Mythical King Midas was ultimately doomed because everything he touched turned to gold. Now, the reverse has been found in bacteria that owe their survival to a natural Midas touch.


Delftia acidovorans lives in sticky biofilms that form on top of gold deposits, but exposure to dissolved gold ions can kill it. That's because although metallic gold is unreactive, the ions are toxic.

To protect itself, the bacterium has evolved a chemical that detoxifies gold ions by turning them into harmless gold nanoparticles. These accumulate safely outside the bacterial cells. ...

Mr. Peebles from Pekin, Illinois, USA was claimed as the world's smallest cat. Mr. Peebles is two years old cat weighing just three pounds and measuring 6.1 inches in height. This anomaly is caused by a genetic disorder.

This frog (Breviceps namaquensis) sounds like a bike horn.

Sunda pangolins have become the most frequently seized mammal in the illegal wildlife trade in Asia, as smugglers sell the creatures to meet culinary and medicinal demand. These gentle insectivores are now on the endangered species list.

At first, it just looks like a worm. But when you peek closer, it slithers like a snake. It sticks its tongue out like a snake. It creeps you out like a snake.

Discovered under a rock in 2006 in Barbados, this thread snake is as thin as spaghetti and smaller than any of the 3,100 other known snake species. Researchers believe it is the smallest a snake can evolve to be.

Whitening treatments do not permanently whiten teeth. If you expose your teeth to foods and beverages that cause staining you may see the whiteness start to fade in as little as one month after treatment. Those who avoid foods and beverages that stain may be able to wait one year or longer before another whitening treatment or touch-up is needed.
You worked hard to get your teeth white. Here are some tips to help maintain your pearly whites.

• Avoid the consumption of or exposure to products that stain your teeth, such as coffee, tea, and red wine. If you do choose to consume beverages that stain, consider using a straw so that the liquid bypasses your front teeth.
• Brush or rinse immediately after consuming stain-causing beverages or foods.
• Fo

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This is the pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea), the smallest known monkey in the world.

They are found in western Brazil, southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia and they typically live in the understory of the rain forest near rivers. Males weigh around 140 grams (4.9 oz), and females only 120 grams (4.2 oz).

By themselves, miracle berries do not taste like much. The reason to eat them is that they contain a chemical called miraculin that binds to the sweet taste receptors on your tongue, changing their shape and making them respond to sour and acidic foods.

The upshot of this effect is that some things you eat taste spectacularly different. Straight Tabasco sauce tastes like donut glaze. Guinness tastes like a chocolate malt. Goat cheese tastes like cheesecake. After about an hour of craziness, your taste buds go back to normal, no harm done. ...

Giant African land snails can get quite large. They are native to Africa and are routinely confiscated at airports as they are very popular as pets in the Western world, and can be considered an invasive species. There is a population of these snails spreading in Coral Gables, Florida.

Fasciculations (muscle twitches) are the result of some kind of irritability of the nerve fibers. Because fasciculations are benign, they have not been studied particularly deeply (but, not all involuntary muscle twitches are fasciculations--more on that later). So we do not really know even where in the nerve the irritation is picked up--it could be in the cell body, could be further out in the fibers, nobody really knows. It is also thought that the exact localization of the fasciculation is random, meaning that you will feel a twitch in your arm or leg or eyelid without having necessarily irritated a nerve anywhere near the place you experience the twitch.

Causes are also only loosely understood; there are certain behaviors that can trigg ...

Here are some adorable images of macaw parrot chicks getting weighed and measured. The one on the left is just one week old, and the one on the right is seven weeks old.

Researchers at the Tambopata Research Center have been studying the wild macaw populations for years and tracking the growth of the nestlings. By climbing up into the trees and gathering data on these macaws, the researchers are able to do a lot of interesting science and gather information critical to protecting these species. ...