Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto. It's a ...

When a female mason wasp feels threatened, she jabs her stinger at an attacker, injecting it with a potent venom so she can make her escape. Male wasps lack this defense, because stingers evolved from ...

Female bees and wasps use modified ovipositors, formerly used in egg laying, to sting their attackers, including people. Now, a study in Current Biology on December 19 shows that male mason wasps use ...

Female wasps have a venomous sting to discourage predators, but males lack this protection. Now, researchers have discovered that male mason wasps have an alternative defence strategy: using their ...

Fending off an attacker by swordplay with two genital spines turns out to be a moderately useful form of self-defense for male wasps, an unusual study shows. A mason wasp’s rear spikes may be useless ...