The Lepidoptera are beloved among insects. Most of us are familiar with butterflies fluttering beauty, seasonal migrations, and amazing ability to transform from caterpillars. But here are some surprising facts about butterflies which you may not have heard: 1. A butterfly’s personal history is gruesome. During metamorphosis inside the cocoon, a caterpillar must completely digestRead More

Life as we know it was fundamentally shaped by tiny photosynthesizing cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are single celled bacteria, sometimes misleadingly called blue-green algae. They live alone or in colonies in any environment that has moisture. Over 2 billion years ago, cyanobacteria triggered the Great Oxygenation Event. They are responsible for the creation of Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphereRead More

  If you’ve ever caught a snowflake on your tongue, you’ve likely swallowed a bacterium called Pseudomonas syringae. Don’t worry, it’s harmless. The rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria can be found in the exact center of trillions of snowflakes. Its presence there is directly tied to the formation of the snowflakes themselves. Snowflakes don’t just materialize outRead More

  A snowflake is made up of billions of water molecules, each one identical to every other. And yet somehow in a snowflake a single ingredient is able to form endlessly varying, intricate, and symmetrical designs. How do water molecules do it? The surprising truth is that in order to freeze, water molecules assume aRead More