Featured news
14 May 2025
Chimpanzees use medicinal leaves to perform first aid
Scientists observed chimpanzees in Uganda apparently cleaning and treating their own and others’ wounds.
33 news posts in Life Sciences
Environment
08 Apr 2025
Trees could be spying on illegal gold mining operations in the Amazon rainforest
By examining mercury concentrations in tree rings, researchers showed that trees could be witnesses to illegal gold mining activities in the Amazon, highlighting their potential as biomonitors
Featured news
07 Apr 2025
Scientists link a phytoplankton bloom to starving dolphins in Florida
A phytoplankton bloom damaged habitats, deprived bottlenose dolphins of nutritious prey, and led to a sharp rise in strandings and deaths.
Featured news
21 Mar 2025
Home sweet home: some great hammerhead sharks stick to the perfect neighborhood in the Bahamas instead of migrating
Scientists tracking endangered great hammerhead sharks show that Andros Island, in the Bahamas, is a year-round refuge for some individuals that choose not to migrate.
Featured news
22 Jan 2025
Curious blue rings in trees and shrubs reveal cold summers of the past — potentially caused by volcanic eruptions
Blue growth rings found in woody plant stems represent years when cells did not lignify properly because of summers too cold for growth.
Featured news
21 Oct 2024
Male flies with shorter eyestalks make up for being less attractive by fighting more fiercely
Male stalk-eyed flies with longer eyestalks are more attractive to females and more intimidating to males — but males with a genetic variant that causes shorter eyestalks are fiercer fighters.
Featured news
15 Oct 2024
How ‘vaccinating’ plants could reduce pesticide use and secure global food supplies
Induced resistance, where plants’ immune systems are activated in a controlled way that prepares them to fight pests and disease, could help build a sustainable and resilient agricultural system
Environment
26 Sep 2024
Mysterious orca group near Chile tracked down, revealing newly discovered hunting skills
Dramatic new images of orcas in the Humboldt Current system hunting and eating dusky dolphins could help scientists learn more about all southern hemisphere orcas.
Life sciences
24 Sep 2024
New indoor vertical farming research could help future-proof food demand for a changing planet
Scientists explore how dynamic environmental control in indoor farms could help us feed a growing population with nutritious, high-quality, locally grown fruit and veg
Featured news
22 May 2024
Babies in the womb exposed to two languages hear speech differently when born
Researchers have shown for the first time that newborns of monolingual mothers respond differently to playback of a carefully selected sound stimulus than newborns of bilingual mothers. The findings suggest that bilingual newborns are sensitive to a wider range of acoustic variation of speech, at the cost of being less selectively tuned in to any single language. These results underscore the importance of prenatal exposure for learning about speech.
Featured news
29 Feb 2024
Seeing the wood for the trees: how archaeologists use hazelnuts to reconstruct ancient woodlands
Archaeologists analyze the carbon isotope values of hazelnuts from ancient sites to see what the local woods were like.
Featured news
20 Feb 2024
Scientists track world’s largest turtles to previously unknown foraging locations
Using movement behavior models, scientists tracked leatherback sea turtles to new foraging locations off the US east coast
Featured news
23 Jan 2024
Ants help reveal why sourcing different plants for eco fuels is crucial for biodiversity
A study of ant communities shows that using diverse plant sources for bioenergy is crucial to protect ecosystems while making more eco-friendly fuel
Life sciences
28 Nov 2023
Female toxin-producing newts are surprisingly more poisonous than males
Newts of the genus Taricha produce tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin. Now, new research has found that females have consistently higher levels of toxins than males.
Featured news
17 Nov 2023
Fishing chimpanzees found to enjoy termites as a seasonal treat
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Seth Phillips Termites are a crucial source of nutrients for chimpanzees, who fish for them with tools, but they’re not always accessible. Now, researchers copying chimpanzee tools and techniques have shown that chimpanzees living in western Tanzania can only reliably fish for termites in the early wet season, when other foods are abundant. These chimpanzees fish for termites because they can, not because they need to. The results raise the possibility that chimpanzees could even be predicting termite availability before they go fishing. The discovery that chimpanzees use tools to fish for termites revolutionized our understanding of their abilities — but we still don’t have crucial context to help us understand termite fishing and chimpanzee minds. Are chimpanzees fishing for a seasonal treat or trying their luck? Researchers based at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and University College London (UCL) investigated the relationship between termite availability and chimpanzee fishing. They found that termites are most available early in the wet season. Although other foods are abundant at that time, chimpanzees choose to termite fish then. “I believe these results set up an interesting hypothesis about wild chimpanzee foraging cognition,” said […]