FlashFeed

Full text

Before Reacher made Alan Ritchson a household name, he spent years as a journeyman actor with a familiar face. The former model first broke through when he famously serenaded Paula Abdul during American Idol auditions , launched into acting as the first-ever live-action Aquaman in Smallville , and built a cult following as unhinged football captain Thad Castle in Blue Mountain State . Over nearly two decades, he played everything from a young Norm Scully in Brooklyn Nine-Nine to Raphael in the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , but his best role is one we don't talk about nearly enough: as Hank "Hawk" Hall in Titans .

Full text

Science word of the day: Autotroph

Pronunciation: AW'-tuh-trohf

What it means: Autotrophs are organisms that can feed themselves with inorganic substances such as light (for plants) or methane (certain microbes). Autotrophs were the first single-celled life-forms to colonize the planet, thriving on chemicals bubbling up from the subsurface at deep-sea vents or figuring out how to harness the sun for energy. Heterotrophs (like you, me and all fungi), arrived on the scene later to feast on these DIY-ers.

How to use it in a sentence: Stromatolites, microbial mats built by cyanobacteria, are autotrophs that thrived in ancient shallow seas.

Can you crack our science word of the day puzzle, Chain Word ?

Full text

Award-winning entomologist Dino Martins, known for his work on pollinators, shows in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to play

Dino J Martins has never been able to resist the small things. The renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, Joe and Sarah Ellen, looking at birds, flowers and insects on Mt Elgon, and in Kakamega forest and Kerio valley.

He was especially transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet – dung beetles rolling mounds of cattle dung; safari ants’ migrations across the plains; male butterflies that suck salt and other nutrients from the mud to produce “nuptial gifts” during mating; and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet alongside crops in a farmer’s field.

Continue reading...