Scorpions wield some of the natural world’s most formidable built-in weapons, from crushing pincers to venomous stingers. Scientists have long known that these structures contain trace metals that strengthen them, but only a small fraction of the roughly 3,000 scorpions had ever been examined for this trait. A new study published April 28 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface dramatically expands that understanding. Researchers at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute analyzed 18 scorpion species and uncovered striking patterns in the concentration and distribution of these metals.

Harvard researchers built a swarm of simple ant-like robots (RAnts) that can collectively excavate and construct structures without central control. Their experiments show that adaptive group behavior can emerge from the interaction between many simple agents and their environment, with potential applications in many fields. 

A new study in Current Biology suggests that restoration of a rainforest tree on tropical atolls depends upon the right soil fungi being present. The tree species, Pisonia grandis, is the backbone of life on and around atolls: everything from seabirds to the surrounding coral reefs depend on these trees. Research from Palmyra Atoll, the most remote island on Earth, suggests that these extraordinary island ecosystems are dependent upon a specific mycorrhizal fungi that supplies resources to these Pisonia trees.