A Moment of Science

Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. But what even is that?

It may surprise you to learn that vampire bats are one of the most well-known examples of sharing in the animal kingdom.

How fast are your reflexes? Test them out with a falling dollar.

Since elephants are so big, they have way more cells than most animals. Which means more opportunities for elephant cells to go crazy and become cancerous. So why don't they get cancer?

Major events often make people happy, but does this last very long?

When ants first leave their nest to begin their jobs as foragers, they first have to make sure they can find their way home.

From stories of giant monsters to little green Martians, we humans can imagine some pretty strange creatures. Life, however, offers plenty of surprises here on Earth.

Moths are a lot less attracted to artificial light than they used to be. Learn more about what that means with today's A Moment of Science!

Other animals besides humans learn to recognize their relatives

Jellyfish, delicate and soft as they may be, thrive even in places you might not go swimming—including the Arctic.

Any list of the world's top ten most famous paintings will surely include da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." Part of the painting's appeal is its mystery.

Scientists are now considering the role that dopamine plays in our bodies’ response to other stimuli, such as surprising, new, or negative events.

Did you know that dog’s noses can be tens of thousands of times more sensitive than ours?

‘Biological invasion’ is a phenomenon that occurs when a foreign organism establishes within a community of organisms that it otherwise wouldn’t be associated with.

Hair and fur are practically identical. How can that be?

When you think of beehive, your first thought may be of honey oozing out of the iconic hexagonal cells. Remarkable as the honey may be, though, the cells themselves are just as interesting.

Microscopic hydras will trap and paralyze their prey. The next step usually is to stuff their mouths, only hydras usually don't have mouths.

When it comes to researching extinct animals the focus has almost entirely been on DNA because it tends to stand the test of time better, but RNA is the real secret to understanding how animal’s cells functioned.

The all-too-familiar American cockroach almost seems to know where you're going to strike. What's the tip-off that sends the cockroach running?

If you look at a green door at the edge of your field of vision, it's still green. Simple right? Not quite.

Tardigrades look strange, but they're made up of even stranger stuff.

Some academics have turned to creative sources to translate what existing research tells us about climate problems and policy responses: fairy tale characters.

What sets MRI, CT, and PET scans apart?

In 2018, scientists from Johns Hopkins and the University of Cincinnati attempted the first study of extinct Hispaniolan rodents using isotopes. What can isotopes tell us about extinct animals?

Male fireflies cruise the evening air, flashing their lanterns in a pattern characteristic of their species, looking for females of their own kind.