Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York have named a new species of leech after Amy Tan, bestselling author of such novels as The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. They also completed a CT scan of the tiny creature—the first time the technique has been used on a microscopic…
You're looking at Ozobranchus jantseanus, a little leech found in East Asia. It doesn't look much, but it has a very special skill indeed: it can survive for up to 24 hours immersed in liquid nitrogen.
Scientists have learned that a common parasite of sea turtles is capable of surviving ridiculously cold temperatures — a finding that could lead to the development of advanced cryopreservation techniques.
The DARPA Tactical Technology Office wants swarms of small spacecraft that would go to space, attach to dead satellites, and use their components to create new working satellites. The idea is fascinating—although it seems too wild to become real anytime soon.
In 1994, a group of Norwegian researchers embarked upon a groundbreaking study as to whether garlic was an effective deterrent against blood-sucking Nosferatus. Did this timeworn wisdom withstand the rigors of the laboratory?
As part of our ongoing Hardcore Science Interview series, we interviewed the American Natural History Museum's invertebrate zoology curator, Mark Siddall. A world-renowned expert on leeches, he told us about how these strange creatures reproduce by inseminating each other (yes, they are hermaphrodites) . . . and how…
You're out in the wilderness — or maybe just your front yard — and you see a really weird animal. It's like a cross between a bat and a frog. Have you discovered a new species? If so, how would you prove it?
This is Tyrannobdella rex, a newly-discovered leech species named for its terrifying, human-looking teeth. And now scientists know more about why it wants nothing more than to swim up your nose or into your mouth.
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!
WiFi leechers can be a real pain in the ass; they'd happily eat up your bandwidth even if you told them your life depended on it, which given our social existence, it pretty much does. The guys over at Ex Parrot have come up with a great plan to serve up some ice cold revenge to the culprits, which will have their…
