biology

Tropical slipper limpets are pretty unremarkable—until it's mating time. Then things get interesting.

The fecal samples taken from hibernating bears were less diverse than those of their counterparts.

screenshot from infrared video by Animal Energetics / Powers Lab

Getting rid of excess heat is complicated when your body is covered in insulating feathers. Here's how hummingbirds do it.

It's not necessarily a bad thing.

Scientists are trying to better understand their iridescent shades.

A bit of physics and biology are to blame.

One of the things that makes people so special is that we’re all different. Each person you meet has their own special talents, their own favorite food, and a different face looking back at them in the mirror.

Vásquez V.E. et al. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 2015

The aptly named shark is cloaked in black from head to tail and emits a faint blue glow.

In this episode of 'Big Questions,' Craig answers a pressing question from one of our YouTube fans.

Compared to other primates, humans have shorter and deeper periods of sleep.

Hippos apparently find meat far too tasty to pass up—but that doesn't mean they should eat it.

And they could help determine time of death. Paging CSI.

Jaroslav Vogeltanz, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0

Burrows with high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) can become death traps for the insects.

A new study shows that ant colonies act like “a single organism would in response to attacks on different parts of its body.”

Christian Grill, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0

Off the east coast of Australia, some fish are doing something funny.

Short answer: Your internal clock doesn’t care what day it is.

Left photo: A. Diamant. Right photo: P. Cartwright

Sequencing the myxozoans’ genome revealed their unlikely cnidarian origins.

Thanks to a pair of glasses, Michael Arbeiter sees some colors for the first time.

Birds' nests are as diverse as the creatures who build them. The variety of locations, shapes, and sizes they’re built in and the materials they’re made from can be staggering.

“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day” is not a sentiment that many would disagree with. But then there’s Nepenthes gracilis, a carnivorous plant found in Southeast Asia that relies on rain to help it eat.