Animals
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Life
Bird feeding, migration could be splitting a species
German birds that spend the off-season at U.K. birdfeeders now look slightly different from neighbors that migrate to Spain
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Little push turns snail lefties to righties
Bumping an early embryo’s cells can switch the direction of its spiral.
By Susan Milius -
Life
Fecal architecture is beetle armor
Predators have a hard time getting through the layers of excrement some beetle moms give their young.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Classic view of leaf-cutter ants overlooked nitrogen-fixing partner
A fresh look at a fungus-insect partnership that biologists have studied for more than a century uncovers a role for bacteria.
By Susan Milius -
Life
Killer bees aren’t so smart
Brains are probably not what powers the invasive bee’s takeover from European honeybees
By Susan Milius -
Health & Medicine
Genome 10K: A new ark
Featured blog: Researchers are working to catalog the DNA sequences of just about every vertebrate genus.
By Janet Raloff -
Animals
Textbook case of color-changing spider reopened
Female crab spiders switch colors to match flowers but may not fool their prey
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Scent of alarm identifies male bed bugs
When mistaken for females, the guys release an alarming pheromone.
By Susan Milius -
Life
Spiders love sweet smell of blood perfume
For on spider species, feeding on blood-gorged mosquitoes adds charm to a mate
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Ancient giant beavers did not chow on trees
The now-extinct animals had a hippo-like diet
By Sid Perkins -
Life
Fossil find sparks debate on primate origins
A 37-million-year-old jaw suggests the famous fossil Darwinius does not, as had been suggested, fill a gap in human evolution.
By Bruce Bower -
Animals
Junk food turns rats into addicts
Bacon, cheesecake and Ho Hos elicit addictive behavior in rats similar to the behavior of rats addicted to heroin.