ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Researchers have found that variants of this cone snail venom could offer future possibilities for developing new fast-acting drugs to help treat diabetics.

The most comprehensive survey conducted of elephant numbers in the Central African nation of Gabon since the late 1980s has found elephants occurring in higher numbers than previously thought.

Galápagos giant tortoises can weigh well over 300 pounds and often live over 100 years. So what's the secret to their evolutionary success? A new study concludes that compared with other turtles, these animals evolved to have extra copies of genes -- called duplications -- that may protect against the ravages of aging, including cancer. Laboratory tests on Galápagos giant tortoise cells corroborate the idea that the animals have developed such defenses.

Biologists have struggled to study rare and transient muscle cells involved in the process, but engineers have lifted the curtain on these elusive dynamics with the launch of scMuscle, one of the largest single-cell databases of its kind.

The largest survey of pollinator abundance in Wales has found that woodland and hedgerow creation can play a crucial role in action to reverse declines in insects that are essential for crop yield and other wildlife.