Male Fiddler Crabs Entrap Females In Their Bachelor Pads

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  381 words  |  Trudie Dory

Male banana fiddler crabs take courting to a new, and pushy, level: The little Australian crab males wait for females to enter their burrows and then trap them in order to mate, scientists have found. Competition for mates is intense for banana fiddler crabs (Uca mjoebergi), the researchers said, with females often choosing between 20 or so males before saying "yes" to some fun between the sand grains. Often, during the mating season, a male will first enter his burrow, and a female will follow. [Read More]

Nature: The Master Medicine-Maker

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  995 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Willow tree bark was the original source of aspirin, while the antibiotic penicillin came from an ordinary mold. More recently, a potent painkiller has been derived from the venoms cone snails use to kill their prey, and a chemical produced by the Pacific yew tree is now the powerful cancer-treating drug paclitaxel (Taxol®). Nature is a prolific source of new medicines. In fact, natural products have led to more than half of the new drugs introduced during the past 25 years. [Read More]

Photo of Amazon Tribe Not a Hoax

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  697 words  |  Trudie Dory

Recent photos of an "uncontacted tribe" of Indians near the Brazil-Peru border have sparked media reports of a hoax, but the organization that released the images defends its claims and actions. The photographs, which showed men painted red and black and aiming arrows skyward, were released in late May by Survival International, a London-based organization that advocates for tribal people worldwide. The release stated that "members of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air," [Read More]

Should You Still Floss? Here's What the Experts Say

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  891 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Even though a recent report suggested there is no health benefit to flossing, health experts say that you still need to clean in between your teeth. That recent report, from the Associated Press, concluded that there isn't a compelling reason to floss: The recommendation for flossing lacks any evidence that flossing actually helps, the report said. And, a recommendation that people floss has been removed from the latest U.S. government dietary guidelines, the report added. [Read More]

Shrinking Arctic Ice Will Lead to Ice-Free Summers

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  857 words  |  Trudie Dory

The Arctic is losing about 30,000 square miles (78,000 square kilometers) — an area roughly equivalent to the state of Maine — of sea ice each year, NASA scientists say. And while ice cover at the North Pole has rebounded from last year's record-setting lows, Arctic sea ice continues to retreat and thin at an alarming pace. In 2012, the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean shrank to its lowest extent ever recorded. [Read More]

Sloppy Kitchen Grease Creates Soapy Sewer Stalactites

 Posted on June 27, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  701 words  |  Trudie Dory

Next time you're about to pour that extra cooking grease down the drain, you might want to think first: In the sewers below, the grease transforms into hardened deposits of soaplike chemicals that can cause serious headaches for sewer maintenance workers and can pose environmental and health hazards by causing sewer overflows. Study researcher Joel Ducoste, of North Carolina State University, and his team have discovered that in the sewers fat, oil and grease turn into hardened deposits of a soaplike substance as they travel from your home to the wastewater treatment plant. [Read More]

Brutally Murdered Pictish Man's Face Gets Digitally Recreated

 Posted on June 26, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  707 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The face of a 1,400-year-old murder victim is seeing the light of day, now that scientists have digitally reconstructed his features. The victim, a young Pictish man, met a grisly end when he was brutally murdered in what is now modern Scotland. Archaeologists found the man's remains — placed in an odd, cross-legged position with rocks pinning down his arms and legs — during the excavation of a cave in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, in the Scottish Highlands. [Read More]

Buried Treasure: Ancient Grave Found Brimming with Jewels

 Posted on June 26, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1069 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

This story was updated Jan. 27 at 12:50 p.m. EST. An Iron Age tomb brimming with treasures fashioned out of gold, bronze and amber was recently uncovered after lying undisturbed by the Danube River for nearly 2,600 years, archaeologists report. The glitzy hoard adorned and surrounded the skeleton of a woman who likely died between the age of 30 and 40, and it suggests that she was an elite member of the Celtic society that buried her in ancient southern Germany at a hill fort called Heuneburg in 583 B. [Read More]

DNA Analysis Reveals Why 'Water Bears' Are the World's Toughest Animals

 Posted on June 26, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  815 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are less than a fraction of an inch in length, yet they are believed to be Earth's toughest, hardiest animals. They are virtually indestructible. Tardigrades have the ability to withstand complete dehydration. Once desiccated, they have been frozen in blocks of ice, exposed to radiation, and sent into the vacuum of space, and yet they still usually spring back to life when water becomes available again. [Read More]

Giant Volcano on Bali Is Spewing Ash Clouds, May Erupt Soon

 Posted on June 26, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  465 words  |  Trudie Dory

Indonesia's Mount Agung is spewing towering clouds of ash, raising concerns that the giant 10,305-foot-tall (3,140 meters) volcano might have a big eruption soon, according to news sources. The volcano, located on the eastern side of the resort island of Bali, began erupting ash last Tuesday (Nov. 21). These ashy plumes have reached heights of about 9,800 feet (3,000 m), and have led the government to ask about 100,000 people on Bali to evacuate, according to the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management. [Read More]