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Imagine if you could track the movement of every single cell in a developing embryo, tracking what each stem cell turned into. It could allow you to reverse-engineer the construction of an organism. University of Cambridge zoology researcher Matt Benton is tracking the movements in beetle embryos using movies like this one, observing the way cells move in the hope that we can untangle the mystery of embryonic development - and maybe evolutionary development, too. More »
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Whether he's photographing snowflakes, or the coiled shell of a snail, German photographer Matthias Lenke has a way of bringing out the details in his subjects — but he does an especially breathtaking job with insects. We think you'll agree. More »
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Explanations for why zebras are stripey run a wide gamut: some say camouflage, or that it makes it hard to target individual members of the herd, or even that it's a cooling method. Well, add another one to the list, which at least has some experimentation behind it. More »
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This awesome photo is of a newly discovered deep sea worm, Swima fulgida. Measuring just over an inch long, this little guy lives 9,000 feet underwater and escapes predators by flinging homemade "bombs" at its enemies. More »
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There's a new two-faced character in the world, and he's a lot cuddlier than Aaron Eckhart. Newborn Janus cat Harvey Dent has four eyes, two noses, two mouths, and one appropriate name. More »
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Big cats have the ability to roar, but what about purring like a tabby? When they're not giving Siberian tigers catnip, the folks at the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary are making informative videos on feline vocalization. More »
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Of course cows, pigs, and chickens belong on farms, and nobody looks askance at a farm full of llamas or buffalos. But there are some farm animals you might not expect. And when I say "not expect," I mean holy crap WTF - why are these animals being farmed? More »
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This supergiant amphipod has just been discovered in a deep sea trench near New Zealand. Its shallower cousins are one-tenth its size. More »
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Brain size can vary tremendously between species. For instance, the average human head holds around three pounds of cerebral matter; your typical chimp, on the other hand, packs about a third of that. More »
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Male splitfins wriggle about the yellow streak on their tail as part of their mating dance. Females are attracted to the wriggling tail because it looks like their typical prey. There's only one problem: the females then forget to eat. More »
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Scientists at the University of Missouri have made an incredible prehistoric discovery. A sizable skull fragment, recently uncovered after spending several years hidden away in storage, actually belonged to a gigantic species of ancient crocodile. This finding is unlike anything the researchers have ever seen. More »
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Whether you're laughing involuntarily at a joke, or smiling politely at a stranger's unfunny anecdote, your facial expressions play an important role in communicating with those around you. More »
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We all know ants are incredibly capable creatures. They live in vast, interconnected colonies, can lift several times their own body weight, and coordinate their activity with incredible precision. More »
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Adanson's jumping spider has eight eyes, but the way they're put together doesn't actually seem that useful for, well, seeing things. These spiders use a previously unknown trick to judge their surrounds and leap great distances...all thanks to blurry vision. More »
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If you've ever seen a common domestic mouse, your first thought probably wasn't, "You know, I bet that guy has an amazing singing voice." But it turns out male house mice are rodent crooners, singing ultrasonic love songs to woo females. More »
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Are gender roles in-born, or are they imprinted upon us? Science blogger Paul F. Norris went searching for answers in the scientific literature and came up with two incredible studies... one on rhesus monkeys, and the other on chimpanzees. What he discovered sheds some thought-provoking light on the nature/nurture debate over gender identity. More »
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What you're seeing here is a hibernating dormouse filmed by Dave Williams of the Surrey Wildlife Trust Mammal Project. Despite his log-sawing, this slumbering little guy isn't in any trouble — he's just an unusually stentorian sleeper. More »
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Have you seen this picture? Apparently it's been floating around on the internet for a while now, but has experienced something of a comeback as of late, usually with some version of the following caption: More »
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This is Siphusauctum gregarium, a creature that lived in the ocean 500 million years ago. It's so completely strange that it's taken scientists 30 years just to figure out how to describe it. It's literally like nothing else on Earth. More »
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National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore has a mission: to shoot (with a camera) Earth's endangered species in a studio setting, so that human viewers are forced to confront exactly who's going extinct face-to-face. So far, Joel's photographed 1,800 species, and shooting these creatures presents its own set of challenges. Namely, his subjects love defecating on set. More »
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Every few years, beautiful two-foot-tall snowy owls migrate south in impressive numbers from the Arctic, in what bird watchers call an "irruption." But this year, the regal-looking birds (which belong to the same species as Harry Potter's Hedwig) are showing up farther south and in greater numbers than ever before. More »
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This is incredible on so many levels. The video you're watching is of a black bear named Jewel giving birth to two cubs. The delivery was captured live via webcam just two days ago by scientists at the Wildlife Research Institute (WRI) in Ely, Minnesota. More »
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The United States has long been recognized as one of the most scientifically productive countries on Earth. But when you're discussing progress, where you've been is not nearly as important as More »
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To adapt to their eternally dark surroundings, Mexican cavefish have gone blind, lost their pigment, and changed their sleep cycle. You can see one in the photo up top. Here's the weird thing though...all those fish are the same species. More »
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To attract females, male great bowerbirds of Australia build huge, elaborate structures called bowers. They're impressive structures, complete with courtyard and triumphal arch. But the males also use forced perspective to make themselves look more impressive to prospective mates. More »
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Elephants weigh 3 tons and eat 200 pounds of food per day. Sustaining these massive animals is an enormous (and expensive) task. So what happens to circus and zoo elephants when they grow old and can no longer earn their keep by entertaining audiences? They move to a retirement home in Tennessee. Here's how two elephant trainers created a safe, beautiful place for these animal elders to enjoy their golden years.

