This sensor could travel into the stomach to help diagnose gastrointestinal conditions Prostock-studio/Shutterstock A swallowable sensor can unfurl in the stomach, non-invasively recording nervous system signals to decipher a person’s digestion and gut health. The pill-size capsule contains a long, skinny sensor that expands to align with the stomach’s inside wall. In an experiment with […]
A Megymenum stink bug Young Swee Ming/Shutterstock Female stink bugs have a bizarre organ that they use to cultivate a garden of fungi, which in turn helps protect their eggs from a species of parasitic wasp. Takanori Nishino at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, and his colleagues found
A bee from the genus Euglossa, also known as orchid bees Pete Carr Photography FEW insects (or even animals) hold quite as much sway on the planet as bees. As pollinators that flock from flower to flower, crop to crop, they keep the world’s flora and biodiversity thriving. And yet, thanks to a myriad of deadly
Indoor climbing walls may have high levels of rubber particles in the air fotodelux/Getty Images Climbers and workers at indoor climbing walls may be breathing in large doses of potentially toxic rubber additives, according to a study reporting that the air and dust in climbing centres contain high levels of rubber particles from the soles
Roots of the walking palm Wagner Campelo / Alamy The following is an extract from our nature newsletter Wild Wild Life. Sign up to receive it for free in your inbox every month. I’ve been thinking a lot about roots lately. In the seven years I spent studying and researching plants at university, there was always something
Artist’s impression showing a fast radio burst travelling from a distant host galaxy to reach Earth ESO/M. Kornmesser One of the most puzzling phenomena in space may finally have an explanation. It might be caused by the interactions between a “dead” neutron star and a planet in tight orbit around it. The strange phenomenon in
Red squirrels can carry bacteria that cause leprosy Karin Greevy/Shutterstock The DNA of leprosy-causing bacteria has been found in the remains of people and a red squirrel unearthed at medieval sites in the UK. This makes red squirrels the earliest known non-human hosts of the infection and suggests it may have spread between the rodents
In female mammals, genes on one copy of the X chromosome are usually inactivated vchal/Shutterstock Female mammals have a higher risk of developing autoimmune conditions such as lupus because extra copies of genes that are supposed to be permanently turned off get reactivated as they grow older, a study of mice suggests. The findings are
Pied hoverflies migrate to the UK from mainland Europe Will Leo Hawkes Many species of flies migrate for hundreds or thousands of kilometres, often in vast numbers, a review of the evidence shows. These largely overlooked migrations mean flies may play a key role in many ecosystems, in particular by carrying pollen for much longer
Simulations of the crust of early Earth show that cycles of pressure caused by geysers or tidal forces could have generated cell-like structures and even very simple proteins