Almost 1500 bird species face extinction and we’re to blame
One-eighth of the world’s 11,000 bird species are now threatened, and in most cases farming is the biggest threat thanks to our increasingly meat-rich diets
Ants build a medieval ‘torture rack’ to catch grasshoppers
A species of tropical ant builds traps on tree trunks that allow them to catch prey almost fifty times their size, by biting their legs and spread-eagling them on the tree surface
Oxygen may have helped complex life arise a billion years early
Earth’s air suddenly got a lot more oxygen around 1.6 billion years ago and that could have triggered the evolution of large multicellular organisms
Worst mass extinctions may have been caused by rising mountains
A pair of mass extinctions struck in quick succession just before the dinosaur era, and the birth of a mountain range in South Africa may have been partly to blame
Trees may have a ‘heartbeat’ that is so slow we never noticed it
Trees repeatedly move their branches up and down during the night, and this may reflect water being pumped along the branches – just like a human pulse
Plants love carbon dioxide, but too much could be bad for them
Most plants were expected to grow more as CO2 levels rise, but a 20-year experiment suggests that the extra CO2 is somehow stunting plant growth, which could make climate change worse
Male fruit flies feel pleasure when they ejaculate
Male insects have been genetically engineered to climax on command, and it seems they get a real buzz out of it – perhaps even a fly orgasm
Flies cool themselves down by constantly blowing bubbles of spit
Blowflies repeatedly blow bubbles of saliva, which look like brown bubble gum – and it turns out this odd behaviour helps them keep cool
Most UK plants will flower at once in short ‘condensed spring’
Plants in the UK are set to blaze into flower virtually simultaneously, because flowering has been delayed two weeks by the unusually cold weather
World’s biggest bird feeder will use 500 tonnes of shellfish
A crucial feeding ground for migrating birds has been almost destroyed by pollution and a bad winter, but help is at hand in the form of an all-you-can-eat buffet