Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Plants
Cactus spine shapes determine how they stab victims
The shapes of cactus spines influence how they poke passersby.
- Animals
How locust ecology inspired an opera
When an entomologist decides to write a libretto, you get an operatic elegy to locusts.
- Agriculture
50 years ago, screwworm flies inspired a new approach to insect control
The United States has wiped out screwworm flies repeatedly since 1966 using the sterile male eradication technique.
- Paleontology
This huge plant eater thrived in the age of dinosaurs — but wasn’t one of them
A newly named plant-eater from the Late Triassic was surprisingly hefty.
- Neuroscience
Brain implants let paralyzed people use tablets to send texts and stream music
People with paralysis could control commercially available tablets with their brain activity, researchers show.
- Life
Gut bacteria may guard against diabetes that comes with aging
A friendly microbe in the gut may be the key to staving off insulin resistance, a study in mice finds.
- Animals
Hemp fields offer a late-season pollen source for stressed bees
Colorado’s legal fields of low-THC cannabis can attract a lot of bees.
- Animals
Wombats are the only animals whose poop is a cube. Here’s how they do it.
The elasticity of wombats’ intestines helps the creatures shape their distinctive poops.
- Microbes
Mini ‘solar panels’ help yeast shine at churning out drug ingredients
Microbes equipped with light-harvesting semiconductor particles generate useful chemicals much more efficiently than ordinary microbes.
- Genetics
Coffee or tea? Your preference may be written in your DNA
Coffee or tea is a bitter choice, a taste genetics study suggests.
- Animals
Sound-absorbent wings and fur help some moths evade bats
Tiny ultrathin scales on some moth wings absorb sound waves sent out by bats on the hunt.
- Ecosystems
How mammoths competed with other animals and lost
Mammoths, mastodons and other ancient elephants were wiped out at the end of the last ice age by climate change and spear-wielding humans.
