Removal of an offender's hand, tongue or ear: punishments described in Babylon's Hammurabi Code, depended on the nature of the crime. Published in 1771 B.C., the code set the first formal standards for business interactions. ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 2, 2021
1
633
What makes a successful invasion? What keeps invaders out? Are some geographic locations more vulnerable to invasion than others?
Ecology
Jun 26, 2021
1
28
People—who get lost easily in the extraordinary darkness of a tropical forest—have much to learn from a bee that can find its way home in conditions 10 times dimmer than starlight. Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 17, 2021
0
15
The 17-year cicadas emerging dramatically by the billions in 15 U.S. states from Georgia to New York and west to Illinois are making quite a racket—a uniquely North American phenomenon—but thousands of other cicada species ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 14, 2021
0
8
On June 8, World Oceans Day, the President of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, signed an executive decree that expands the limits of the Cordillera de Coiba protected area, a step that will double the amount of Panamanian marine ...
Ecology
Jun 9, 2021
0
6
According to the International Whaling Commission, whale-watching tourism generates more than $2.5 billion a year. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this relatively safe outdoor activity is expected to rebound. Two new studies ...
Ecology
May 10, 2021
0
15
Tropical rainforests today are biodiversity hotspots and play an important role in the world's climate systems. A new study published today in Science sheds light on the origins of modern rainforests and may help scientists ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 1, 2021
0
1573
Giant trees in tropical forests, witnesses to centuries of civilization, may be trapped in a dangerous feedback loop according to a new report in Nature Plants from researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ...
Ecology
Mar 30, 2021
2
757
In Wonderland, Alice drank a potion to shrink herself. In nature, some animal species shrink to escape the attention of human hunters, a process that takes from decades to millennia. To begin to understand the genetics of ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 23, 2021
0
108
When falling in love, humans often pay attention to looks. Many non-human animals also choose a sexual partner based on appearance. Male birds may sport flashy feathers to attract females, lionesses prefer lions with thicker ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2021
4
119
