By Science News | Susan Milius | 6/12/2025 8:00 PM
Most spider species subdue dinner by injecting venom from their fangs. Feather-legged lace weavers swathe prey in silk, then upchuck a killing brew. ... Read full Story
A probiotic paste prevented the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease, but the treatment is still a proof-of-concept, not a cure. ... Read full Story
Nashville Zoo flamingos reveal the oddball birds generate many types of vortices to eat. The swirls could be an inspiration to human engineers. ... Read full Story
Parrots living in Sydney have learned how to turn on water fountains for a drink. It's the first such drinking strategy seen in the birds. ... Read full Story
By Science News | Susan Milius | 5/30/2025 12:00 PM
Warm temperatures, not just predator pressure, may favor luna moths’ long bat-fooling streamers, a geographic analysis of iNaturalist pics shows. ... Read full Story
By Science News | Tom Metcalfe | 5/29/2025 9:00 AM
A new genetic study could help saolas survive by enabling better searches through environmental DNA. But some experts fear they may be extinct already. ... Read full Story
By Science News | Jake Buehler | 5/27/2025 7:01 PM
Common bedbugs experienced a dramatic jump in population size about 13,000 years ago, around the time humans congregated in the first cities. ... Read full Story
Penguin poop provides ammonia for cloud formation in coastal Antarctica, potentially helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change in the region. ... Read full Story
By Science News | Freda Kreier | 5/19/2025 11:00 AM
Over 15 months on Jicarón Island, researchers saw five capuchin juveniles abduct 11 endangered howler monkey infants — all for no clear purpose. ... Read full Story
The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog contends that curiosity-driven research helps us understand the world and could lead to unexpected benefits. ... Read full Story
Analyses unveiled never-before-seen feathers and bones from the first known bird, strengthening the case that Archaeopteryx could fly. ... Read full Story
A study in Uganda shows how often chimps use medicinal plants and other forms of health care — and what that says about the roots of human medicine. ... Read full Story
Chimpanzees combine hoots, calls and grunts to convey far more concepts than with single sounds alone. It may be a first among nonhuman animals. ... Read full Story
The porpoise is critically endangered. Ancient Chinese poems reveal the animal’s range has dropped about 65 percent over the past 1,400 years. ... Read full Story
"Yes, Barbie is a polarizing toy ... but [Greta] Gerwig leaped right to what else Barbie is: a potent, complicated, contradictory symbol that stands near the center of a decades-long and still-running argument about how to be a woman. ... The movie is a celebration of Barbie and a subterraneanapologia for Barbie." — Willa Paskin, The New York Times, 11 July 2023
Did you know?
As you might expect, apologia is a close relative of apology. Both words come from Late Latin; apologia came to English as a direct borrowing while apology traveled through Middle French. The Latin apologia can be traced back to the Greek verb apologeîsthai, meaning "to speak in defense; defend oneself." In their earliest English uses, apologia and apology meant basically the same thing: a formal defense or justification of one's actions or opinions. Nowadays, however, the two are distinct. The modern apology generally involves an admission of wrongdoing and an expression of regret for past actions, while an apologia typically focuses on explaining, justifying, or making clear the grounds for some course of action, belief, or position.