Hundreds of animals eat fruit, from toucans to fruit bats to maned wolves to humans. But most fruit-bearing plants evolved relatively recently in Earth's history, showing up for the first time in the Cretaceous, the final ...
Ecology
Aug 16, 2022
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263
Whether chatting with friends at a dinner party or managing a high-stakes meeting at work, communicating with others in a group requires a complex set of mental tasks. Our brains must track who is speaking and what is being ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 21, 2021
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190
Pilots are trained to guard against vertigo: a sudden loss of the sense of vertical direction that renders them unable to tell "up" from "down" and sometimes even leads to crashes. Coming up out of a subway station can produce ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 3, 2014
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0
The baobab (Adansonia) is a genus of trees with eight currently extant species and a long history of humans marveling at them. For as much admiration as the baobabs get, there is an equal amount of mystery surrounding their ...
Evolution
May 15, 2024
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13
A high-sugar diet is bad news for humans, leading to diabetes, obesity and even cancer. Yet fruit bats survive and even thrive by eating up to twice their body weight in sugary fruit every day.
Plants & Animals
Jan 9, 2024
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73
Once a year, a small forest in Zambia becomes the site of one of the world's greatest natural spectacles. In November, straw-colored fruit bats migrate from across the African continent to a patch of trees in Kasanka National ...
Ecology
Jul 3, 2023
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264
Many mammals suffer hearing loss in old age, but bats were thought to be immune to this phenomenon because of the importance of hearing for echolocation. However, researchers in Israel have discovered that bats lose their ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 30, 2023
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9
Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, a new study led by Yale School of the Environment Oastler Professor of Population ...
Ecology
Mar 28, 2023
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146
Preserving and restoring natural habitats could prevent pathogens that originate in wildlife from spilling over into domesticated animals and humans, according to two new companion studies.
Ecology
Nov 16, 2022
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161
A new study shows how the brains of Egyptian fruit bats are highly specialized for echolocation and flight, with motor areas of the cerebral cortex that are dedicated to sonar production and wing control. The work by researchers ...
Plants & Animals
May 25, 2022
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