Most of the things in our "Treasures" series are living organisms. I think this is partly because lots of living organisms are easy to identify with: they exist on a scale similar to ours and are easy to categorize as discrete entities. Phenomena are a little...
If you were around during the late seventies or early eighties, you grew up knowing that insects will inherit the Earth after the nuclear apocalypse. However, apart from mad survival skills, did you know that they also beat us at engineering? Researchers at the University of...
The first thing I need to tell you about the snapping shrimp is that I did not make it up. This is science. Really. The “snapping” part of this crustacean’s name refers to the action of a special arm it has—just the one. The limb is...
This should be evident from the title, but in case it's not: If the combination of the words “jumping” and “spider” disturbs you, this is not the post for you. But if spiders only make you a little uncomfortable, I suggest sticking this one out,...
A couple of days ago we posted the first of a series we’re going to call “treasures”: stories about random things in science that we think are beautiful, surprising, amazing or just plain cool. They’re going to be paired with the little circular image icons...