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Are you big on science and science communication? If you are, do yourself favor and check out ScienceOnline2012 (or scio12 to those in the know), the sixth annual international meeting on science and the internet. More »
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As a last-ditch effort to distract predators and escape, some animals will remove a limb or organ from their body. Geckos take this already hardcore survival strategy to insane new levels — their tails effectively remain alive long after amputation. More »
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The latest State of Observed Species report is out. And biologists might have just earned the title of Hardest-Working People in Science, discovering a staggering 19,232 species in just one year, including nearly 10,000 new types of insects. More »
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It's been just five years since the deadly fungus was first identified in a small population of New York bats. In that time, "white nose syndrome" has spread to 16 states and four Canadian provinces. Once infected, afflicted bats have been known to behave erratically, flying far from their nests, never to be seen again, making it difficult to identify the true impact of the disease. More »
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This is one of the most succinct and interesting videos I've ever seen about how bees communicate with each other. Using a series of precise dance moves, they inform their hive mates about the locations of food sources. The vid was made by researchers working with a group at Georgia Tech called the Multi-Agent Robotics and Systems Lab (MARS), where scientists study social insect behavior, and try to apply what they've learned to robotics. Essentially, they'd like to program groups of robots to work together autonomously, but first they need to understand how insects do it. More »
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Few people can resist the urge to doodle in the margins when confronted with a long-drawn presentation, lecture, or meeting — but few of us can make a page of scientific instruction look as stunning as Paula Swisher, the artist behind the captivating pieces seen here. More »
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It's widely acknowledged that crows are remarkably intelligent animals (did you know that they're commonly referred to as feathered apes?), but seeing one engage in a pastime as distinctly human as snow-sledding is a sight to behold. More »
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No, seriously. The next time you find yourself at an ostrich ranch (yes, they exist, and yes, they are everything you ever dreamed they could be and more), there's a pretty decent chance of you getting hit on by an ostrich. More »
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In a manner of speaking, yes, Bigfoot did exist — although, perhaps not in the way many modern day cryptid enthusiasts surmise. In a piece written for Smithsonian's Hominid Hunting, Erin Wayman serves up the facts on Gigantopithecus — the car-sized quadruped that went extinct long before humans ever speculated about the existence of a big, hairy, man-like ape. More »
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A fertilized, incubated chicken egg takes about 21 days to hatch; and while most of us have seen what chicks look like at either end of the developmental spectrum (either sunny-side-up in a frying pan or newly hatched in a nature documentary), the fact that egg shells aren't see-through means that not many people have seen what goes on between days 2 and 20. More »
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Chalk another one up to camera traps! You're looking at a close-up of one of the only known photos of a living Myanmar snub-nosed monkey — a bizarre species of primate that is so snub-nosed, it reportedly sneezes when it rains. More »
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This video pretty much does what it says on the tin. The fish in question belongs to a species of pearlfish — small, tropical fishes known to seek out shelter inside various species of invertebrates... and if you happen to be a sea cucumber, "inside" means you're going to have these little guys all up in your anal pore. More »
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Hydrothermal vents are epicenters to some of the most extreme geochemical processes on the planet. The hot spots of geological activity make their home on the ocean floor, where jets of scalding hot, mineral-rich water spew forth into the depths of the near-freezing ocean. More »
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When many people hear the word "biodiversity," they immediately think of tropical rainforests, or coral reefs; but as this picture demonstrates, biodiversity is a concept that ought to be more closely associated with the ocean floor, as well. More »
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