Top 100 Stories of 2011: #63: How Many Species Inhabit the Earth?
Last year researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia released the most rigorous estimate yet of how many species live on our planet: 8.7 million, not counting bacteria. Nearly 6.5 million of...
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How Did LEGO Become More About Limits Than Possibilities?
No matter what you do with it, it'll still look like Hogwarts. Rip open that new LEGO set and your mind races at the possibilities! A simple repertoire of piece types, and yet you can build a ninja...
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The Spider Assassin That Acts Like Prey and Cloaks Itself With Wind
A good predator must be as cunning as it is strong, especially when its prey can turn the tables and kill it. The assassin bug has learned this well, becoming a master of deception in its hunt for...
View ArticleGallery | The Grinches That Stole Valentine's Day: Creatures That Say No to Sex
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Here’s Looking at You, Kid
Staring off the page is the eye of a water flea, a largely transparent crustacean that can reach half an inch in length. Its intricate eye—and it has only one—is a clue to the creature’s overall...
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Of Mice and Men and Medicines
You won’t find more mentally ill mice per square mile anywhere than in Bar Harbor, Maine. Mice who seem anxious or depressed, autistic or schizophrenic—they congregate here. Mice who model learning...
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Destination Science: The Natural World Outside Disney World
Unpaved OrlandoWhere: Central Florida What: Pristine wilderness in the shadow of America’s theme park capital Orlando is famous as the family-fun city that Disney built, but it has quietly developed a...
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How Mosquitoes Survive in a Downpour
David Hu was sitting on the porch with his infant son when a large mosquito bite appeared on the baby’s forehead. It was pouring out, and Hu began wondering how the insect survived the impact of the...
View ArticleGallery | 7 Animals That Harnessed Nanotechnology Long Before Humans
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Superfreak of Evolution: The Lizard With a Humanlike Placenta
Trachylepis ivensi nurtures its fetus much like humans do. In central Africa, an unassuming little lizard has evolved a spectacular and oddly human feature of gestation: a complex placenta. It is the...
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Hot Science: The Best New Science Culture
TV Frozen Planet DiscoveryIt took 4 years, 38 sled dogs, 12 reindeer, 28 helicopters, and 840 hours trapped in blizzards for dedicated (and resourceful) camera crews to film the epic new nature...
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Attack of the Flying, Invasive Carp
Ending through corn and soybean fields southwest of Chicago, the Illinois River eventually comes to the sleepy little town of Havana, Illinois. On the east bank of the river, the populated side,...
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Plants Repel Bacteria's Assaults by Spying on Their Chatter
Bacteria are quite the talkers. Lying low inside their hosts, they scheme up attacks through coded biochemical messages that are largely imperceptible to the immune systems of plants and animals. But...
View ArticleGallery | 6 Creepy-Crawlies We Hate But Couldn't Do Without
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The Big, Overlooked Factor in the Rise of Pandemics: The Human Vector
“How do you make preparedness sexy?” Dave Daigle asks. A communications expert in disaster readiness at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Daigle created last year’s cheeky...
View ArticleThe Hagfish's Special Trick for Warding Off Predators: Thick, Sticky Mucus
Sharks are superb predators, but even they are no match for the animal kingdom’s most disgusting yet effective defense: the gag-inducing slime of the hagfish. Hagfish are elusive deep-sea creatures...
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The Brain: Hidden Epidemic: Tapeworms Living Inside People's Brains
Theodore Nash sees only a few dozen patients a year in his clinic at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. That’s pretty small as medical practices go, but what his patients lack in...
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20 Things You Didn't Know About... Allergies
1. Our immune system may be like those small bands of Japanese “holdout” soldiers after World War II. Not knowing that the war was over, they hid for years, launching guerrilla attacks on peaceful...
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Can Stuffing Germs up Ferrets Unleash a Human Pandemic?
The Claim: A lab-concocted strain of ferret flu could become a doomsday weapon or bioterrorist threat. The Contrarian: Wendy Orent, author of Plague, says the much-hyped fears are unfounded: The new...
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Big Idea: Fighting Hunger With Ancient Genetic Engineering Techniques
In 1994 Howarth Bouis stood before potential donors at a conference in Maryland and unveiled his plan for combating malnutrition in the developing world. Bouis, an economist at the International Food...
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