Animals

  1. Life

    Fecal transplants might help make koalas less picky eaters

    Poop-transplant pills changed the microbial makeup of koalas’ guts. That could allow the animals to adapt when a favorite type of eucalyptus runs low.

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  2. Animals

    Why one biologist chases hurricanes to study spider evolution

    For more rigorous spider data, Jonathan Pruitt rushes into the paths of hurricanes.

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  3. Life

    Big and bold wasp queens may create more successful colonies

    A paper wasp queen’s personality and body size could help predict whether the nest she has founded will thrive.

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  4. Life

    A mussel poop diet could fuel invasive carp’s spread across Lake Michigan

    Asian carp, just a human-made waterway away from reaching Lake Michigan, could live in much more of the lake than previously thought.

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  5. Life

    How these tiny insect larvae leap without legs

    High-speed filming reveals how a blob of an insect can leap more efficiently than it crawls.

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  6. Chemistry

    A fungus makes a chemical that neutralizes the stench of skunk spray

    A compound produced by fungi reacts with skunk spray to form residues that aren’t offensive to the nose and can be more easily washed away.

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  7. Animals

    There’s more to pufferfish than that goofy spiked balloon

    Three odd things about pufferfishes: how they mate, how they bite and what’s up with no fish scales?

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  8. Life

    Monkeys can use basic logic to decipher the order of items in a list

    Rhesus macaque monkeys don’t need rewards to learn and remember how items are ranked in a list, a mental feat that may prove handy in the wild.

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  9. Life

    Mapping how the ‘immortal’ hydra regrows cells may demystify regeneration

    In the continually regenerating hydra, fluorescent markers help researchers track stem cells on the way to their cellular fate.

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  10. Neuroscience

    A frog study may point to where parenting begins in the brain

    Two brain regions, including one active in mammal parents, lit up with activity in both male and female poison frogs when caring for their tadpoles.

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  11. Animals

    A deadly fungus gives ‘zombie’ ants a case of lockjaw

    Clues left on infected ant jaws may reveal how the ‘zombie-ant-fungus’ contracts ant muscles to make their death grip.

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  12. Genetics

    This gene may help worms live longer, but not healthier

    Antiaging therapies may have trade-offs, research on worms suggests.

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