Science

The Pallas' long-tongued bat.

This Bat Knows How To Drink

by Rhitu Chatterjee

The Pallas' long-tongued bat has a neat trick at the tip of its tongue — tiny hairlike structures that fill with blood and stand straight out. This turns the tongue into a nectar-slurping mop at just the right time.
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Ancient Earth May Have Smelled Like Rotten Eggs

Reporting in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers write of finding fossils of bacteria-like organisms that lived nearly two billion years ago. Paleobiologist Martin Brasier of the University of Oxford explains that these ancient creatures belched hydrogen sulfide, the stench of rotten eggs, after meals--suggesting the early Earth may have been a smelly place.
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Living Inside the Box

David Boyle and Michele Bertomen wanted to build their own house on a 20 by 40 foot lot they purchased in Brooklyn. Bertomen, an architect, drew up plans and the bid was over $300,000. Inspired by Bertomen's students at New York Institute of Technology, the couple built their house from five shipping containers, which cost a few thousand dollars a piece.
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The four cuts at the top of this skull "are clear chops to the forehead," says Smithsonian forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley. Based on forensic evidence, researchers think the blows were made after the person died.

Bones Tell Tale Of Desperation Among The Starving At Jamestown

by Christopher Joyce

The winter of 1609-1610 has been called the "starving time" for the hundreds of men and women who settled the English colony of Jamestown, Va. They ate their horses, their pets — and, apparently, at least one person. Scientists say human bones recovered from the site provide the first hard evidence that the colonists may have resorted to cannibalism.
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