Biology

A team of scientists from Australia and China has found that many of the viruses infecting us today have ancient evolutionary histories that date back to the first vertebrates and perhaps Earth’s first animals. Their work is published in the journal Nature. Shi et al revealed diverse virus-host associations across …

Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are willing to share meat with members of neighboring communities. This unusual behavior, documented in a study in the journal Human Nature, was observed recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). African breadfruit (Treculia africana) sharing: a party is gathered around the owner (a male). …

Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), also known as snow monkeys, are the world’s most northerly species of non-human primates. They have been enjoying regular baths in the hot spring at Jigokudani in Japan for decades. Kyoto University researcher Rafaela Takeshita and co-authors have now published the first study to validate the …

Over their short lifetimes though, bird eggshells change their strength: they get thinner and weaker before hatching begins. Now, an international team of scientists led by McGill University has zeroed in on the fine structure and mechanical properties of chicken eggshells, and shell changes associated with chick hatching. Their work …

A team of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada has isolated and characterized the Bodo saltans virus, a giant virus that infects an ecologically important microbe commonly found in aquatic environments. Mature BsV virion: DNA containing core is surrounded by two membranous layers; the capsid consists of …

According to a new study published online in the journal PeerJ, foraging marine turtles use flippers to handle prey despite the limbs being evolutionarily designed for locomotion. A green turtle swiping the stinging jellyfish (Cyanea barkeri) in the water column at Hook Island, Queensland, Australia, taken June 2017. Image credit: …

The bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus) — the longest animal on Earth — produces a neurotoxin that can kill both crabs and cockroaches, a team of Swedish scientists has discovered. The bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus). Image credit: Cédric Audibert / AnimalBase Project Group, www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de. The bootlace worm is a member of …

A newly-released video, captured in the waters around Portugal’s Azores islands, shows a pair of deep-sea anglerfish called the fanfin angler (Caulophryne jordani) mating: a fearsome-looking female and her parasitically attached mate drift almost helplessly, salvaging precious energy in their dark, food-scarce environment. A pair of fanfin anglers (Caulophryne jordani). …

Two new species of dog-faced bats have been discovered in the tropical forests of Central and South America. Both new species are described in the March 2018 issue of the journal Mammalian Biology. The Freeman’s dog-faced bat (Cynomops freeman) in Soberania National Park near the Panama Canal. Image credit: Thomas …

It’s hard to pitch a product when part of the deal is that you will absolutely, 100 percent die if you become a customer. That’s an integral part of what Nectome is offering, though. This Y Combinator startup wants to give you the chance to live forever — sort of. …