Underwater thermal vents may have given rise to the first molecular precursors of life
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Dec-2025 06:11 ET (16-Dec-2025 11:11 GMT/UTC)
We have all been in that situation: the moving boxes are large and heavy, but we are determined to carry them all in one trip, even if that means we can’t see where we’re going. In the tropics, some leaf-cutter ants face a similar challenge: carrying a load that is several times their body weight. To make matters even more difficult, scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama recently discovered that carrying oversized weights may create “blind spots” when leafcutter ants transport material on a trail.