Not all camouflage is equal. Here are prey animals’ best options

From crabs to caterpillars, a wide range of animals successfully use camouflage to hamper detection by hungry predators. But some concealment strategies are more effective than others, a new study suggests. The analysis compiles and synthesizes data from scores of studies on animal camouflage. Comparisons between different camouflaging methods show that masquerading as specific objects […]

50 years ago, physicists got a whiff of what glues together protons

An experiment … at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva … gives an important clue to structural arrangements deep within the proton…. The result hints at the existence of a new and very strong fundamental interaction — the process that holds [quarks] together inside the protons.… A number of theorists have speculated about its nature and […]

Passing through the Milky Way’s arms may have helped form Earth’s solid ground

Earth’s journey through the Milky Way might have helped create the planet’s first continents. Comets may have bombarded Earth every time the early solar system traveled through our galaxy’s spiral arms, a new study suggests. Those recurring barrages in turn helped trigger the formation of our planet’s continental crust, researchers propose August 23 in Geology. […]