Plants & Animals News
July 15, 2025
Top Headlines
July 12, 2025 — A cat named Pepper has once again helped scientists discover a new virus—this time a mysterious orthoreovirus found in a shrew. Researchers from the University of Florida, including virologist John Lednicky, identified this strain during unrelated ...
July 11, 2025 — Blue sharks possess a secret hidden in their skin: a sophisticated arrangement of microscopic crystals and pigments that create their brilliant blue appearance — and may allow them to change color. Scientists have discovered that these ...
July 10, 2025 — Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens ...
July 10, 2025 — People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists ...
July 8, 2025 — High heat and heavy metals dampen a bumblebee’s trademark buzz, threatening pollen release and colony chatter. Tiny sensors captured up-to-400-hertz tremors that falter under environmental stress, raising alarms for ecosystems and sparking ideas ...
July 8, 2025 — Feral water buffalo now roam Hong Kong s South Lantau marshes, and a 657-person survey shows they ignite nostalgia, wonder, and worry in equal measure. Many residents embrace them as living links to a fading rural past and potential conservation ...
July 7, 2025 — Danish and Welsh botanists sifted through 400 studies, field-tested seed mixes, and uncovered a lineup of native and exotic blooms that both thrill human eyes and lure bees and hoverflies in droves, ...
July 6, 2025 — Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still yield fruit—hinting at a delicious new weapon in ...
July 6, 2025 — Immersing stressed volunteers in a 360° virtual Douglas-fir forest complete with sights, sounds and scents boosted their mood, sharpened short-term memory and deepened their feeling of nature-connectedness—especially when all three senses were ...
July 4, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that starving and then refeeding worms can reveal surprising secrets about aging. When a specific gene (called TFEB) is missing, these worms don’t bounce back from fasting—they instead enter a state that looks a lot ...
July 4, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that the bacteria behind Lyme disease and anaplasmosis have a sneaky way of surviving inside ticks—they hijack the tick’s own cell functions to steal cholesterol they need to grow. By tapping into a built-in protein ...
July 3, 2025 — When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:59am EDT
July 11, 2025 — In a bold step toward sustainable space travel, scientists are engineering a radically small, protein-rich rice that can grow in space. The Moon-Rice project, led by the Italian Space Agency in ...
July 10, 2025 — Male guppies that glow with more orange aren’t just fashion-forward — they’re also significantly more sexually active. A UBC study reveals that brighter coloration is linked to virility and is ...
July 10, 2025 — What if humans didn’t have to suffer the slow-burning fire of chronic inflammation as we age? A surprising study on two types of lemurs found no evidence of "inflammaging," a phenomenon long ...
July 9, 2025 — Long-tailed macaques given short videos were glued to scenes of fighting—especially when the combatants were monkeys they knew—mirroring the human draw to drama and familiar faces. Low-ranking ...
July 9, 2025 — In the remote reaches of Arizona s Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have unearthed North America's oldest known pterosaur a small, ...
July 8, 2025 — Scientists at MIT have turbocharged one of nature’s most sluggish but essential enzymes—rubisco—by applying a cutting-edge evolution technique in living cells. Normally prone to wasteful ...
July 8, 2025 — Hovering fish aren’t loafing—they burn twice resting energy to make micro-fin tweaks that counteract a natural tendency to tip, and body shape dictates just how costly the pause is. The discovery ...
July 7, 2025 — Scientists found that embryonic skin cells “whisper” through faint mechanical tugs, using the same force-sensing proteins that make our ears ultrasensitive. By syncing these micro-movements, the ...
July 7, 2025 — Scientists have decoded the sea spider’s genome for the first time, revealing how its strangely shaped body—with organs in its legs and barely any abdomen—may be tied to a missing gene. The ...
July 2, 2025 — Scientists at UC Davis discovered a small genetic difference that could explain why humans are more prone to certain cancers than our primate cousins. The change affects a protein used by immune ...
Earlier Headlines
July 2, 2025 — Locked-down Hungarians who gained or lost pets saw almost no lasting shift in mood or loneliness, and new dog owners actually felt less calm and satisfied over time—hinting that the storied “pet ...
July 2, 2025 — Wild orcas across four continents have repeatedly floated fish and other prey to astonished swimmers and boaters, hinting that the ocean’s top predator likes to make friends. Researchers cataloged ...
July 2, 2025 — Female chimpanzees that forge strong, grooming-rich friendships with other females dramatically boost their infants’ odds of making it past the perilous first year—no kin required. Three decades ...
June 29, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a surprising new way that urea—an essential building block for life—could have formed on the early Earth. Instead of requiring high temperatures or complex catalysts, ...
June 27, 2025 — Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re secretly stashing 65 million tonnes of carbon far below ...
