A silicone frog built by engineers at Denmark’s Aarhus University can’t swim nearly as fast as its amphibian inspiration, but it still manages to get the job done without any moving parts. The odd invention owes its slow-but-steady aquatic maneuvering to a set of six artificial muscles specially designed to contract when exposed to near-infrared
Our fingerprints, patterns on whale flukes, and fur patterns on cheetahs are examples of the natural ways we can tell one individual animal from another. For an Amazonian treefrog called the egg-eating spiny-backed frog (Osteocephalus oophagus), we need to look into their eyeballs. Fine black radial lines cross their golden irises, and form a pattern
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Mountain yellow-legged frogs
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 19 August 2026 Female treefrogs select less carefully when hearing a chorus of males. The dating advice of there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ is often not helpful — especially, it seems, for frogs. Claire Hemingway at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and her colleagues studied the mating choices of
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Too many choices
