Biology

Why Do Birds Have ZW Sex Chromosomes Instead Of XY?

Your sex characteristics were determined by X and Y chromosomes, same as most other creatures from humans to fruit flies. So why do birds and butterflies have ZW chromosomes instead? And more importantly, why does ZW produce a female bird while ZZ produces a male? The XY and ZW Systems of Sex Determination Birds, butterflies,…

Meet The Parasitic Worm That’s Killing Giant Pandas

Pandas used to die of starvation, which was easy to resolve. But now they’re being plagued by a parasite — and we don’t have a vaccine. Photo Credit: nathaninsandiego, CC BY-NC-ND Giant pandas aren’t dying like they used to. In the early 1980s, starvation accounted for more than nine out of ten deaths. However, over…

Take a Look Inside the Secret Google X Life Sciences Lab

In the past year, Google X’s secretive life science division has been tantalizing us with seriously cool-sounding shit: contact lens that monitor glucose, cancer-tracking nanoparticles, etc etc. The Atlantic has made the first video from inside the lab and—oh, were you actually expecting Google to unload a bunch of secrets? Nah. But hey look, it’s…

This Spider Catches Prey With a Web of Electrically Charged Silk 

Not all spider silk is created equal. Some spiders spin webs of wet, sticky silk. Others like the Uloborus spider have fluffy webs made of nanoscale filaments. But those fluffy webs are just as good at catching prey, likely thanks to their electrostatic charge. In a new paper published in Current Biology, scientists have figured…

We’re in a Technological Arms Race with Bears for Our Food

It’s almost impossible to secure yourself against a food raid from bears. That’s because these giant mammals are clever tool users, and they share their tech knowledge with other bears nearby. As a result, bear-proofing technology rarely works for more than a couple of decades before every bear knows how to crack it. Back in…

How Research Scientists Get Free Illegal Drugs from the Government 

On an obscure webpage that looks like it’s been barely updated in the last decade there’s a link to download a PDF with the unassuming name of “NDSP Catalog.” Click it and you’ll find pretty much every drug you can dream up: meth, cocaine, heroin, MDMA—nearly 800 compounds in all. Welcome to the scientist’s stash…

Brain Stimulation Induces Feelings Of Extreme Thirst In Mice

By directing pulses of light onto specific regions of the brain, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center induced feelings of extreme thirst in perfectly well hydrated mice — causing them to drink the equivalent of seven pints of water for a human. Top image: A mouse brain showing the two neurons, CAMKII (red) that triggers…

This Is What a Blood Clot Looks Like Close-Up

This image looks like it could the a colorful underwater coral reef or a child’s breakfast cereal strewn across the floor. But it is, in fact, what a blood clot looks like if you zoom right in. The image, called The Clot Thickens, is the winner of The British Heart Foundation’s annual Reflections of Research…

Neuroscientists have captured the first-ever video of neural activity in the brains of freely moving nematode worms. Using an elaborate camera setup and software, researchers were able to observe 78 individual neurons—an advance that will help them better understand how the nervous system controls animal behavior.

This Is The Fish Researchers Found Living Underneath 2,400 Feet Of Ice

After drilling down through almost half a mile in solid ice on a glacial shelf in Antarctica, scientists found something surprising. There was something alive swimming in the just over 30 feet of water: this strange, clear fish. Scientific American describes what happened as researchers from Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling piloted a…

Researchers Engineer ‘Kill Switch’ To Keep GM Bacteria In Check

As we venture deeper into the era of GMOs and synthetic life, it’s critical that we develop safeguards to prevent the contamination of natural systems. To that end, researchers have devised a clever solution to ensure this never happens – at least in GM bacteria. The solution, the details of which now appear in two…

Watch Jumbo Squid Turn Into Strobe Lights When They Communicate

By attaching “Crittercams” onto the backs of jumbo squid, marine biologists have captured unprecedented video showing how these brazen sea creatures flash in red and white as they attempt to communicate with each other. As Jane J. Lee reports in National Geographic, scientists have known for some time that Giant Humboldt squids “talk” to each…

Polar bears can communicate via footprints

Polar bears are solitary creatures. They roam around their (increasingly less) snowy habitats, looking for food and love. Food is simple enough. But they have to sniff out love. No, literally, polar bears smell other polar bears’ footprints to know if they can follow them to a suitable mate. How romantic! Scientists have long suspected…

The Secrets Of Highly Efficient Napping

Not all naps are created equal. Some naps have been shown to rejuvenate where others boost creativity. What’s more, when you nap can be as important as how you nap. Here’s how to nap like a professional, nap-taking machine. Here’s how to nap like you MEAN IT. Photo Credit: Kevin O’Mara | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0…

Don’t Make A Hippo Angry! You Wouldn’t Like It When It’s Angry!

A hippo in Botswana, apparently quite annoyed by the paparazzi, made its feelings well known when it thundered after a boatload of tourists. The result, captured in the video below, is kinda like Jaws meets Moby Dick meets the “Must go faster!!” scene in Jurassic Park. Discovery News reports: Members of a tour group on…

Scientists Discover Two New Species of Lizard on the Black Market

A team of scientists has spent the last five years attempting to catalog the kinds of animals for sale on the black market in the Philippines. To their surprise, they couldn’t catalog two animals, because no researcher had ever seen them before. University of Kansas’ Biodiversity Institute has spent quite some time analyzing the genetics…

Record-Breaking Sperm Storage In Sharks Explains This “Virgin Birth”

Back in 2012, a baby brownbanded bamboo shark was born in tank even though the mother hadn’t been exposed to a male for 45 months. Scientists have now figured out how this so-called “virgin birth” was possible. To photo: Pup of Chiloscyllium punctatum born at the Steinhart Aquarium of the California Academy of Sciences. Photograph…

The First Lab-Grown Muscles That Behave Just Like Natural Ones

These muscle cells were grown in a lab, but they are indistinguishable from what you grow in your body. They jump when shocked with electricity. They respond to drugs just the way cells in your muscles would. And they are about to revolutionize our understanding of medicine. Sure, watching a muscle cell twitch as it…

What happens when amateur scientists doing synthetic biology as DiY projects, building new organisms and modifying old ones? A group of scientists raised the alarm about the risks of backyard synbio in Nature recently, and it’s the topic of a lively discussion on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast. Check it out!

It’s Survival Of The Most Useful When Protecting Species

Consensus is growing that we are steering towards a sixth mass extinction event. There are calls for increased efforts to stop the accelerating loss of plants and animals. But do we really need to protect all species from global extinction? Top image: Coral reefs are like an underwater metropolis – and function in similar ways.…