Science

The Guam Kingfisher is known as the “sihek” in Chamorro, the native language of the Marianas Archipelago and is the rarest species at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia. The bird is classified by the IUCN as extinct in the wild, meaning a single one is not present outside the conservation centre….

Fossils often preserve bones well enough to reveal the shape of an ancient animal, but traces of soft tissues are much less common. That is why a newly described dinosaur from north-eastern China has drawn such close attention from palaeontologists. Dating back around 125 million years to the Early Cretaceous period, the specimen offers more…

Fossils from this period are displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. South Dakota is one of the most landlocked states in the United States. It is more than 1,000 miles away from both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It is hard to imagine that this dry landscape was once covered by water.But…

Scientists exposed bumblebees to low doses of a modern pesticide Scientists exposed bumblebees to low doses of a modern pesticide Scientists exposed bumblebees to low doses of a modern pesticide Scientists exposed bumblebees to low doses of a modern pesticide Scientists exposed bumblebees to low doses of a modern pesticide Bumblebees are among the world’s…

For centuries, the ancient Maya have been celebrated for their remarkable achievements in astronomy, mathematics and calendar-making. They tracked the movements of planets with extraordinary precision, developed one of the world’s earliest concepts of zero and created complex calendars that guided agriculture, religion and governance. Yet the brilliant minds behind these discoveries have largely remained…

Every winter in Antarctica, emperor penguins gather in large groups called huddles to survive the cold. Temperatures can fall to -40 degrees Celsius, and strong winds make the weather even harsher. Without huddling together, these penguins would not be able to survive.But a penguin huddle is much more than a group of birds standing close…

Whales are well known for their songs. But scientists have discovered that, for some whales, those songs may also help them stay alive. A researcher from the University of Washington has found that some baleen whales, including blue, fin and minke whales, have evolved to sing at such low frequencies that killer whales, their only…

A palm-sized AI drone weighing just 40 grams has achieved an engineering first by autonomously hunting and killing a flying insect in mid-air, paving the way for a new approach to mosquito control. Developed by US startup Tornyol, the tiny drone successfully detected, tracked and intercepted a flying moth during a controlled indoor demonstration without…

Bees have a reputation for being tireless workers, but it turns out that reputation only really applies to some of them. Researchers at the University of Illinois glued tiny numbered tags onto thousands of individual honeybees and tracked their comings and goings for almost two months across several separate colonies. What they found flips the…

Charles Darwin (Image source: Wikipedia) A bad experience is supposed to teach a lesson, yet people return to habits they already know are harmful more often than logic would suggest. Charles Darwin noticed the same contradiction and put it more bluntly than most. “An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it…