Marine biology: Watch first video of a possible rare sponge reef found near California

Vast mounds of sponges stretching for hundreds of metres have been discovered 600 metres down near the Channel Islands off California Environment 3 March 2022 By Michael Le Page Vast mounds made of the skeletons of glass sponges have been discovered 600 metres down on the seabed of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off … Read more

Hurricane Maria: Living through the storm accelerated the ageing process for monkeys

In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Caribbean communities, and we now know it had an impact on monkeys too – macaques that lived through the stressful experience have aged at an accelerated rate Life 7 February 2022 By Luke Taylor Rhesus macaques resting in the remnants of a forest that was destroyed when Hurricane Maria directly … Read more

Bacteria: Microbes form complex structures like those seen in animals

Bacterial biofilms, slimy collections of microbes, can develop concentric rings containing cells with different biological features Life 6 January 2022 By Alex Wilkins Bacillus subtilis, a soil bacterium, can create concentric rings when it forms a biofilm Kwang-Tao Chou Bacterial biofilms contain a level of structural organisation that we thought was unique to plants and … Read more

A Weird Paper Tests The Limits of Science by Claiming Octopuses Came From Space

A summary of decades of research on a rather ‘out-there’ idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth.   It’s easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but then … Read more

More Than 10,000 Studies Debunk Outdated Biological ‘Explanation’ For Male Success

From world politics to top-ranking businesses, to the upper rungs of academia and even Nobel laureates, men outnumber women by a significant margin. One claim to such disparity has been attributed to biology. The idea there’s some kind of ‘superdiversity’ among male brains has been repeatedly cited in the scientific literature in recent decades; but according … Read more