Death on the shore

Meet some of the people featured in the November 2020 issue of The Scientist.

While the world is still coming to grips with the new reality wrought by COVID-19, the risk of catastrophe from a warming planet persists.

Take a break from the bench to puzzle and peruse.

Predatory journals are especially dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early investigations of the microbial communities in and around sunken boats reveal that there are patterns to where bacteria settle.

Using their silk threads as a catapult, members of a family of orb-weaving arachnids rocket themselves and their webs through the air to capture prey.

Researchers disentangle complex connections among vegetation, herbivores, and dung in the South African savanna.

The same toxin targets different receptors in prey and conspecifics to deliver either a lethal or non-lethal blow.

Long-lived species decrease their reproduction more than short-lived species in response to lower-than-normal precipitation, and thereby gain a survival advantage, a study finds.

The University of Washington parasite ecologist aims to understand how humans have changed the diversity and abundance of the enigmatic and misunderstood organisms.

While some academics have called for compensation for assessing other scientists’ work, publishers haven’t warmed to the idea.

Is the model of early life as a freak occurrence in a disordered, primordial soup of chemicals wrong?

Lore has always surrounded argonauts, pelagic octopuses that build shells and travel the seas.

A recent study elucidates some of the changes that occur in the body after inoculation with a tuberculosis vaccine.

Knock-on effects of melting sea ice in the Arctic may be to blame for a spate of gray whale deaths along their migration route from Mexico to Alaska.

The release of gray wolves in Yellowstone decades ago still stands as one of the few examples of a predator reintroduction, and the lessons learned continue to be debated. New projects aim to do it again.

In South Africa, the composition of droppings varies by species’ body sizes, and which animals are found where depends on vegetation density.