Cone snail venom controls pain

Components of the venom from marine cone snails can block the transmission of signals between nerve cells in minute quantities. This makes them potentially suitable for use as a novel analgesic. Researchers from the universities ...

Butterfly proboscis to sip cells

A butterfly's proboscis looks like a straw -- long, slender, and used for sipping -- but it works more like a paper towel, according to Konstantin Kornev of Clemson University. He hopes to borrow the tricks of this piece ...

A new bizarrely shaped spoon worm, Arhynchite hayaoi, from Japan

A new species of the peculiarly shaped spoon worms has been recently discovered in Japan, and described in the open access journal Zookeys. These animals derive their name from their elongated and spoon-like projection (the ...

Hawk moths have a second nose for evaluating flowers

Flowers without scent produce fewer seeds, although they are visited as often by pollinators as are flowers that do emit a scent. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, made this surprising ...

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