Stronger than spider silk
Washington Post reveals the natural substance that beats spider silk for toughness, and diamonds for hardness – and it’s limpet teeth: In a study set […]
marine biology
Meet the Ruby Seadragon
Science Daily introduces us to a brand new sea creature, bright red and fantastically delicate, dubbed the ruby seadragon: Using DNA and anatomical research tools, […]
SONG: Not Even Dancing Works
SONG: “Not Even Dancing Works.” ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on “Zoologger: Dancing in time makes crabs sexual failures“, New Scientist, 4 December 2014, as used […]
Electric eels are puppet masters
New Scientist pulls back the curtain on how electric eels “remote control” their prey, freezing them right next to their hungry mouths: The experiments that […]
Fish researchers: “Our mirrors have become USELESS!”
Nature breaks the news to behaviorists – and this is more important than it might seem – that fish don’t really think mirrors are uninvited […]
Blue whales have recovered, just about.
It’s taken quite a while, but AP can finally report that blue whales off the coast of California have finally reached pre-whaling-industry levels: Researchers previously […]
Science Art: Echinodermata, Plate V detail, by James A. Grieg, 1921
This is the heart (and brain and pretty much anything that’s not an arm) of a brittle star, as sketched for Echinodermata, a study of […]
Science Art: The Common Angler (Lophius piscatorus) (After W. Von Wright in Smitt), 1905.
Click to embiggen This is from the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in the Biodiversity Library. I bet there’s all *kinds* of things in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous […]
Four years an expectant mother. Eight arms to hug them.
Science Daily reveals the record-breaking brooding period of the deep-sea octopus: In May 2007, during one of these surveys, the researchers discovered a female octopus […]
Science Art: Holocentre à grosses épines, from Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, Volume 3, 1828
A Holocentrus hastatum, or Sargocentron hastatus, or red soldier fish. They have big spines, you see. This one comes from A Natural History of Fish, […]
The scientific secrets of whale earwax.
You want to learn about the hidden history of the ocean? Look within, Nature says… within the earwax of a mighty blue whale: The team, […]
Science Art: Hover Whales (from Suggestions to the keepers of the U.S. life-saving stations, light-houses, and light-ships; and to other observers, relative to the best means of collecting and preserving specimens of whales and porpoises. By Frederick W. True.)
Image originally from Suggestions to the keepers of the U.S. life-saving stations, light-houses, and light-ships; and to other observers, relative to the best means of […]
Science Art: Doris, from Le Larousse Pour Tous, 1909.
“Genre de mollusques gastropodes, renfermant des animaux nus, de touts les mers.” A popular genre of gastropods. Also the name of a boat (a dory, […]
Slime couture.
This is a few weeks old by now, but still in fashion in a gorgeously disgusting way. Science News celebrates the creation of fine fabrics […]
Psychedelic sponges. Why?
Vice, of all publications, examines the strange chemistry of the first-known psychedelic sponges… trying to figure out why sponges would make something as potent as […]