Scientists from NTU Singapore and Waseda University have developed a flexible “diving suit” for cyborg cockroaches, enabling the insects to survive, and move underwater and in low-oxygen environments for up to three hours. Published today in Nature Communications, the study could expand the use of cyborg insects in search-and-rescue missions, especially in disaster zones where flooded rubble, puddles or partially submerged spaces can block access for conventional robots.

In tests, the scientists built plastic tubes that simulated various environments, such as flooded tunnels filled with carbon dioxide to replicate a low-oxygen environment. With the new 3D-printed suit, the cyborg insects were able to remain active and move underwater for up to three hours. This turns the land-based cyborg insect into an amphibious cyborg that could operate across both dry and wet terrain. The work builds on more than a decade of cyborg insect research at NTU, where Prof Sato has developed cyborg insects for applications across land, sea and air.

University of Tennessee Extension offers tips for effective fire ant control, helping communities stay safe outside this summer.

Traces or perforations caused by living organisms after the animal’s death can be found on various dinosaur bone remains. These perforations, known as bioerosion structures, provide information that helps us understand the relationships between living organisms in the past, reconstruct palaeoecosystems and improve our understanding of the fossilization process. Now, a study published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews has identified this type of perforation in bones and, for the first time, also in pieces of dermal armour (osteoderms) from titanosaurs at the Lo Hueco site (Cuenca,Spain), dating from the Late Cretaceous.

Researchers combined adaptive optics and parallel optical coherence tomography to capture high-speed, 3D views of individual cells in the living retina. This non-invasive advance could drastically improve the early  detection and monitoring of chorioretinal diseases. 

Agricultural scientists are rethinking their battle plans against plant parasites that cause billions of dollars in annual yield losses for American farmers. 

Chemical nematicides, soil treatments and biological controls have had mixed success against the soybean cyst nematode, and many potential solutions carry environmental or economic limitations.

Host resistance — breeding soybean varieties that can withstand infection — has been the most effective and environmentally friendly management tool, but its usefulness is declining. Asia Kud, an assistant professor of nematology in the department of entomology and plant pathology for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Kud was awarded a $298,913 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to continue researching a strategy to stop these pest nematodes from feeding and reproducing by interfering feeding sites they create with proteins called effectors.

Pollinators are commonly classified into functional groups based on similarities in morphology and behavior, under the assumption that such groupings reflect comparable contributions to plant reproduction. Researchers at University of Tsukuba challenge this conventional assumption by analyzing pollen carried on insect bodies. The team found that even among morphologically similar pollinators differed substantialy in both the types and composition of pollen they transported. These differences suggest considerable variation in floral fidelity—the tendency to repeatedly visit specific plant species—and may also affect the potential for heterospecific pollen transfer (HPT).

Some insects and microbes develop symbiotic partnerships, which become so interdependent that they can no longer survive without each other.

But how specific are these heritable symbioses? Is it possible for the same species of bacteria to flourish across different species of insect hosts, or are these partnerships more fixed, honed over millions of years of evolution?

An enigmatic new species of wormlion fly, whose larvae construct clever pitfall traps to capture prey, has been revealed in a study led by researchers at Dali University in China. The fly, described in a recent paper in the open-access journal ZooKeys, was identified after a 2025 expedition successfully collected adult specimens in Yadong County, southern Xizang.