Animal Biology
How Can Dogs Smell So Well?
Dogs smell so well because their noses capture and analyze odour molecules with remarkable efficiency. Sniffing directs pulses of air into a large folded…
Oct 10, 2026 • 13 min readFIELD NOTES
Nature & Wildlife
Discover the remarkable lives, behaviors and ecosystems that make our planet endlessly surprising.
EDITOR’S PICK
How Whales Went From Walking on Land to Living in the Ocean
Whales carry the history of land mammals inside their ears, ankles, spines and genes. Their fossil record documents one of evolution’s most dramatic returns to the sea.
Sep 16, 2026 • 4 min readRead the discovery →LATEST
Latest discoveries
New stories, explanations and research from Nature & Wildlife.
Animal Behavior
How Do Ants Find Food?
Ants find food through a combination of individual searching and colony communication. A scout explores using smell, touch, vision, path integration and local memory.…
Oct 7, 2026 • 13 min read
Animal Behavior
How Do Beavers Build Dams?
Beavers build dams by cutting and transporting woody material, anchoring branches across moving water and packing gaps with mud, plants and stones. The sound…
Oct 7, 2026 • 14 min read
Birds
How Do Migrating Birds Find Their Way?
Migrating birds navigate with a flexible toolkit. Depending on species, age and conditions, they can use the Sun, stars, Earth’s magnetic field, polarized light,…
Oct 7, 2026 • 14 min read
Animal Behavior
How Do Owls Fly So Silently?
Owls reduce flight noise through a combination of broad wings, slow wingbeats and specialized feathers. Comb-like serrations on the leading edge, a porous fringe…
Oct 6, 2026 • 13 min read
Animal Biology
How Do Sharks Sense Electric Fields?
Sharks and rays detect weak electric fields with ampullae of Lorenzini: clusters of sensory cells connected to seawater by gel-filled canals and skin pores,…
Oct 6, 2026 • 13 min read
Fungi
How Do Mushrooms Reproduce?
A mushroom is usually the spore-producing fruit body of a much larger fungus. Specialized cells on gills, pores or other surfaces make microscopic spores,…
Oct 6, 2026 • 13 min read
Animal Biology
Why Do Some Animals Hibernate?
Animals hibernate to conserve energy during predictable cold or food scarcity. Hormonal and nervous-system changes lower metabolism, and many small hibernators allow body temperature,…
Oct 6, 2026 • 12 min read
Nature & Wildlife
How Do Trees Pull Water Upward?
Trees move most water upward through xylem using cohesion–tension. Water evaporating from leaves lowers pressure in the xylem. Cohesion between water molecules transmits that…
Oct 6, 2026 • 12 min read
Animal Behavior
How Do Bats Use Echolocation?
Many bats echolocate by emitting high-frequency calls and analysing returning echoes. Delay indicates distance, differences between the ears reveal direction, spectral changes carry information…
Oct 5, 2026 • 13 min readWORTH KNOWING
Popular & evergreen
Ecosystems
How Trees Lift Water Hundreds of Feet Without a Pump
A continuous hydraulic pathway connects moisture in soil to evaporation from leaves high above the ground.
Sep 21, 2026 • 12 min read
Animal Discoveries
How Electric Eels Generate Powerful Shocks
Thousands of specialized cells fire in sequence, turning ordinary ion gradients into precisely controlled electrical pulses.
Sep 21, 2026 • 14 min read
Animal Behavior
How Crows Recognize Faces and Share Threat Information
Field experiments show that crows can remember particular human faces and that social encounters spread information about danger.
Sep 19, 2026 • 12 min read
Ecosystems
How Coral Reefs Build Islands and Protect Coastlines
Living corals, algae, waves and sediments work across centuries to create reef frameworks, beaches and islands while reducing incoming wave energy.
Sep 18, 2026 • 13 min read