All Stories by Sharon Oosthoek
- Animals
Humpbacks flap their flippers like underwater birds
Surprising new video shows humpback whales flapping their front flippers to move their massive bodies toward their prey.
- Animals
Beware the tap of the narwhal’s tusk
A new video shows narwhals using their tusks to tap fish before eating them. They might be stunning their prey — or just playing with their food.
- Health & Medicine
Is your home chilly? This might just be healthy
Feeling mildly cold (or a bit too warm) forces the body to adjust what it’s doing to maintain a healthy temperature. And that can do a body good, data now show.
- Life
Weird mega-worm found to have odd diet
Giant shipworms have bacteria in their gills that produce food for them. This has made their digestive organs shrink from lack of use.
- Physics
Why your shoelaces untie themselves
High-speed video shows how the combined motions of a shoe’s swinging and landing on the ground provoke shoelaces to come untied.
- Animals
These killer whales exhale sickening germs
A group of endangered killer whales are exhaling disease-causing germs. Researchers worry these microbes could make the animals sick.
- Health & Medicine
Active teens build strong bones for life
Adult bones develop much of their strength during adolescence. That’s why teens should stay active with running, jumping and other weight-bearing exercises, a new study finds.
- Life
Cities drive animals and plants to evolve
Biologists are finding that some species have used genetic changes to evolve — adapt — to the pollution and other stressors that they encounter in cities.
- Oceans
Deep-sea dump: Trash is collecting on the Arctic seafloor
Trash is building up on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, including plastic bags, glass shards and fishing nets.
- Animals
Under blanket of ice, lakes teem with life
Life under frozen lakes is vibrant, complex and surprisingly active, new research finds. In fact, some plants and animals can only live under the ice. But with climate change, will that continue?
- Environment
Cleaner water helps male fish again look and act like guys
Water pollution can give male fish female traits — such as the ability to make eggs. And that’s not a good thing. Better water treatment may prevent that, data now show.
- Oceans
Deep-sea mining could imperil rare, ghostlike octopus
A newly discovered octopus lays its eggs in a dangerous spot: where companies are looking to mine valuable metals for use in cell phones and computers.
