It resembles a mouse with big round ears and the tiniest little pouch to hold its young. But this isn’t your average rodent, in fact, it’s the world’s smallest marsupial. Yet, it should never be underestimated. The long-tailed planigale is an itty-bitty but fierce carnivorous mammal found in Australia and Papua New Guinea.Linette Umbrello is a biologist at the Western Australian Museum who has spent her career studying the planigale, a tiny creature that makes its home down under. The smal ...read more
Eclipse day is almost here! Come April 8, 2024, the next solar eclipse will capture the awe of millions of people in North America and across the globe. To prepare for this historical event, we invite you to join us on April 1, 2024, at 12:30 p.m. CST for a live Q&A session with our friends David Eicher, Editor-in-Chief of Astronomy Magazine, and Michael Bakich, Contributing Editor at Astronomy Magazine, as we dive into the wonders of the upcoming solar eclipse. Hop on the live stream here: ...read more
With their huge horns and their spike-spotted frills, triceratops weren’t the world’s friendliest-looking dinosaurs. But over a decade of digging at a fossil-laden bonebed in Wyoming has found a troop of five fossilized triceratops that lived and died together, supporting the long-standing suspicion that these dinosaurs were friendlier than they looked. The find serves as some of the strongest fossil evidence that these horned dinosaurs traveled in herds — a survival strategy potentially a ...read more
Social media is rife with recommendations to consume one supplement or the other. Promising to fill you with energy, enhance your memory, or more, these pills, tablets, drinks, and more can often stand on shaky scientific ground. Knowing which supplement is safe to take is essential.Vast amounts of supplements are consumed each year; one 2022 survey found that 75 percent of Americans take them, most on a regular basis. That means the industry rakes in billions each year. In the U.S., vitamin and ...read more
Though terrifying to people, spiders aren’t always treated with trepidation. Instead, for most of their predators, spiders are a safe snack — a tame and tasty treat — rather than a threat, forcing spiders to follow some pretty strange strategies for self-preservation.According to a new paper published in Historical Biology, some spiders take a particularly creative approach to protecting themselves from fearless predators, posing as much more threatening creatures: ants. The strategy is so ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine