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Elephants use the tips of their trunks to grasp things with great precision – how this can help robotic design
Pauline Costes, Sorbonne Université An elephant uses its trunk for eating, drinking water, communicating, exploring the environment, social…
We discovered Raja Ampat’s reef manta rays prefer staying close to home – which could help us save more of them
Edy Setyawan, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau The reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) is a tough swimmer.…
House of the Dragon: if dragons were real, how might fire-breathing work?
Mark Lorch, University of Hull In George R.R. Martin’s fantastical land of Westeros in Game of Thrones and…
How to stay safe during lightning storms – summer is the highest-risk season
Baseball fans clear the stands as lightning strikes near the Colorado Rockies’ stadium in 2019. Julio Aguilar/Getty Images…
Ferns and flowers bribe helpful ant defenders with nectar, but ferns developed this ability much later – our study shows why
Ants foraging for nectar on a Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum). Jacob S. Suissa, CC BY-ND Jacob S. Suissa,…
100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flying reptile that patrolled Australia’s inland sea
Gabriel Ugueto Adele Pentland, Curtin University One hundred million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, much of northeastern…
An ounce of prevention: Now is the time to take action on H5N1 avian flu, because the stakes are enormous
Matthew S Miller, McMaster University Bird flu poses a massive threat, and the potential for a catastrophic new…
Why doesn’t water help with spicy food? What about milk or beer?
Hello Dinny/Shutterstock Daniel Eldridge, Swinburne University of Technology Spicy foods taste spicy because they contain a family of…
Scientists can’t agree on how fast the universe is expanding – why this matters so much for our understanding of the cosmos
James Webb Space Telescope, NASA Gemma Ware, The Conversation It’s one of the biggest puzzles in cosmology. Why…
Searching for a female partner for the world’s ‘loneliest’ plant
Map from drone mission search for the Encephalartos Woodii in the Ngoye Forest in South Africa. © C-LAB,…