A bobcat with mange markings was seen in Portola Valley in March 2026. Courtesy Kori-Anne Bagrowski. Residents of Portola Valley say they’ve been seeing a number of dead foxes and bobcats lately, leaving some to wonder if they’re being poisoned by rodenticides. Marianne Plunder, chairwoman of the city’s Pest Control Committee, said: “We don’t know … Read more
The latest update to LIGO’s catalog has doubled the number of confirmed gravitational waves – waves in spacetime caused by catastrophic events. And now, astronomers come to the dire decision of selecting an updated dataset. In a Nature paper published today, researchers have confirmed the first evidence of two unstable supernovae, doing so with gravitational … Read more
Over the years, various posts on social media have claimed that some female frogs play dead to avoid giving birth. Although the behavior can be closely related to the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), commonly called a possum in North America, there are other animals that, well, “play possum.” Biologists call behavior “tonic immobility,” or sometimes … Read more