The evolution of the anus may have driven the body plan of all advanced animals, including humans MattLphotography / Alamy The anus is a wildly successful innovation, but how did it evolve? A genetic analysis suggests it probably began as an opening used to release sperm that later fused with the gut – an example…
A cave orb spider blickwinkel/Alamy Spiders known for elaborate circular webs have altered their spinning style in dark spaces to create apparent tripwires for walking prey. Those that make circular webs are known as orb-weavers, and most of them trap mosquitoes, beetles and other flying insects in sticky spiral frame webs sparsely attached to outdoor…
Hanuman langurs have adapted their behaviour to thrive around human environments Ondrej Prosicky / Alamy A group of monkeys in India has developed a range of ingenious techniques to acquire food peacefully from devout tourists. Revered as holy at the Dakshineswar temple complex near Kolkata, Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus entellus) quietly grab visitors’ legs, tug on…
A map of the sky assembled using data from the Gaia space telescope, with the centre of the Milky Way in the middle of the image ESA/Gaia/DPAC Astronomers have had a rare glimpse into the heart of the Milky Way thanks to an errant star expelled from the galactic centre. At the middle of our…
A mosaic image of asteroid Bennu composed of images collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona The asteroid Bennu is puzzling scientists, with samples from the space rock showing weirder properties than they expected. These include extremely high nitrogen levels and improbably magnetic properties. Scientists have been analysing clumps of rock from Bennu since…
Life Even animals with very small brains turn out to have cultural traditions, which poses a puzzler for biologists wondering what makes human culture unique By Colin Barras We all know the story: give every chimpanzee on the planet a typewriter and wait until something monumental occurs, either the recreation of the complete works of…
KeyGene’s new potato variety (centre) has the skin of Pimpernel (left) and the flesh of Bintje (right) Courtesy of KeyGene A new technique for creating fruit and vegetables with the skin of one variety and the flesh of another could make crops more resistant to pests and droughts. A lot of the fruit and vegetables…
A female bonobo at Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Lukas Bierhoff, Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project Bonobos combine their calls in a complex way that forms distinct phrases, a sign that this type of syntax is more evolutionarily ancient than previously thought. Human language, often described as the hallmark of our…
Saturn now has a total of 274 moons NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute A further 128 moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn, bringing the planet’s total to 274 – more than there are around all the other planets in our solar system combined. But as advances in telescope technology allow us to spot progressively smaller planetary objects,…
Honeybees are vulnerable to seasonal die-offs Nicholas Klein/Alamy Honeybees in the US may have just experienced their most severe die-off on record, and we don’t know exactly why. “As of right now, it does look like this is going to be the largest colony loss that we’ve experienced in at least the last 25 years…
