There's a spot in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico where great white sharks hang en masse. This is the White Shark Cafe, and it's not the plot of a fictional story - it's a real place. Originally discovered 14 years ago by Stanford marine scientist Barbara Block, this year a team of researchers took the plunge to see what was up - or down, rather.
There's a pest-removal proposal going down in Southland, New Zealand, that'll ban cats, goats, and pigs. If you live in this region, once the proposal is put into effect, you're going to need to get your cat chipped - or it could get removed and destroyed. Per the proposal's outline, these animals aren't the pests - they're just part of the pest problem. As such, they've gotta be kicked out - or at least kicked into gear.
A mesmerizing natural light show long considered to be another aurora is actually something completely unknown, scientists have concluded, after digging into the oddly-named STEVE phenomenon. The glowing ribbons of white and purple light had been observed in Canada's night sky for many years, with the unsurprising assumption that it was just another type of aurora.
When your fellow dinosaurs have big teeth and even bigger appetites, what's a herbivore to do but develop some seriously impressive natural armor. That's the case with Akainacephalus johnsoni, a freshly-identified dinosaur the remains of which were extracted from a cache of ancient bones in Utah.
This week a report showed off the newest "world's oldest" rain forest frogs. "It was exhilarating to hold these small fossils up to the light to reveal the frogs within," said David C. Blackburn, one of several paleontologists that authored the study published this week. "We have few small and intact fossil frogs, and the primary specimen of Electrorana is a rare find."
There's a whole lot of fungus amongst us coming with resistance to the drugs with which we resist them. The rate at which pathogenic fungi are resisting commonly used antifungal agents is, as researchers suggest this week, "unprecedented." One of the causes for this situation is the massive use of drug elements like azoles, currently used for "not only human and animal health care and crop protection but also in antifouling coatings and timber preservation."
There's a volcano by the name of Kilauea leaking lava in Hawaii right now - did you know? Let's have a chat about what's going down. This week interest in the volcano's become especially important because of the very active nature of Kilauea's contents - and therefore the surrounding area. Thanks to the the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA's Terra satellite, Hawaii's been given warning of the hotspots in the area surrounding the volcano. Today we get to see what the satellite's seen.
Two types of sunscreen were banned from sale in Hawaii in a State Senate action this week. Those sunscreens and sunblocks (whatever you'd like to call them) with oxybenzone and octinoxate were banned after enactment by the legislature of the state of Hawaii. According to the bill for the act, these chemicals kill coral - and you know what happens when all the coral dies, right?
If you wanted to know what the first bird beak looked like, today's your lucky day. The Ichthyornis dispar was the subject of a paper published this week. Ichthyornis dispar is the name of a creature with the now-oldest bird beak in the world. "The first beak was a horn-covered pincer tip at the end of the jaw," said researcher and Yale paleontologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar. "The remainder of the jaw was filled with teeth."
A new group of exploding ant called Colobopsis explodens was identified in a research paper this week. The "explodens" name isn't just for show - these ants actually explode with toxic yellow goo - that was its name before it received its scientific name too - Yellow Goo! The explosion isn't like a bomb - it's more like a flex, a tear, and an oozing out. It's really disgusting if you're on the attack's receiving end.
One of the most iconic underwater reefs in the world is the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. A new study has looked at the effects of global warming on the reef and specifically looked at the record-setting heatwave in 2016 and its effects on the Great Barrier Reef. The results of the study have been published in Nature.
You might think being able to hover in place and dip your long, stealthy beak into the sweetest nectar would be enough as a male hummingbird to attract a mate, but it turns out female Costa's hummingbirds are a little more demanding. Scientists researching the birds have observed unusual flying patterns, in which the male birds produce an unexpected type of song: from their tails.