Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and other New Ways of Engaging the World by Sharman Apt Russell. Oregon State University Press. 2014.   From the very first pages, Russell’s diary pulls the reader into experience. Vivid descriptions, lively metaphors, and breathless narrative bring together her diary entries into a larger story of becoming a scientist. Russell and her tiger beetles are revealed within her first entry—these are indeed the main characters in the ...read more

The hum of insects pollinating plants could one day be joined by a decidedly different buzz. Researchers from the Nanomaterials Research Institute in Japan have developed a system for transferring pollen between plants using a tiny commercial drone armed with an adhesive gel. They say that their sticky drone solution could one day help ailing pollinator populations ensure crops keep having sex. Helping Plants Get It On For their artificial Cupid they used an off-th ...read more

Yeast cells up close. (Courtesy Jef Boeke, NYU Langone) Scientists are five steps closer to synthesizing the entire genome of baker’s yeast, a feat that, once accomplished, will push the field of synthetic biology into a new frontier. An international team of researchers led by NYU Langone geneticist Jef Boeke on Thursday announced it constructed and integrated five “designer” chromosomes into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This collaboration, known as the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 proj ...read more

They say an elephant never forgets. But a more accurate adage would be that an elephant never sleeps—or, hardly ever. Tracking two wild elephant matriarchs for a month revealed that they averaged only a couple of hours a night. On some nights they surprised researchers by never going to sleep at all. This might make them the most wakeful mammals in the world. The sleeping habits of large mammals are a “contentious” subject, says Paul Manger, a professor at the U ...read more

In a curious case report, Indian psychiatrists Lekhansh Shukla and colleagues describe a young man who said he regularly got high by being bitten by a snake. The 21-year old patient sought treatment for his heavy drug abuse, which included heroin and marijuna. He also reported a less conventional habit: he visited a local snake charmer, where he was bitten on the lips by a “cobra” in order to get high: He reported that his peers and the snake charmer informed him that he would have ...read more

A project attempting to grow potatoes in Mars-like conditions has reported positive preliminary results. Based in Lima, Peru, the International Potato Center (CIP) is dedicated to collecting and altering potato varieties found around the world. The CIP began as an effort to alleviate global hunger by introducing special strains of the hardy vegetable to places with arid soils and harsh environments. As researchers have begun experimenting with earthly technologies in a bid to extend our re ...read more

The upper jaw from an individual from El Sidron. You can see the dental calculus deposit on the rear, right molar. (Credit: Paleoanthropology Group MNCN-CSIC) The stuff that clings to teeth can tell an interesting story. On Wednesday, scientists revealed new insights gleaned from dental plaque stuck on the teeth of five Neanderthals from Europe. From a few teeth, scientists learned how Neanderthals used natural medicines and how their diets varied by region. They also learned that mo ...read more