Life Sciences

Who is the ugliest? A paper wasp with a deadly sting? A scorpion that crushes its prey? Cast your vote for the ugliest bug by December 15, 2009. --by Carol Hughes

Scientists are using new screening techniques to isolate the genes needed to make effective vaccines. --by Richard Harth

Single DNA mutations can make the difference between robust health and debilitating illness, but how do we know which mutations are which? Current tests aren't very reliable, but ASU scientists are helping find better ways to decipher our genetic codes. --by Richard Harth

A lack of individual options among ants minimizes their opportunities to make mistakes. As a result, they may be more rational in their decision making than we big-brained humans. --by Margaret Coulombe

Brian Sullivan studies toad toes to understand cross-breeding between two Arizona species. --by Matt Crum

When Comedy Central celebrity Stephen Colbert shamelessly asked the science community to name something cooler than a spider in his honor, entomologists at ASU and the University of New Mexico took him up on the challenge. --by Carol Hughes

Engineers are looking to schools of fish and flocks of birds to help develop better machines. Robustness, scalability, and the ability to function without complex central control are desirable features of artificial systems, and they can be found all over the natural world. --by Margaret Coulombe

Color might be the key to snagging a mate--at least if you're a male jumping spider. by Margaret Coulombe

For decades there has been a controversy about whales eating fish in the tropics. The debate has been at the heart of policy decisions about the culling of whales and is pivotal to the future of commercial whaling in the region. New research, however, shows that culling whales in an attempt to restore fish populations is not scientifically sound. --by Margaret Coulombe

You shouldn't use your teeth to open a beer bottle or crack a nut--you'd break a tooth or even your jaw. But our earliest ancestors could have done it. Super-strong jaws in our 2.5-million-year-old relatives helped them adapt to changes in food sources in their environment. --by Jodi Guyot