Despite their adorably puffy tails, squirrels are a genuine nuisance. So it warms our hearts to see the nerds of the world banding together to battle these furry invaders with what they do best: engineering over-the-top solutions like this water cannon sentry system.
Meet the 505-million-year-old Pikaia gracilens. Everything we know of this prehistoric “fish-like worm” is discerned from its fossils, but a close investigation reveals that these wiggly little guys might be your oldest ancestors.
Their descendants are happy to just suck blood and pass along parasites to small mammals, but the huge prehistoric fleas from 165 million years ago were equipped with saw-like projections around their mouth — for penetrating thick dino hides — that would probably make short work of a chihuahua.
We take clean drinking water for granted, but in the developing world it’s a big and expensive problem. Now, scientists are turning to a plant known as the Miracle Tree to create a new way of purifying water.
If you thought emperor penguins were big, this prehistoric cousin put them to shame. In its day it stood over 1.2m tall and was 50 per cent heavier than the already pretty massive emperor we know today.
There are pros and cons to being a bat. Pros: can fly and catch prey in the dark, have a luscious fur coat. Cons: have possibly the ugliest nose in the known universe. Well, that is, if you’re this newly discovered leaf-nosed bat from Vietnam.
Heaps of sea creatures glow to produce light — often in order to see in the murky depths. But scientists have discovered that many bacteria glow for a very strange reason; they want to get eaten.
Every year, there’s a temporal waterfall seemingly flowing with lava down the east side of El Capitan, the massive granite formation in Yosemite Park, California. Only people at the right place and time are able to see it.
Despite being perhaps the most recognisable animal on the planet, biologists have been puzzled for centuries over how the zebra got its stripes. But scientists have worked out an answer, and it’s nothing to do with camouflaging themselves in long grass.
The movie Koyaanisqatsi was revolutionary when it came out in 1982, and 30 years later it’s still an incredible work. But for those who can’t sit through 90 minutes of beautiful slow-mo footage, here it is, sped up 1552 per cent.
