Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Neuroscience

    Brain waves common during sleep also show up in awake sheep

    Sleep spindles, thought to help solidify memories in people, may do similar work during wakefulness if these daytime ripples occur in humans.

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  2. Animals

    Bright yellow spots help some orb weaver spiders lure their next meal

    Experiments with cardboard arachnids suggest that orb weaver spiders have evolved yellow colorations on their undersides to attract bees and moths.

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  3. Animals

    Glowing frogs and salamanders may be surprisingly common

    A widespread ability to glow in striking greens, yellows and oranges could make amphibians easier to track down in the wild.

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  4. Life

    A distant cousin of jellyfish may survive without working mitochondria

    A tiny creature that parasitizes salmon is the first known multicellular eukaryote without a mitochondrial genome, a hallmark of complex life.

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  5. Humans

    The earliest known hominid interbreeding occurred 700,000 years ago

    The migration of Neandertal-Denisovan ancestors to Eurasia some 700,000 years ago heralded hookups with a resident hominid population.

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  6. Life

    How African turquoise killifish press the pause button on aging

    The fish’s embryos can enter a state of suspended growth to survive dry spells. A study shows that state protects them from aging, and hints at how.

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  7. Life

    A new lizard parasite is the first known to move from mom to baby

    Nematodes were found living in a lizard’s ovaries and the braincase of her embryos — the first evidence of a reptile parasite that jumps generations.

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  8. Animals

    One blind, aquatic salamander may have sat mostly still for seven years

    Olms may live for about century and appear to spend their time moving sparingly.

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  9. Neuroscience

    Living brain tissue experiments raise new kinds of ethical questions

    An ethicist describes the quandaries raised by working with tissue involved in human awareness.

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  10. Life

    Microbiologists took 12 years to grow a microbe tied to complex life’s origins

    Years of lab work resulted in growing a type of archaea that might help scientists understand one of evolution’s giant leaps toward complexity.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Coronavirus’s genetic fingerprints are used to rapidly map its spread

    Fast and widespread scientific data sharing and genetic testing have created a picture of how the new coronavirus spreads.

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  12. Animals

    Snakes suffered after a frog-killing fungus wiped out their food

    A frog-killing fungus that swept through Panama had a hidden effect. A new study finds that snake diversity declined post-fungus at one field station.

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