January 2, 2025 5 min read Nanotech Scientists Build on an Insect’s Odd Soccer-Ball-Like Excretions to Design Ingenious Camouflage Artificial versions of nanoscale soccer-ball-like structures called brochosomes might be used to make new forms of military camouflage, self-cleaning surfaces or hydrogen fuel By Ivan Amato edited by Gary Stix Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo In […]
This extremely slow, meditative documentary about a scientist and her assistant studying moths in the eastern Himalayas can only be fully appreciated if it’s watched in a darkened room, preferably a cinema, with no distractions. Otherwise, it’s almost impossible to appreciate its unique relationship to time and action, given that practically nothing happens even though […]
Humans get a real buzz from the virtual world of gaming and augmented reality but now scientists have trialled the use of these new-age technologies on small animals, to test the reactions of tiny hoverflies and even crabs. In a bid to comprehend the aerodynamic powers of flying insects and other little-understood animal behaviours, the […]
Scientists study the flight of hummingbirds to design robots for drone warfare. Source link
Earth isn’t doing so great. Thanks to human-induced climate change, the seas are warming and rising, while the land – in many places – is alternately choked in drought or inundated with floods. As for us humans, we are engaged in warfare on multiple continents, far-right movements are ascendant across the world and, as of […]
When England’s team exposed caterpillars to electric fields similar to those generated by a flying wasp, caterpillars displayed defensive behaviors such as coiling, flailing, or biting. “This basically insinuates,” England said, that “prey and predator can detect each other just using static electricity.” Dornhaus, the behavioral ecologist, questioned whether electroreception buys the caterpillar much time. […]
Madeleine Finlay hears from Ted Schultz, curator of ants at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, about his recent study into the origins of fungi farming in ants. He tells Madeleine about the incredibly complex way that ants cultivate and protect their fungi gardens, and how the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years […]
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:17:28 — 148.9MB) Subscribe: | More This Week: It’s IgNobel Time!, Thermal Collecting Coral, PLANT NEWS, Nanobreath, Food Dye Discovery, Get Out The Trash, Earth Rings, Bumblebee Memories, Decoy Dolphins, Liquid Cats, Spy Squids, Human Cement, ChatGTP does Good?, Learning By Thinking, Memory Trash, And Much More […]