New lanternfly discovered in India – SWNS New species are being discovered at a faster rate than ever, suggests a new study—more than 16,000 every year—and the trend shows no sign of slowing. Scientists are predicting that the biodiversity among some groups, such as plants, fungi, arachnids, fish, and amphibians, is richer than previously believed. … Read more
– credit, Lazaro Viñola López via SWNS Burrowing bees generally prefer to make their nests in the open, but some 20,000 years ago their ancestors lived in a cave where they used the bones of prey animals rather than soft soil. The groundbreaking discovery was made in a Caribbean cave that narrowly escaped being turned … Read more
Courtesy of Kiley Riffell / UW There are dozens of ways to implement mosquito control, but none have proved a cure-all against the deadliest animal on Earth. Now, researchers have genetically-engineered a natural enemy of the mosquito—with millions of years of evolution backing up its deadly design—to attract and kill the insects even when humans … Read more
The Butterfly Nebula, taken by the Gemini South Telescope – credit, Noirlab / NSF There are a lot of nebulae in the universe, and they often get given catchy names like the Crab Nebula or Cat’s Paw Nebula. There needs no explaining the name of this nebula—seen in an image taken from the Gemini South … Read more
SWNS A new study is the first to show that an insect can differentiate between different durations of visual cues. In Morse code, a short duration flash or “dot” denotes a letter “E” and a long duration flash— or “dash”—means letter “T”. Until now, the ability to discriminate between “dot” and “dash” has been seen … Read more
The Megachile lucifer – credit, Dr. Kit Prendergast She’s got devil-like horns, but she ain’t after your soul: she’s only looking for pollen. She’s Megachile lucifer, a new species of solitary bee identified in Western Australia’s Goldfields region by a team of scientists inspecting a rare wildflower habitat. She’s also the first new bee species added to … Read more
The earwig’s delicate, paper-thin wings can open 10x their folded size due to its origami-like creases – Credit: ETH Zurich / Purdue University (Article by Rohini Subrahmanyam originally published by Knowable Magazine) As the microscopic, tear-shaped Lacrymaria olor swims around hunting for food, it does something remarkable: In a blink, the tiny protist extends its … Read more