Biology

Researchers Discover Sharks Living In An Active Underwater Volcano

Scientists filming unexplored depths of the South Pacific have observed a surprising range of animals—including sharks, rays, and jellyfish—living inside Kavachi, a highly active undersea volcano near the Soloman Islands, a remote archipelago east of Papau New Guinea. The animals seem unruffled by what were presumed inhospitable temperatures and acidity. “The idea of there being…

Promising Study Shows the Power of Gene Therapy to Treat Deafness

An international team of researchers has used a virus to correct genetic defects and partially restore hearing in deaf mice. It’s an important proof-of-concept that could eventually lead to therapies in humans. Above: Those upside-down V’s are sensory hair bundles in the ear, each containing 50 to 100 microvilli tipped with TMC proteins. The new…

Thousands of Monkeys are Being Sacrificed in the War on Terror

Since the 9/11 attacks, researchers in the United States have conducted exceptionally cruel, even superfluous, experiments on animals to develop countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction. But as BuzzFeed reporter Peter Aldhous asks: Is all this suffering really necessary? Monkeys, says Aldhous, “are the unsung heroes of the war on terror — or its hidden…

The Map of Tastes on Your Tongue You Learned at School Is All Wrong

Everybody has seen the tongue map – that little diagram of the tongue with different sections neatly cordoned off for different taste receptors. Sweet in the front, salty and sour on the sides and bitter at the back. It’s possibly the most recognizable symbol in the study of taste, but it’s wrong. In fact, it…

The world’s oldest man has died at the age of 112. Japan’s Sakari Momoi was born on February 5, 1903, just months before the Wright Brothers made their inaugural flight. The title of oldest living man now goes to Japan’s Yasutaro Koide, who was born a month after Momoi. Susannah M. Jones of the U.S.…

8 Antidotes to the Stupidity of “Shark Week”

This year, Discovery Channel promises Shark Week will feature fewer fake documentaries and more actual science. But with shows like “Return of the Great White Serial Killer” on the docket, it’s clear Discovery still has a lot to learn. For critically minded viewers, here are eight alternatives to those episodes of Shark Week still tainted…

This Seaweed Is Blue and Red at the Same Time

Do not adjust your monitor. This seaweed is deep red—but happens to appear a bright shimmering blue on a sunny day because of a quirk in its surface properties. Unlike that dress this seaweed does actually appear in two different colors. When covered in water and illuminated by the sun, the deep red fronds of…

The Most Common Vertebrate on Earth Puts Humanity’s Billions to Shame

Illustrated above is a deep-water marine fish belonging to the family Gonostomatidae. More commonly known as bristlemouths, Gonostomatidae are easily the most plentiful vertebrates on on the planet. How many are we talking? Have a guess; I bet you’ll underestimate. (I certainly did.) Here’s William J. Broad, writing on the bristlemouth last week for The…

How Aging Affects Athletic Peformance

“I’m old” is the common refrain for why we get worse at athletics as we age. But here’s what’s really happening in the body through the years to make world-class performance less possible. Above: At 42, Chris Horner became the oldest person to a win a cycling Grand Tour. In this photo Horner climbs during…

Spiders Sail Across Water to Colonize the World

Hate spiders all you want, there’s no river wide enough to keep them away. Turns out, nature’s crafty little web builders are also master sailors, using their legs to catch the wind and their silk to anchor their bodies on water. That’s according to a new study published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, which helps explain…

Smelling Cat Urine Turns Baby Mice Into Willing Victims

The war between cats and mice just took a chilling turn, as a team of Russian researchers announces that early exposure to a chemical in cat urine can condition mice not to flee from an approaching cat. This can’t end well for the mice. Cat urine contains a chemical compound called L-Felinine, and mice have…

New Film Takes a Close Look at the Biology and Culture of Penises

The Atlantic just released a short clip from The Dickumentary: A Short History of the Penis, a new documentary about penises from filmmaker Sofian Khan. The Dickumentatry explores the biology and culture of the penis, and Kahn interviews more than 40 experts from 14 countries on topics ranging from penis evolution and physiology, to phallus…

Scientists Are Perfecting the LED Lighting For Our Future Space Gardens

Gardens may be an unruly mess on Earth, but in space, we’ll need our vegetable patches to run like well-oiled machines. That’s why researchers at Purdue University are working out the scientifically perfect cocktail of LED light to grow bumper crops in total confinement. “Everything on Earth is ultimately driven by sunlight and photosynthesis,” said…

Chemists Create Microbial “Fight Clubs” to Find New Medicines

By pitting various strains of bacteria against one another, researchers from Vanderbilt University have stumbled upon a novel way of discovering active chemicals that can be used to produce powerful new drugs. Above: Sample dish with a series of co-cultures of competing microorganisms. Scientists aren’t sure how many species of bacteria there are on Earth…

Sugary drinks kill 184,000 people each year through diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, according to new research from Tufts University. “It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet,” notes lead researcher Dariush Mozaffarian, who says these drinks have no health benefits. Image: Mike Mozart/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

What You Probably Don’t Know About the Most Famous Case in Neuroscience

In 1845, a meter-long iron rod pierced the skull of Vermont railway worker Phineas Gage. The resulting changes to his personality forever changed our perception of the human brain. But what happened next to Gage is rarely covered in textbooks — a problematic oversight, say psychologists. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could survive something…

Are These “Double-Muscled” Pigs the Future of Meat?

By editing a single gene, researchers from South Korea and China have engineered pigs that produce about twice the amount of muscle as normal pigs. The goal is to produce leaner meat and at higher yields, but early results show it could be a long time before this jacked-up pork appears on your dinner plate.…

These Cancer Cells Are Being Levitated Using Magnets

Magnetic levitation isn’t anything new: you’ve probably seen frogs made to float and maybe even trains hovering above their rails. But now scientists have gained enough subtle control over such forces that they can be used to levitate single cells, too. A team at Stanford University has developed a new way of levitating cells, which…

Why Don’t Humans Have as Much Hair as Other Primates?

Although there is no definitive account of why we lost our body hair when every other primate is covered with the stuff, there are a handful of compelling theories that may explain our hairless condition. One early explanation for why we, alone, are the only relatively “naked” apes was the aquatic ape hypothesis. First floated…

This Python Ate a Porcupine, Which Turned Out to Be a Bad Idea

We all eat the wrong thing sometimes, but this 12-foot-long South African python made a major error. It swallowed a porcupine whole. Spoilers: No, it did not survive. LiveScience reports that a bicyclist captured these photos of the snake right after it had gulped down its meal. At the time, park rangers speculated that it…