If humans are ever going to live beyond Earth, they’ll need to construct habitats. But transporting enough industrial material to create livable spaces would be incredibly challenging and expensive. Harvard researchers think there's a better way, through biology. 

An international team of researchers led by Robin Wordsworth have demonstrated that they can grow green algae inside shelters made out of bioplastics in Mars-like conditions. The experiments are a first step toward designing sustainable habitats in space that won’t require bringing materials from Earth.

Harvard scientists have described a particular movement observed mostly in young, teenaged anacondas, called an S-start. A mathematical model shows that young anacondas, as opposed to babies and adults, exist in a “goldilocks zone” of relative weight and strength to allow them to execute the movement.

Experts from the University of Nottingham have created life-size 3D-printed insect models to explore how some species trick predators into thinking they're more dangerous than they really are — and avoid being eaten as a result.

In the new study, published in Nature, a team of experts, led by Dr Tom Reader and Dr Christopher Taylor in the School of Life Sciences, used 3D printed models to investigate Batesian mimicry – a phenomenon where a harmless species evolves to resemble a harmful species, fooling predators into avoiding them.

Mimics vary greatly in how closely they resemble the species they imitate, raising questions about what limits evolution of the less accurate mimics. For example, why are some hoverflies almost indistinguishable from wasps, whilst others only vaguely resemble them?