Biology

Viruses can transfer genes to organisms they are not known to infect, including organisms in different domains (superkingdoms) of life, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. Malik et al find that viruses and cellular organisms share a large group of genes that help cells to …

A distinctive new species of antbird has been discovered in the humid montane forests of the San Martin region in north-central Peru. The Cordillera Azul antbird (Myrmoderus eowilsoni). Image credit: Andrew Spencer / Macaulay Library. The antbirds are a large family of insect-eating passerine birds, Thamnophilidae, known for habitually following …

A team of scientists from the University of California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found a way to infuse plants with the luminescence of fireflies. The results appear in the journal Nano Letters. Plants infused with the luminescence of fireflies could help reduce our dependence on conventional …

The silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus) has previously been recognized to be a single species divided into several sub-species. But a new genetic analysis, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, suggests that this enigmatic mammal is not one species, but seven separate ones. The silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus). …

A team of researchers at the University of St Andrews has discovered how New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) make one of their most sophisticated tool designs — sticks with a neatly-shaped hooked tip. The study is published in the journal Current Biology. New Caledonian crows know what it takes to …

A biologist caught a devastating look of the impacts of climate change on video camera: A starving polar bear scavenging fruitlessly for scraps of food on dry land. The bear was spotted on Baffin Island, off Canada’s northern coast, not far from Greenland. As sea ice in the area has …

The microbial community composition on the International Space Station (ISS) is more similar to home surfaces than to the human microbiome samples, according to a new study published in the journal PeerJ. The International Space Station. Image credit: NASA. A team of microbiologists from the University of California, Davis, and …

Pigeons can discriminate the abstract concepts of space and time — and seem to use a different region of the brain than humans and primates to do so, according to new research published in the journal Current Biology. The finding adds to growing recognition in the scientific community that lower-order …

Gorillas can spontaneously clean their food before eating it, without first watching another animal to learn from them, an international team of researchers has found. Published in the journal PLoS ONE, the findings challenge the interpretation of recently published data that suggested that gorillas acquire food cleaning primarily by learning …

A new book from Taschen titled The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel outlines the 19th-century artist-biologist’s most important visual works and publications across a hefty 704 pages. The compendium includes 450 drawings, watercolors, and sketches from his research, which was in large support of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Most notably …