Science

Swiftiephylus taylorae (Image Credit: Sarah Schroeder/UCR) Taylor Swift has inspired songs, fashion and fan culture around the world, but her latest namesake comes from an unexpected corner of science: a newly described genus of Australian plant-feeding insects. According to the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside), entomology doctoral student Sarah Schroeder, a lifelong Swift fan,…

Representative Image (AI-generated) Truman Lake in Missouri is getting a major boost to its underwater habitat through a project designed to create more places for fish to shelter, feed and gather. According to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Annual Review for Fiscal Year 2025, MDC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working with…

Representative Image (AI-generated) For thousands of years, layers of partially decomposed plants accumulated beneath a vast wetland in North Carolina, creating a deep store of carbon. That changed when an abandoned farming venture carved about 50 miles of drainage ditches through the land, lowering the water table and exposing the ancient peat to air. The…

Villagers separate and collect the heads of Sal Borer insects after catching them in the forest. (Photo: Down to Earth and Instagram) In the forests of Madhya Pradesh, a rather unusual “mala” is being used in the fight to save thousands of Sal trees. But this is no ordinary garland. Made from the severed heads…

An 18-acre stretch of Arizona desert that was once heavily disturbed and overrun by invasive buffelgrass has been transformed through 16 years of sustained restoration work by volunteers and conservation partners. The Waterman Restoration Project, located on Bureau of Land Management land within Ironwood Forest National Monument near Marana, began in 2010 after earlier attempts…

During its first decade, the partnership installed approximately 90 acres of artificial habitat, improving about 875 acres of cove complexes. Lake Havasu is famous for striped bass, redear sunfish, world-class fishing tournaments and unforgettable days on the water. But beneath that success is a decades-long conservation effort that many visitors never see. For more than…

Representative Image (AI-generated) Britain’s coastal waters are home to more shark species than many people might expect, but scientists still know surprisingly little about how several of these animals move, feed and reproduce. In a report by The Guardian, researchers outlined plans for a new three-year project that will combine modern electronic tracking with decades…

A tiny insect became one of the earliest living passengers sent towards space, long before astronauts were routinely orbiting Earth. In 1947, fruit flies were loaded onto a captured German V-2 rocket in New Mexico as scientists began testing what happened to life above the atmosphere. The experiment was primitive by modern standards, but it…

An international team of biologists, chemists and physicists has used sophisticated 3D X-ray technology to investigate the tooth at an unprecedented level. A unicorn may be a mythical creature, but nature made something very similar under the Arctic ice. Wondering what? Well, the narwhal has a strange tusk that can reach nearly 10 feet long…

Bycatch, the accidental capture of animals in fishing gear is considered the world’s greatest direct human-caused threat to dolphins and porpoises. Off the coast of Cornwall, a set of underwater sensors was listening to the ocean when it detected something researchers rarely get to see. According to an online report by Phys Org, two harbor…