In 1989, two undergraduate students at the Free University of Brussels were asked to test frozen blood serum from camels, and stumbled on a previously unknown kind of antibody. It was a miniaturized version of a human antibody, made up only of two heavy protein chains, rather than two light and two heavy chains. As they eventually reported, the antibodies' presence was confirmed not only in camels, but also in llamas and alpacas. […]

During the Great Depression, some unemployed Texans were put to work as fossil hunters. The workers retrieved tens of thousands of specimens that have been studied in small bits and pieces while stored in the state collections of The University of Texas at Austin for the past 80 years. […]

Researchers have discovered that a bacterium found in camel crickets is capable of breaking down lignin—the stuff that makes wood tough—opening new research pathways for the development of biofuels and chemical manufacturing. The study also highlights the potential inherent in using ecosystem analysis as a tool for targeting research into the identification of commercially valuable microorganisms with industrial applications. […]

In January 2019, fires burned across a 100-kilometre length of the iconic Tjoritja National Park in the West MacDonnell Ranges, from Ormiston Gorge nearly to the edge of Alice Springs. […]

When the Australian government relocated Martu hunter-gatherers from their Western Australia lands in the 1960s, no one could have predicted the massive impact their absence would have on the desert ecosystem. A new study led by Stefani Crabtree, a Santa Fe Institute Visiting Researcher (Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center), and co-authored by Rebecca Bliege Bird and Douglas W. Bird of the Pennsylvania State University, shows the critical role humans […]