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Florida carpenter ants have been found to perform life-saving amputations on their injured nestmates, making them only the second animal species known to do so, alongside humans. Researchers discovered that the ants identify limb wounds on their peers and treat them with either cleaning or amputation. The surgeries have significantly improved the survival rates of the injured ants, with femur injuries seeing a survival rate increase from less than 40% to between 90 and 95% when amputations were performed. The researchers speculate that the ants only amputate femur injuries due to speed limitations, as the process takes at least 40 minutes to complete. [Extracted from the article]

Fossils dating back 1.75 billion years have provided the earliest direct evidence of photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria, the oldest known life form on Earth, were found in fossils from Australia and Canada. These cyanobacteria fossils contained photosynthetic structures called thylakoid membranes, which convert light into chemical energy. The discovery pushes back the fossil record of these membranes by 1.2 billion years. The rise in atmospheric oxygen around 2.45 billion years ago, known as the Great Oxidation Event, transformed life on Earth, but the exact cause of this event is still debated among scientists. The use of electron microscopy in this study could help reanalyze older fossil samples to determine when cyanobacteria first evolved these membranes. [Extracted from the article]

A recent physics paper suggests that black holes could potentially be used as a source of energy. The study proposes two methods for extracting energy from black holes based on their rotational and gravitational properties. In one scenario, scientists would charge the black hole by injecting it with electrically charged particles until it reached a point where the electromagnetic repulsion was greater than the gravitational pull. The researchers estimate that this process could have an efficiency of 25%, making it significantly more efficient than an atomic bomb. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the mysterious regeneration process of the henon bamboo, a species that flowers only once every 120 years, with recent observations showing limited asexual reproduction, potentially posing economic and environmental challenges.