All Stories by Jake Buehler
- Microbes
This amoeba eats prey like owls do
Meet the ‘owl slime’ amoeba, which drains its prey and spits out the shell.
- Life
Mega El Niños kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction
Long-lasting, widespread heat and weather extremes may have caused the Great Dying extinction event 252 million years ago.
- Life
Remote seamounts in the southeast Pacific may be home to 20 new species
A recent expedition to the intersection of two undersea mountain chains has revealed a new seamount and a rich world of deep-sea biodiversity.
- Animals
This spider makes its home in the burrows of extinct giant ground sloths
Caves made by extinct giant ground sloths make the perfect home for a newly discovered type of long-spinneret ground spider from Brazil.
- Animals
Hundreds of snake species get a new origin story
Elapoid snakes, including cobras, mambas and sea snakes, may have evolved in Asia, not Africa as many researchers once thought.
- Animals
Pheromone fingers may help poison frogs mate
Specialized glands in the fingertips of some males may produce seductive chemical signals.
- Plants
This tentacled, parasitic ‘fairy lantern’ plant is new to science
The bizarre new plant from Malaysia parasitizes subterranean fungi and only briefly erupts from the soil to flower.
- Paleontology
Early ants may have had complex social lives, fossil data suggests
The earliest ants may have been primed for a highly social life — 100 million years ago, the insects had antennae tuned to key communication functions.
- Life
The largest known genome belongs to a tiny fern
Though 'Tmesipteris oblanceolata' is just 15 centimeters long, its genome dwarfs humans’ by more than 50 times.
- Animals
Tiger beetles may weaponize ultrasound against bats
In response to recordings of echolocating bats, tiger beetles emit noises that mimic toxic moths that bats avoid.
- Animals
Glowing octocorals have been around for at least 540 million years
Genetic and fossil analyses shine a light on how long the invertebrates have had bioluminescence — a trait thought to be volatile.
- Life
This marine alga is the first known eukaryote to pull nitrogen from air
An alga’s bacterial symbiote has evolved into an organelle that turns atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, making the alga unique among eukaryotes.
