Imagine a world hidden within the hollow stem of a plant—a bustling metropolis of ants, secret tunnels, nurseries, and an intricate exchange of life’s essentials. This isn’t a scene from a science fiction novel, but a real phenomenon unfolding in rainforests, jungles, and even your local botanical garden. Ant plants, or myrmecophytes, have evolved alongside ...
You probably know that one friend who still gets carded at the bar and another who looks permanently exhausted, even though they are the same age. It can feel almost unfair, like some secret genetic lottery you either won or lost at birth. But as scientists dig deeper into how our cells, hormones, and habits ...
South Africa’s biodiversity isn’t simply a cache of exotic species, it’s also a living repository of cultural history. For decades, scientific literature has compiled frogs and reptiles in Latin names, so the Indigenous nomenclature for these animals is dispersed and unrecorded. And now, in a trailblazing research led by zoologist Fortunate Phaka, the first comprehensive ...
Every year, in a world increasingly shaped by cities, highways, and glowing satellites, countless animals still slip into motion on journeys so vast they defy imagination. Scientists track them with lasers, satellites, and tiny tags, yet the big question lingers: how do they know where to go, and why do they risk everything to ...
A new species of mosasaur named Tylosaurus rex – twice the length of a great white shark, with finely serrated teeth and evidence of violent combat against its own kind – has just been identified from 80-million-year-old Texas fossils that had been sitting in museums for decades – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: ...
Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury are lining up in the western sky after sunset this week – and a Blue Moon is sliding past Antares – in a run of evening sky events that won’t be matched again for years – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Unsplash) As May 2026 nears its end, the ...
What drives the trafficking of gibbons? Conservationists shed light on demand – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Unsplash) Authorities across parts of Asia recorded an unprecedented number of gibbon confiscations in 2025, with 336 animals seized in the first eight months alone. That figure accounts for roughly one-fifth of all documented cases since ...
July 2026: What’s in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month? – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Pixabay) Sky watchers across the Southern Hemisphere can expect a striking sight as July 2026 opens. Three planets appear in the early evening sky, with Venus standing out as the brightest. The planet reaches magnitude –4.1 and ...
Platypus population expands to 20 in Australia's Royal National Park – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Unsplash) Royal National Park, just south of Sydney, holds a network of creeks and rivers that have quietly become home to a growing group of platypuses. Recent monitoring by researchers from UNSW Sydney shows the reintroduced population ...
Scientists claimed the world’s oldest rock art is 67,800 years old. But is the science behind that estimate flawed? – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Flickr) A technique credited with pushing back the origins of human artistic expression by tens of thousands of years now faces growing skepticism from within the scientific community. ...
