Biology

Acoustic Tweezers Can Rearrange Your Cells into Geometric Patterns

Have you seen Chladni figures? They’re patterns made when sand is exposed to sound waves on metal plates. They can be amazingly intricate. And now scientists could be making them with living cells. Put a grain of sand on a frantically vibrating plate and it will hop off. Put it on a still plate and…

A Cool New Theory Explains Why Red Wine Is So Damned Good For You

The antioxidant resveratrol, which is found in red wine and other foods like nuts and soy, is known for its ability to decrease incidence of heart disease and other illnesses, leading some to call it the “elixir of youth.” Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute now have an explanation for how it works. Resveratrol (prounounced…

The 10 Most Surprising Origins of the Animals You Eat

Just what will you be putting on your plate during this holiday season? You probably already know that centuries of selective breeding have produced the creatures we love to feast on, but you might be surprised at how weird the process has been. Here are the 10 most startling origin stories for the animals that…

Why Do We Eat Spoiled Food?

Not all spoiled food is created equal. Most everyone has an aversion to rotten foods. After all, they taste awful. But what about the foods we spoil intentionally? What separates rancid meet, for example, from moldy cheese, or bacteria-laden Salami? https://gizmodo.com/why-do-rotten-foods-taste-so-awful-1542078946 In the latest episode of MinuteEarth, Henry Reich tackles the question of intentional spoilage…

How We Found The World’s Deepest Fish – And Why We Must Keep Exploring

Scientists exploring the deepest place on Earth — the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean — recently acquired footage of a strange, never-before-seen fish at a record depth of 26,722 feet. Here, one of the team members describes how they found it, and why it’s vital to continue plumbing the ocean’s depths. It was our…

10 Animals That Trade Sex For Favors

Humans didn’t invent the idea of combining sex and commerce. Plenty of animals are willing to mate, but only if the price is right. Here are 10 animals who will offer sex for reasons other than just preserving the species. Top Image: Christopher Michel 10. Adélie Penguins are not Child-Friendly This is something you didn’t…

A Bizarre New Species Of Fish Has Been Discovered At A Record Depth 

Scientists exploring the deepest place on Earth — the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean — have captured footage of a never-before-seen fish at a record depth of 26,722 feet (8,145 meters). As reported in New Scientist, the ghostly fish was spotted by an expedition led by Jeff Drazen and Patty Fryer of the University…

Copper Bedrails Could Dramatically Reduce Hospital Infections

When you check into a hospital your risk of infection rises, and research suggests a major source for these infections are the safety railings on hospital beds. Researchers in Santiago Chile think they have a solution: Replace the usual bedrails with copper ones, which have anti-microbial properties. Photo Credit: CopperBioHealth As NPR’s Hannah Bloch reports:…

How Does ‘Male Sympathetic Pregnancy’ Work?

Couvade Syndrome is the name given to the conglomerate of pregnancy symptoms experienced by men when their partners are pregnant. The human mind is a powerful thing, but can a man’s brain really convince his body that it’s pregnant? And how does the pregnancy end? Couvade Syndrome’s Origins I was surprised to find that sympathetic…

Rapists Could Be Identified With The Bacteria On Their Pubic Hair

The results of a new study suggest forensic scientists could one day use the microbial signature of people’s privates to identify sexual offenders. Think of it as a musty, microscopic, x-rated fingerprint. Photo Credit: dullhunk via flickr |CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Historically, law enforcement has relied on hair samples to identify potential rapists, but pubic hairs…

How A Zygote Becomes A Baby In One Incredible Animation

Science-visualization wunderkind Eleanor Lutz continues to raise the bar for animated infographics with her latest creation, a hypnotizing guide to embryonic development. Lutz says she’s been wanting to do an infographic on embryogenesis for some time, but was stumped on how to present the information. A mesmerizing GIF designed by animator Nicolas Fong inspired her…

The Most Amazing Science Images Of 2014

How better to kick off io9’s Year In Review than with fifty of our favorite photos and videos from 2014? Above: A Stunning View of Sunlit Seas on Titan | As NASA’s Cassini spacecraft soared past Saturn’s moon Titan, it recently caught a glimpse of bright sunlight reflecting off hydrocarbon seas. In the past, Cassini…

There May be a Way to Hit the Pause Button on a Pregnancy

There are a handful of species, around the world, that can figuratively put a pin in a pregnancy and come back to it at a more convenient time. It’s called delayed gestation, or embryonic diapause. But how widespread could it be? Embryonic Diapause and the Animals Who Love It What do the sea otter, the…

The Flu Shot Isn’t a Good Match This Year. Is It Ever?

The CDC announced recently that this year’s flu vaccine is missing a key strain, one that accounts for 48% of what’s circulating. That strain, a “drifted” version of H3N2, was discovered in March 2014, but the vaccine strains for the Northern hemisphere, including the US, had been decided a month earlier. (The Southern hemisphere vaccine…

Scientists Have Mapped Out A ‘Mind-Blowing’ Tree Of Avian Evolution

More than 200 scientists from around the world have collaborated to map “the avian tree of life” — an undertaking that one evolutionary biologist has called “mind-blowing” in scope. Photo Credit: Art G. via flickr | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Over at The Guardian, Ian Sample reports on the project and a sampling of its notable…

Those weird bone eating worms just got weirder. A newly discovered species of Osedax worms — those incredibly cool and strange creatures that feed off whale bones — appears to be evolving in reverse. Males of the species have reverted to an earlier form, which is surprising because these genes should have deteriorated by now.…

Disney’s New Eye-Animation Method Is Scary Good

Researchers at Disney have developed a new image-capture system that can reconstruct all the visible parts of a person’s eye in animated form, at unprecedented levels detail – and the end result is damn impressive. Eyes are notoriously difficult to render convincingly. Not only are they incredibly detailed, they’re detailed in unique ways, varying dramatically…

Nature’s Rules For Killing Your Siblings

All of you dreading the trip home to your family this holiday season should remember it could be worse. You could be part of a species where killing your siblings is just part of the typical family dynamic. It’s Never Too Early to Get the Upper Hand Life, it is often said, is not fair.…

The Most Intricate Images of Live Nerves Ever Captured

You’re looking at some of the most intricate images of live nerve endings ever captured, in which it’s possible to make out individual nerves and touch receptors in unprecedented detail. The images were acquired by researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratoryusing a technique called SNAP-tagging. While that been around for at least ten years,…

A Massive Asteroid Strike Could Have Sparked Life On Earth

By using lasers to simulate the impact of a large meteor with primordial Earth, researchers have shown how the atom bomb-like collisions might have reconstituted ordinary molecules into the early building blocks of life. The new experiment doesn’t prove that life got started in this way, but it does bolster the long-held theory that life…