falls also contain extremophile microbes from the trapped lake, which have…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Meet Blackie The Mutant Penguin

This rare all-black mutant penguin was spotted and photographed by Andrew Evans, who is traveling in Antarctica. What gave this suave little guy his goth look? No, the answer is not Photoshop. National Geographic’s Janelle Nanos asked Allan Baker, an ornithologist, about the images. Here’s what transpired: “Well that is astonishing,” he said. “I’ve never…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Scientists Report On Nasal Leech Infestation

Over at the NCBI ROFL blog, we’ve learned about a crucial medical research paper recently published in a scientific journal: A study of seven leeches removed from six people’s nostrils. Do the math. Yuck. One leech was 12 cm long! From the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology: Nasal leech infestation rarely occurs in society today and…

io9 Annalee Newitz

A Device For Printing Body Parts

A California company called Organovo is about to start shipping prototypes of a device that can print out human organs to several research facilities. Called a 3D bio-printer, the device uses tissue engineering techniques to build organs out of layers of cells. According to The Economist: Keith Murphy, Organovo’s chief executive . . . says…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Why Pea Aphids Are The Most Awesome Organism

The pea aphid is one of the weirdest and most versatile creatures around. It can reproduce sexually or asexually, can breed winged or unwinged babies, and is also a symbiote. This week, its genome has been sequenced. PLoS Biology published information about the sequenced pea aphid genome this week, including loads of interesting details about…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The Wormlike Snake From A Land That No Longer Exists

Watch Cells Mutate Into Cancer and Divide Crazily, In These Amazing Videos

Scientists Explain How Males Evolved From A Self-Fertilizing “Third Sex”

How Plants Secretly Control The Food Chain

“Nature By Numbers” Explains The Math In Nature – Beautifully

Domestication Makes You Smarter

And The World’s Strongest Insect Is…

Want To Redesign Nature? Now You Can.

A Moth That Has Evolved To Breathe Underwater And In Air

Scientists Surprised To Discover Shrimp Deep Beneath the Antarctic Ice

Scientists Successfully Embed Silicon Chips Inside Human Cells

Brain Scans Reveal What You Are Remembering

It’s a Slime Mold’s World, We’re Just Living In It

Genetically-Modified “Terminator” Trout Have 20% More Muscle

The Tongue Of The Dung Fly Speaks Volumes

Antarctica’s Blood Falls Are An Extremophile’s Paradise

Meet Blackie The Mutant Penguin

Scientists Report On Nasal Leech Infestation

A Device For Printing Body Parts

Why Pea Aphids Are The Most Awesome Organism

Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

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