In tissue samples drawn from elephant skin biopsies across 17 African countries, in collections that have sat in biobanks for more than thirty years, something like a historical record was waiting to be read. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and their collaborators have now done exactly that: sequenced 232 whole genomes from both savanna … Read more
Some of the wolf teeth that Amanda Burtt examined have been sitting in museum drawers since the 1840s. They were pulled from British caves and gravel pits by Victorian collectors who had no concept of climate change, no electron microscopes, and certainly no idea that the scratches on a molar could tell you what an … Read more
Off Canada’s coast, in the cold waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, something extraordinary is quietly happening. Three species of baleen whales—creatures so massive they seem to belong to another era—are changing what they eat. They’re doing it together, shifting their feeding patterns as the ocean warms. But this isn’t the violent competition you … Read more
Tropical house crickets raised in Ottawa, Canada, happily gobbled polyethylene microplastics mixed into their feed, treating them much like normal food. The work appears in Environmental Science & Technology and followed the insects for seven weeks as they grew roughly 20 times heavier without obvious stunting despite chronic plastic exposure. The team used fluorescent plastic … Read more
When the air around them turns desert dry, Madagascar hissing cockroaches do something surprisingly tender: they press their bodies together and ride out the stress as a crowd. In a new piece of research from Binghamton University, biologists show that these big, familiar classroom insects change how tightly they pack together depending on humidity, using … Read more
In the forests of California’s Sierra Nevada, what once looked like destruction is turning out to be renewal. A new study finds that low- and moderate-severity wildfires can benefit bird populations for decades, offering fresh evidence that fire is not always the enemy of wildlife it is often made out to be. The research, published … Read more
They dine where they defecate, swim where they hunt, and swallow prey crawling with parasites. North American river otters in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay may not follow our hygiene rules, but their eating habits reveal a surprisingly important ecological role. In a new study published in Frontiers in Mammal Science, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center scientists offer … Read more
When wildfires scorched half of Brazil’s northern Pantanal in 2020, researchers expected to find fewer jaguars in their long-term study site. Instead, they discovered something remarkable: the wetland had become a magnet for the big cats, drawing immigrants from fire-ravaged areas and boosting the local population to even higher densities. The finding suggests this corner … Read more
A new report released on World Bee Day identifies twelve emerging threats that could accelerate pollinator losses over the next decade, with microplastics, conflict-driven crop simplification, and poorly planned climate actions topping the list. The findings from Bee:wild, a science-led global campaign, highlight how these novel dangers could compound well-established threats like habitat loss and … Read more
When scientists set out to see if fish could evolve to survive in warmer waters, they never expected to discover a surprising superpower. Not only did these fish adapt to heat—they became more resistant to cold temperatures too, potentially giving them an unexpected edge in our rapidly changing climate. The study, published Wednesday in Nature … Read more