June 27, 2025 — A groundbreaking study suggests that the famous Cambrian explosion—the dramatic burst of diverse animal life—might have actually started millions of years earlier than we thought. By analyzing ...
June 26, 2025 — Urban wildlife is evolving right under our noses — and scientists have the skulls to prove it. By examining over a century’s worth of chipmunk and vole specimens from Chicago, researchers ...
June 26, 2025 — Cats overwhelmingly choose to sleep on their left side, a habit researchers say could be tied to survival. This sleep position activates the brain’s right hemisphere upon waking, perfect for ...
June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...
June 26, 2025 — Poachers are using a sneaky loophole to bypass the international ivory trade ban—by passing off illegal elephant ivory as legal mammoth ivory. Since the two types look deceptively similar, law ...
June 25, 2025 — Two newly discovered viruses lurking in bats are dangerously similar to Nipah and Hendra, both of which have caused deadly outbreaks in humans. Found in fruit bats near villages, these viruses may ...
June 25, 2025 — The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...
June 25, 2025 — Leafcutter ants live in highly organized colonies where every ant has a job, and now researchers can flip those jobs like a switch. By manipulating just two neuropeptides, scientists can turn ...
June 24, 2025 — Lichen from the Mojave Desert has stunned scientists by surviving months of lethal UVC radiation, suggesting life could exist on distant planets orbiting volatile stars. The secret? A microscopic ...
June 24, 2025 — Exploration for deep-sea minerals in the Clarion Clipperton Zone threatens to disrupt an unexpectedly rich ecosystem of whales and dolphins. New studies have detected endangered species in the area ...
June 24, 2025 — Southern resident killer whales have been caught on drone video crafting kelp tools to groom one another—an unprecedented behavior among marine mammals. This suggests a deeper social and cultural ...
June 23, 2025 — In a remarkable twist of science, researchers have transformed a fungus long associated with death into a potential weapon against cancer. Found in tombs like that of King Tut, Aspergillus flavus was ...
June 20, 2025 — In a twist on conventional wisdom, researchers have discovered that in ocean-like fluids with changing density, tiny porous particles can sink faster than larger ones, thanks to how they absorb salt. ...
June 20, 2025 — Even after 20 million years of evolutionary separation, two tiny worm species show astonishingly similar patterns in how they turn genes on and off. Scientists mapped every cell s activity during ...
June 19, 2025 — During Earth's ancient Snowball periods, when the entire planet was wrapped in ice, life may have endured in tiny meltwater ponds on the surface of equatorial glaciers. MIT researchers ...
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
- The Pandemic Pet Boom Was Real. The Happiness Boost Wasn’t
- Why Do Killer Whales Keep Handing Us Fish? Scientists Unpack the Mystery
- How Female Friendships Help Chimp Babies Survive
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
- Tiny Creatures, Massive Impact: How Zooplankton Store 65 Million Tonnes of Carbon Annually
- These 545-Million-Year-Old Fossil Trails Just Rewrote the Story of Evolution
Thursday, June 26, 2025
- Skull Study Shows Chicago's Rodents Are Rapidly Evolving
- Why Cats Prefer Sleeping on Their Left Side—and How It Might Help Them Survive
- Can These Endangered Lizards Beat the Heat? Scientists Test Bold Relocation Plan
- New Test Unmasks Illegal Elephant Ivory Disguised as Mammoth
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
- New Viruses Discovered in Bats in China Could Be the Next Pandemic Threat
- Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal
- Scientists Reprogram Ant Behavior Using Brain Molecules
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
- Mojave Lichen Defies Death Rays—could Life Thrive on Distant Exoplanets?
