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A member of Formica archboldi, Florida’s skull-collecting ants, next to trap-jaw ant heads that are found throughout its underground nest. (Credit: Adrian Smith) For 60 years, scientists observing Formica archboldi, a species of ant native to Florida, have documented something…odd. The ants’ underground nests are littered with skulls and other body parts, primarily of Odontomachus, trap-jaw ants. Trap-jaws are formidable predatory badasses. F. archboldi are not. So ...read more

Sending a Signal Treating Alzheimer’s has been a challenge because, until now, little meaningful progress has been made. Neurologists on the front lines have felt powerless, watching their patients disappear into the sinkhole of forgetfulness. Big Pharma’s focus on a one-size-fits-all anti-amyloid drug, and the billions in funding that went with it, largely eclipsed a dramatically different story that was quietly emerging from independent academic studies over the past decade: Other ...read more

Roaches aren’t the worst critters in our homes, though. Yes, they can carry pathogens, but your neighbors or children carry more. Also, experts haven’t yet documented any cases in which someone has actually gotten sick from a pathogen that a cockroach spread, whereas people get sick every day from pathogens spread by other humans. The most serious problem the bugs pose is that they are, in great densities, a source of allergens. In response to this real problem, and the many perceive ...read more

Antonia was missing. She had failed to pick up her 14-month-old daughter, Tia, at day care, and her sister, Jaclyn, couldn’t reach her by phone. Jaclyn headed to Antonia’s house to find out what the problem was. When she arrived, she noticed the front door was unlocked — a bad sign. She searched the rooms, calling out her sister’s name, until she heard running water coming from the kitchen. Jaclyn found the 29-year-old lying on her back unconscious, brown foam on her lips ...read more

Indian muntjac deer have both fangs short antlers. (Credit: Mauro Rodrigues/shutterstock) (Inside Science) — When do you need a broadsword, and when would you be better off with a dagger? That’s the question that faced artiodactyls, the group of mammals that includes deer, antelope, goats, giraffes, pigs, buffalo and cows, during their evolution. Many male artiodactyls fight over females using weaponized body parts such as horns and antlers. But pigs and several groups of deerlike ...read more

Neanderthals are thought to have relied on dangerous close-range hunting techniques using weapons like the thrusting spears depicted here. New research brings that assumption into question. (Credit: Gleiver Prieto) Is it time to put the stereotype of the violent and brutish Neanderthal to rest? New research paints a different picture of the ancient hominin — one that looks similar to Homo sapiens. Researchers previously thought that Neanderthal lives were far more nasty, b ...read more

A very rare rainbow in the Atacama Desert in Chile. (Credit: Carlos González-Silva) Exterminating Rains The rain fell in the Atacama Desert in Chile for the first time in hundreds of years, and it caused a mass extinction. It might seem natural to think that such rains would be followed by blooming flowers and new life. But, an international team of planetary astrobiologists found, this precipitation killed most of the microbial life in the region. “When the rains came to the ...read more

Sputnik Planitia on Pluto, where strange ridges can be found. (Credit: NASA/Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/O. White) Scientists have traced strange landforms on Pluto back to their ancient glacial origins. A letter by SETI Institute scientist Oliver White and colleagues shows how ridged landforms on Pluto provide evidence for glaciers on the dwarf planet some 4 billion years ago. Their research targeted the landscape that borders the ice-covered impact basin Sputn ...read more

Kratom is a drug popular in Southeast Asia that’s derived from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a tree in the coffee family. Kratom’s pain relieving properties allowed it to surge in popularity in the United States in the wake of the opioid crisis. (Rattiya Thongdumhyu/shutterstock) Across America, thousands of people are throwing away their prescription drugs and picking up kratom, a plant-based drug from Southeast Asia usually brewed as a tea. Within the leaves of this tropical ...read more