A rare glimpse of the intimate lives of Bombay night frogs reveals unexpected biology, including a new style of mating embrace. The Nyctibatrachus humayuni frogs live only in India’s Western Ghats, a region of still-unexplored biodiversity. Video now shows that the mating male of the species positions himself loosely on a female’s back, with his […]

Tests of 156 bags of ice sold in grocery stores, liquor stores and gas stations across Southern California found that 19 percent exceeded recommended thresholds for bacterial contamination. Researchers also found that 56 percent had detectable levels of mold or yeast. The research was presented June 17 at Microbe 2016, a joint meeting of the […]

BOSTON — A new species of bacteria is causing Lyme disease, adding to worries that the infection will continue its relentless escalation across the United States. Lyme is already the most common tick-borne disease in North America, with new cases peaking every June and July. “In summary, the news is largely bad,” Paul Mead of […]

Inside the blackened guts of a 77-million-year-old dinosaur, scientists have spotted a surprise: the once slimy traces of parasitic worms. Needlelike burrows snaking through the stomach of a duck-billed dino offer the first hard evidence that gut parasites infected dinosaurs, paleontologist Justin Tweet and colleagues report online June 16 in the Journal of Paleontology. “Maybe […]

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Taking advantage of malaria strains battling each other could let doctors treat patients without encouraging more drug resistance, a lab test in mice suggests. Without drugs, malaria parasites with no resistance to a medicine often can outcompete any pockets of drug-resistant parasites among them, Nina Wale of the University of Michigan pointed […]

For burying beetles, it’s not whether a female wins or loses, it’s whether she plays the game. Female Nicrophorus vespilloides beetles lay their eggs in dead bodies — specifically, the bodies of small mammals, like mice. But dead mammals are hard to find, and burying beetles don’t share. So females will fight over them, with […]

Oddball eyesThe visual systems of sea urchins, mantis shrimp and other creatures are broadening scientists’ understanding of what qualifies as an eye, Susan Milius reported in “Strange visions” (SN: 5/28/16, p. 22). “The article … may be the best written and most fascinating article I have read in Science News, covering several decades,” wrote Patrick […]

Some primates have a taste for the good stuff. Groups of chimpanzees sometimes indulge in alcoholic palm sap, and some primates, including humans, produce a form of the enzyme responsible for breaking down alcohol that gets them more bang for their buck in alcohol digestion. Higher alcohol content translates to higher calories, so researchers at […]

Two land bridges may have allowed dinosaurs to saunter between Europe and North America around 150 million years ago. The bridges would explain how dinosaurs, mammals and other animals were able to hop from one continent to the other after the Atlantic Ocean formed during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent. Some species of Stegosaurus, […]

Flightless perksGalápagos cormorants are the only cormorant species with wings too small to fly, and broken cellular antennae that transmit garbled developmental messages are probably to blame, Tina Hesman Saey reportedin “How a Galápagos bird got tiny wings” (SN: 6/11/16, p. 11). Online reader Mark S. wondered if the inability to fly conveyed any advantages […]