Life

  1. Life

    Bird plus goggles equals new insight into flight physics

    Slow-flying parrotlet produces vortices that explosively break up.

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  2. Animals

    First spider superdads discovered

    Male spiders first known to give up solitary life for offspring care, often as a single parent.

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  3. Neuroscience

    Gut microbe mix may spark Parkinson’s

    Parkinson’s disease symptoms might be driven by gut microbes

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  4. Chemistry

    Enzyme forges carbon-silicon bonds with a little human help

    A few tweaks to an enzyme help it link carbon to silicon — a match not found in nature.

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  5. Life

    Public, doctors alike confused about food allergies

    Gaps in understanding food allergies cause confusion and make it difficult to prevent, diagnose and treat them.

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  6. Astronomy

    Scientific success depends on finding light in darkness

    Editor in chief Eva Emerson discusses using cleverness and persistence to uncover scientific truths.

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  7. Life

    Mitochondria variants battle for cell supremacy

    Some mitochondria are more competitive than others, which could complicate treatments for mitochondrial diseases.

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  8. Animals

    Plant-eating mammals sport bigger bellies than meat eaters

    Mammalian plant eaters have bigger torsos than meat eaters, a new analysis confirms, but the same might not have held true for dinosaurs.

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  9. