Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Moth's Eye Taught Screens and Solar Panels to Stop Reflecting
The eyes of a moth are covered in bumps far too small to see, and copying them helps screens, lenses and solar panels shake off their glare.
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Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Desert Beetle Taught Engineers How to Drink From Fog
In the Namib Desert a small black beetle stands on its head at dawn to catch fog on its back, and engineers have been borrowing its trick ever since.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Honeybees Give Each Other Directions by Dancing
A bee that finds good flowers flies home and dances a figure of eight in the dark hive, and the dance tells her sisters which way to fly and how far to go.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Termite Mound Taught a Building in Zimbabwe to Cool Itself
In the middle of Harare stands a big office and shopping centre with no ordinary air conditioning, designed after a long look at the tall earth towers that termites build.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Dung Beetle Rejects Directions, Says It Will Follow the Milky Way
Offered a shortcut round a tuft of grass by a helpful ant, a dung beetle pushing a ball twice its size climbed on top, looked at the night sky and carried on in a perfectly straight line.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Bees Vote to Keep the Hive Exactly as Warm as It Was
After a full day of consultation involving every worker in the colony, the hive has resolved to maintain thirty-five degrees, as it has every year since the hive existed.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Butterflies Taste With Their Feet
A butterfly landing on a leaf is not resting — it is drumming the surface with its front legs to find out what the leaf is, because it has taste receptors in its feet.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Why Honey Keeps Almost Forever
Honey is too dry, too acidic and too sugary for most microbes to survive in, which is why a jar at the back of the cupboard is almost always still good.