Rome (Italy), July 21st, 2021 - The remarkable structural properties of the basket sponge (E. aspergillum) might seem fathoms removed from human-engineered structures. However, insights into how the ...

The Venus's flower basket sponge could inspire the buildings, bridges and even aircraft of tomorrow, thanks to its performance under pressure and ability to go with the flow—literally. Imagine you're ...

Sponges are some of the oldest animals on Earth. They live in a wide range of waters, from lakes to deep oceans. Remarkably, the skeleton of some sponges is built out of a network of highly ...

When paleontologists picture the earliest animals, they tend to imagine something with at least a rudimentary skeleton: a ...

With their rigid structures and lack of appendages, sponges can seem more like plants or fungi than the animals that they are. Long assumed to be basically immobile, sponges have been spotted leaving ...

Simple animal life may have existed in Earth’s oceans 890 million years ago, according to new research. Recently discovered fossils belonging to ancient sponges might be the earliest known remnants of ...