WEIRD NATURE
Freeze it, boil it, or expose it to radiation. The water bear shrugs it off. Now we know why. By Philip Perry – Medically accurate model of a tardigrade or water bear. – The tardigrade, also known as the moss piglet or water …
By James Holloway – Traditional chinampas photographed in 1912. Karl Weule. – By 2050, the UN thinks there will be nearly 10 billion people on planet Earth, with 68 percent living in urban areas. Both numbers pose serious questions as to how we’ll feed …
That percentage of CO2 isn’t as small as you think. By Jason West – I heard that carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the world’s atmosphere. Not 0.4% or 4%, but 0.04%! How can it be so important in global warming if it’s …
Sao Paulo plunged into darkness after forest fire smoke filled the sky. By Sarah Sloat – Recently thousands of people took to Twitter to share the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia. The viral movement came as the skies above Sao Paulo blackened with the smoke from …
At least one species can switch from female to male within ten days. By Sarah Sloat – For the majority of organisms, sex is not something that can be changed. This is not true, however, for a fish called the bluehead wrasse. These …
“We wanted to test this widely stated but largely untested hypothesis.” By Peter Hess – Imagine picking up a half-empty soda on the sidewalk and taking a big sip. You have no idea what you’d be exposing yourself to. But this is basically …
By Michael Irving – A red-eyed tree frog was one of the amphibian species observed during an expedition to the Lost City of the Monkey God in Honduras. (Credit: Trond Larsen). In 2012, centuries-old legends of a lost city in Honduras were …
By Ben Coxworth – – It may not be much to look at, but it could conceivably spare a child from colitis. (Credit: decade3d/Depositphotos). Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) isn’t good for anyone to have, but it’s particularly hard on children – it can …
George Dvorsky – Image: NASA/IceBridge. Well here’s something you don’t see everyday: an iceberg so unbelievably geometric in shape you’d think it was deliberately carved with a gigantic chainsaw. Scientists have documented this sort of thing before, but this latest ‘berg, which …
Ben Coxworth – The fish-eating praying mantis chows down on its catch (Credit: Rajesh Puttaswamaiah). Praying mantises may not actually pray, but they do prey heavily on their fellow insects, along with other small land animals. Now, however, for the first time, …
