Do zombies exist in nature, and if so, what are they, and how do they enter this state of "undeath?" The word zombie first came into the English language in the 1800s, when poet Robert Southey mentioned it in his History of Brazil.

French researchers have created artificial "cocoons" for Zatypota wasps, which lay eggs on the abdomen of A. eximius spiders. When the egg hatches and the wasp larva emerges, it starts feeding on the spider and begins to take control of its body. The insect turns...

The bacteria — which insects disseminate — infect plants such as goldenrods, which have yellow flowers. The infection causes the goldenrods to put out leaf-like extensions instead of their usual blooms.

Researchers have studied the activity of phytoplasma, a type of insect. Phytopla...

1. One case study says the situation of a 53-year-old woman who "was complaining that she was dead, smelled like rotting flesh, and wanted to be taken to a morgue so that she could be with dead people."
2. Another says 65-year-old man belie...

• In 2014, researchers from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at Aix–Marseille Université in France dug a fascinating organism out of the Siberian permafrost: a so-called giant virus, about 30,000 years old, which they named Pithovirus sibericum.