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With Halloween upon us, it’s worth remembering that living things take part in similar costume parties all year long, adopting weird and wonderful forms.

Though rather than a haul of candy, organisms might earn the chance to live, prosper and mate. It’s all part of evolution, the principle where the fittest individuals pass their genes onto the next generation.

After harvesting a corn or soybean crop, farmers may plant a cover crop for a variety of reasons—to reduce soil erosion and nutrient runoff, increase organic matter in the soil, and improve water quality. Now there’s another reason. University of Illinois research shows that migratory birds prefer to rest and refuel in fields with cover crops.

NOAA's GOES East satellite provided an image of Post-Tropical Cyclone Selma as it dissipated near the border of El Salvador and Honduras.

University of Leicester mathematicians develop theory which helps to unravel long-standing mysteries of animal movement.

Climate change scientists warn that the continued burning of fossil fuels is likely to cause major disruptions to the global climate system leading to more extreme weather, sea level rise, and biodiversity loss. The changes also will compromise our capacity to generate electricity. In recent decades, capacity losses at United States power plants occurred infrequently, but scientists warn that the warming climate may increase their regularity and magnitude. This instability could interrupt power supply to homes, hospitals, transportation systems, and other critical institutions and infrastructure at a potentially high financial cost.