(Natural News) Around the world, parasitoid wasps use spiders as the host for their babies. Researchers recently found that the wasps take advantage of the spiders’ hormone to force their victims into doing their bidding. A wasp starts the gruesome series of events by laying an egg on the body of a spider. Its larva feeds on […]

(Natural News) Your sense of smell may not be limited to just your nose. New research suggests that humans have olfactory receptors on their tongues as well as inside their nostrils. Millions of smell receptors fill the nostrils of mammals, including humans. Their effectiveness varies, but people have a sharper sense of smell than most […]

(Natural News) The spent shells of chicken eggs might go from unwanted biowaste to a cheap, renewable, and valuable alternative material to metals in lithium-ion batteries. A German-led study reports that powdered chicken eggshells successfully store large amounts of electrical energy. Led by researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the international team tested eggshells […]

(Natural News) The triangle-weaver spider, scientifically known as Hyptiotes cavatus, looks and acts like your friendly, neighborhood house spider at first glance. The most it usually does in a day is build a web and wait for dinner to fall for its trap. However, unlike a normal spider, this particular arachnid does something unusual when a prey finds […]

(Natural News) You’ve heard of all the ways to convert light or wind or heat into usable electricity. But have you ever thought that the coldness of the universe might serve as an alternative source of clean and renewable power? Most energy production systems get their power from somewhere. Solar panels collect light while wind […]

(Natural News) Imagine a crab with a lobster’s carapace, a shrimp’s mouth, and bulging eyes, plus the ability to swim. This stuff of seafood dreams and Lovecraftian nightmares is called the chimera crab, and it prowled the seas of the ancient Earth. Its discoverers dubbed it Callichimaera perplexa, “perplexing beautiful chimera” in Latin. The name came from […]

(Natural News) Rocks might not strike you as a potential source of clean and renewable energy, much less a substitute for solar panels. But Chinese researchers found that some stones sport metallic coats that naturally convert sunlight into electricity via the same process as photosynthetic organisms. The coating contains iron and manganese, two minerals used […]

(Natural News) The trail of slime left by slugs in the garden might eventually help patch up wounds. Researchers found that the “mucus” produced by a prevalent species of European slug possessed potential as a natural glue to close wounds, prevent infection, and reduce the risk of scars in humans. The slug species in question […]

(Natural News) Nearly 13,000 years ago, Earth’s Northern Hemisphere got clobbered by a fragmenting comet. New evidence found by University of California Santa Barbara researchers suggested that the extreme impact event also affected the weather and ecology of the Southern Hemisphere. The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) Impact Hypothesis proposed that the comet strike triggered climate […]

(Natural News) Most termites don’t deserve the bad reputation meant for the few species that are actual pests. An international study found that the insects actually help preserve tropical rainforests during periods of drought. Termites thrive in tropical regions with plenty of cellulose-rich plants that they can digest. The “sheeting” structures they construct above ground let them travel through the rainforest in safety even […]