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A Flea’s Fantastic Jump Takes More Than Muscle
[dl_subscribe}Spring is here, and with it, the start of flea season. With the warming weather, people and their pets are spending more time outside — which increases the chances of bringing home a...
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Walking Sticks Stop, Drop and Clone to Survive
There’s that old cheesy joke: What’s brown and sticky? A stick. But sometimes it’s not just a stick — but a walking stick. This non-native insect, originally from India, relies on clever camouflage to...
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This Dangerous Mosquito Lays Her Armored Eggs – in Your House
Here’s something easy you can do to fight disease this spring. While the efforts to end COVID-19 have upended daily life, it may only take a few simple steps to stop the carriers of other dangerous...
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California Floater Mussels Take Fish for an Epic Joyride
Ecologist Jonathan Young steered his rowboat alongside a rectangular container that was floating between two bright orange buoys. He reached under a plastic mesh covering and pulled out a large black...
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How the Coronavirus Attacks Your Lungs
COVID-19 resources for Deep Look Fans The coronavirus has had an enormous impact on our lives: how we work, communicate and congregate. At this point, we’re familiar with how to protect ourselves from...
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Sharpshooter Insects’ Sexy Vibrations Spell Trouble in the Vineyard
Entomologist Rodrigo Krugner has spent days on end listening to insects’ intimate conversations. This esoteric and painstaking bit of spy work is for a good cause: protecting your glass of California...
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Glasswing Butterflies Want To Make Something Perfectly Clear
Bay Area biologists are studying a beautiful and exotic butterfly with the hope that their findings may one day improve technologies from eyeglasses to solar panels. Named for their transparent wings,...
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These Sneaky Ensatina Salamanders Are Heading For a Family Split
Graduate student Regina Spranger walked just off the path on the UC Santa Cruz campus and flipped a log over to reveal a reddish-brown salamander. She picked up the squirmy amphibian, about as long as...
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VIDEO: Access to Nature Is About Environmental Justice
InsideClimate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. When a viral video showed a white woman calling...
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Cape Sundews Trap Bugs In A Sticky Situation
If you have houseplants, most of the time there’s not a lot of visible activity. They just quietly add some outdoor beauty to your indoor surroundings. A trapped insect is slowly digested by a Cape...
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What Actually Makes Water Roll Off a Duck’s Back?
Video by Josh Cassidy Article by Annie Roth Summer is a great time to be a bird watcher in California. Ducks, geese, and many other species of aquatic birds come to California to breed, build nests and...
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This is NOT a Dandelion.
Gardeners cursing as they yank out yellow blooms from the ground might be misplacing their anger. Not everything that looks like a dandelion is one. This is not a dandelion. To tell this catsear from...
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Is a Spider’s Web a Part of Its Mind?
Next time you see a big spider sitting in the middle of its web, before you scream, run away or squash it, maybe pause and consider for a moment all of the wondrous things it can do with that...
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Starfish Gallop With Hundreds of Tubular Feet
On an extended research visit to a friend’s lab in Tokyo, marine biologists Amy Johnson and Olaf Ellers witnessed something they’d never seen before. The starfish in Tatsuo Motokawa’s lab weren’t...
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Sea Slugs Scrub Seagrass by the Seashore
“They’re so majestic,” ecologist Brent Hughes says as he looks out across Elkhorn Slough, a large winding estuary off the Monterey Bay coastline. He’s not talking about whales or pelicans. He’s...
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Here’s How That Annoying Fly Dodges Your Swatter
If an outdoors, socially-distanced gathering is part of your Thanksgiving plans, beware of uninvited guests. I don’t mean friendly neighbors who might invite themselves to a piece of pie. A blowfly...
View ArticleThese Silk-Swinging Caterpillars Will Ruin Your Picnic
California oak moth caterpillars eat all the leaves on an oak, leaving a brown skeleton. Then they rappel down on a strand of silk, twirling and swinging. If you were enjoying the shade, good luck...
View ArticleThese Mites Rain Down To Save Your Strawberries
Two tiny mites duke it out on strawberry plants throughout California. One is a spider mite that sucks the juices out of the delicious crop and destroys it. The other, persimilis, is a crafty predator...
View ArticleThese Acrobatic Beach Hoppers Shred All Night Long
As the sun sets, hordes of tiny crustaceans called beach hoppers — also known as sand hoppers — emerge from underground burrows to frolic and feast. They eat so much decaying seaweed and other beach...
View ArticleFirebrats and Silverfish Are Rocking Some Old-School Looks
What *is* that bizarre fishlike thing squirming in your sink at night? Firebrats and silverfish are pretty darn similar to some of the earliest insects on Earth. With three long filaments poking out...
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