- Mining the Deep Could Mute the Songs of Sperm Whales
- Killer Whales Use Seaweed Tools in Never-Before-Seen Grooming Behavior
Monday, June 23, 2025
Friday, June 20, 2025
- Gravity, Flipped: How Tiny, Porous Particles Sink Faster in Ocean Snowstorms
- Frozen in Time: Transparent Worms Keep Genes in Sync for 20 Million Years
Thursday, June 19, 2025
- How Life Endured the Snowball Earth: Evidence from Antarctic Meltwater Ponds
- Microscopic Heist: How Lung Bacteria Forge Weapons to Steal Iron and Survive
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
- These Beetles Can See a Color Most Insects Can’t
- Monster Salamander With Powerful Jaws Unearthed in Tennessee Fossil Find
- Rainbow Reefs Revealed: The Secret 112-Million-Year Saga of Glowing Fish
Monday, June 16, 2025
- Cluck Once, and the River Shakes: Inside the Amazon’s Giant Snake Saga
- 600-Million-Year-Old Body Blueprint Found in Sea Anemones
Saturday, June 14, 2025
- Fruit-Eating Mastodons? Ancient Fossils Confirm a Long-Lost Ecological Alliance
- Africa's Pangolin Crisis: The Delicacy That's Driving a Species to the Brink
- Koalas on the Brink: Precision DNA Test Offers a Lifeline to Australia’s Icons
Friday, June 13, 2025
- Toxic Tides: Centuries-Old Mercury Is Flooding the Arctic Food Chain
- Invisible ID: How a Single Breath Could Reveal Your Health—and Your Identity
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Friday, June 13, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
- Something More Toxic Than Gators Is Hiding in the Swamps
- Pincer Plot Twist: How Female Earwigs Evolved Deadly Claws for Love and War
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
- Tiny Wasp’s Shocking Reproductive Trick May Transform Global Agriculture
- 83% of Earth’s Climate-Critical Fungi Are Still Unknown
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
- What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule
- How Madagascar’s Lizards Became the Island’s Last Hope for Reforestation
- Scientists Reveal the Hidden Pause That Keeps Bee Colonies Alive
Friday, June 6, 2025
- Scientists Find Immune Molecule That Supercharges Plant Growth
- Scientists Uncover 230 Giant Ocean Viruses That Hijack Photosynthesis
Friday, June 27, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Saturday, June 7, 2025
- Whales Blow Bubble Rings--And They Might Be Talking to Us
- Satellite Tracking of 12,000 Marine Animals Reveals Ocean Giants Are in Trouble
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
- Telehealth Can Improve Care for Cats With Chronic Health Issues
- Eating an Array of Smaller Fish Could Be Nutrient-Dense Solution to Overfishing
- Being in Nature Can Help People With Chronic Back Pain Manage Their Condition
- DNA Floating in the Air Tracks Wildlife, Viruses -- Even Drugs
- Two Plant Species Invent the Same Chemically Complex and Medically Interesting Substance
- Clinical Research on Psychedelics Gets a Boost from New Study
- Baboons Walk in Line for Friendship, Not Survival, New Study Finds
- Large-Scale Immunity Profiling Grants Insights Into Flu Virus Evolution
Friday, June 6, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
- Record High: Study Finds Growing Cannabis Use Among Older Adults
- The Sweet Spot: Sugar-Based Sensors to Revolutionize Snake Venom Detection
- Nitrogen Loss on Sandy Shores: The Big Impact of Tiny Anoxic Pockets
- Student Discovers Long-Awaited Mystery Fungus Sought by LSD's Inventor
- Synthetic Compound Shows Promise Against Multidrug Resistance
- Insect Protein Blocks Bacterial Infection
- Human-Caused Dust Events Are Linked to Fallow Farmland
- Research Shows How Solar Arrays Can Aid Grasslands During Drought
Friday, May 30, 2025
- New Plant Leaf Aging Factor Found
- Mediterranean Diet Provides Symptom Relief for Patients With IBS in Pilot Study
- Scientists Find a New Way to Help Plants Fight Diseases
- The EU Should Allow Gene Editing to Make Organic Farming More Sustainable, Researchers Say
Thursday, May 29, 2025
- Long Shot Science Leads to Revised Age for Land-Animal Ancestor
- Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs
- Leprosy Existed in America Long Before Arrival of Europeans
- Evolution of a Single Gene Allowed the Plague to Adapt, Survive and Kill Much of Humanity Over Many Centuries
- Cellular Scaffolding Secrets Unlocked: Scientists Discover Key to Microtubule Growth
- Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History
- Could 'pausing' Cell Death Be the Final Frontier in Medicine on Earth and Beyond?
- Dinosaurs Could Hold Key to Cancer Discoveries
- 'Future-Proofing' Crops Will Require Urgent, Consistent Effort
- Living Libraries Could Save Our Food
- Keep the Cool Feeling: A Lipid Enzyme for Maintaining Cool Temperature Sensation and Avoidance
- Does Planting Trees Really Help Cool the Planet?
- How Does Coffee Affect a Sleeping Brain?
- Amphibian Road Mortality Drops by Over 80% With Wildlife Underpasses, Study Shows
- HIV Discovery Could Open Door to Long-Sought Cure
- Genetic Basis of Purring in Cats
- Discovery of a New Marine Flagellate
- Cotton Virus Circulated Undetected for Nearly 20 Years, Study Finds
- Cannabis Pangenome Reveals Potential for Medicinal and Industrial Use
- Agriculture in Forests Can Provide Climate and Economic Dividends
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
- Trees Vs. Disease: Tree Cover Reduces Mosquito-Borne Health Risk
- Horses 'mane' Inspiration for New Generation of Social Robots
- Study Deepens Understanding of Cell Migration, Important for Potential Medical Advances
- Too Much of a Good Thing: Consequences of Overplanting Bt Corn in the US
- Kinetic Coupling -- Breakthrough in Understanding Biochemical Networks