A toadally awesome defense system: How do Toads make their poison?

by Lisa Mesrop With their lumpy and warty features, large animated eyes, and soft-padded toes, toads are pretty darn cute. But there is one group of cute and slimy toads you don’t want to kiss. Toads within the family Bufonidae produce a poison cocktail from specialized glands in their skin that is potent enough to […]

Integrative Biology Incubator Workshop, Oct. 14th, 2022

Integrative Biology Incubator Workshop October 14th 9-11 AM PDT / 12-2 PM EDT How do plants, animals, fungi and algae solve the same problems differently? What blind spots become apparent in our core biological concepts when we compare and contrast solutions from different biological kingdoms?  What do you wish more biologists knew about the kingdom […]

Gut check: What does our social circle tell us about our environment?

If we have learned anything from the events of the past few years, it is that life can be highly unpredictable. Animals (including people) must integrate lots of – often conflicting – information when deciding how to respond to a chaotic environment. This is a subject that Dr. Jamie Cornelius, a biologist at Oregon State […]

Flex it! Twist it! Roll it! Complex tongue movements during chewing in macaques

By Mateo Rull Garza When people eat and drink, their tongues are busy doing all kinds of wild things, but the exact way tongues move was a complete mystery until 1954. This was when Abd-el-Malek sketched various tongue postures he observed inside the mouth of individuals missing their front teeth. Sixty-eight years later, cutting-edge, three-dimensional, […]

In honor of Women’s History Month, meet some inspiring SICB women!

In honor of Women’s History Month, meet some inspiring SICB women we’ve profiled over the past few years, and learn about their work! Dr. Anusha Shankar – profiled by ICB blogger Etti Cooper Hummingbirds are familiar fauna throughout the Americas; as charismatic and elegant as they are tiny, they often stop for a meal at […]

In Memoriam: Walter Bock

Walter J. Bock (20 Nov. 1933—27 Jan. 2022) was a prominent and well-known presence at American, European, and international conferences in ornithology and evolutionary biology and an appreciated and respected colleague and mentor to established and aspiring ornithologists. At the time of his death, Walter Bock was a Professor emeritus in the Dept. of Biological […]

What’s flappening with moth flight?

by Peishu Li Flying is hard. It takes master control over the production, maintenance and redirection of forces, as well as a keen sense of the surrounding environment. Yet the physical challenges of flying have not stopped animals from taking to the skies. If anything, animals have evolved a myriad of flying behaviors to suit […]

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