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Today’s scandal · Pathogens & Parasites

Nature's Zombie Apocalypse Is Already Underway!

Victims compelled to swim, embrace predators, and build nurseries for their own killers.

Researchers uncover parasites that manipulate their hosts into performing bizarre and sometimes fatal behaviors. Swimming lessons, dangerous attractions, and unauthorized construction projects linked to biological manipulation.

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Humorous editorial-cartoon illustration of three zombified animals at night: a grasshopper with a trailing hairworm lurches toward water, a dazed mouse shuffles toward a looming cat silhouette, and a spider with a parasitoid larva attached to its abdomen works on a web holding a cocoon. A large full moon and eerie purple sky create a spooky Halloween atmosphere.

Today’s Scoop

Someone has been tampering with the nervous system. And it wasn't a neuroscientist!

Recent Scandals

Climate & Weather Desert’s Story Falls Apart After Capybara Relative Leaves Tooth Behind! The world's driest desert has its long dry streak called into question. An 8.8-million-year-old capybara relative points to persistent freshwater habitats in this hyperarid landscape. Fungi Fungus Caught Flashing Reproductive Organs in Public! The cap and stalk are only the visible part of a sprawling fungal network. Beneath the spectacle lies a web of microscopic filaments called hyphae. Plants The Bread and Cereal Aisles Implicated in Ongoing Fruit Scandal! Wheat, rice, corn, and oats have been hiding a fruit wall in plain sight. A cereal grain is not just a seed. It is a fruit fused so tightly to its seed that the two look like one structure. Evolution Jurassic Squid Butt Exposed as CHUNKIEST of All Time! Two Jurassic fossils from Wyoming reveal a bizarrely broad belemnite rostrum and extend the known history of an ancient cephalopod lineage. Paleontology would like everyone to stop calling it a squid butt. We respectfully decline. Throwback Thursday

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Anatomy & PhysiologyVertebrate AnimalsInvertebrate AnimalsPlantsFungiGeneticsWorld of MedicineEvolutionSpace & UniverseSingle-Celled LifePathogens & ParasitesEcologyClimate & WeatherPhysicsChemistry

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The Rogue’s Gallery

No Species Is Above Suspicion!

Meet the named characters appearing across scientifically distinct scandals.

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Millie, Rogue Correspondent3 scandalsVinnie Sugarbeak2 scandalsFred the Ant3 scandalsSylvie the Garden Spider2 scandals

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