A Chinese woman holds her protective-mask-wearing dog in Beijing, China, on Feb. 7, 2020 in Beijing, China, amidst the outbreak of the new coronavirus. There is no evidence that dogs can catch this virus, let alone spread it to humans.…
At least white paws make it easier to see richly-colored yarn. If you see a house cat, the odds are high that it will have white paws, a look that many owners affectionately call “socks.” But socks are rarely seen…
All about COVID-19 —See live updates on the new coronavirus —How coronavirus compares with flu —How does the new coronavirus compare with flu? —Why are children ‘missing’ from coronavirus outbreak? With novel coronavirus outbreaks popping up throughout the world, U.S.…
It’s International Polar Bear Day! To celebrate the wonders of the largest of the bear species, one that has become an icon of global warming and polar ice melt, here are some stunning photos that reveal just how magnificent these…
The bird’s frozen carcass was discovered by two men hunting for fossil mammoth tusks near the village of Belaya Gora in Siberia. For the last 46,000 years, a small bird that died during the last ice age has sat frozen,…
Spores of the parasite H. salminicola swim under a microscope. Those alien “eyes” are actually stinger cells, one of the few features this organism hasn’t evolved away. When the parasitic blob known as Henneguya salminicola sinks its spores into the…
Female common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) A newfound species of parasitic worm wiggles its way into the brains of baby lizards long before the reptiles hatch. How do the nematodes break into developing lizard brains? They sneak in through the…
The giant coconut crab (Birgus latro) is the biggest terrestrial crab in the world. Coconut crabs, Earth’s biggest land crabs, are internet famous from images in which they dwarf trash bins and tear birds limb from limb. But when these…
Inflation stretched the tiny universe into a macroscopic size and turned cosmic energy into matter. But it likely created an equal amount of matter and antimatter. It’s not clear why but the authors probe one theory that a phase transition…
Two tailbones in a juvenile hadrosaur — a duck-billed dinosaur — bear telltale cavities that hint at tumorous growths. A rare disease that causes tumors in humans produced similar growths in dinosaurs, new research suggests. Scientists discovered unusual circular cavities…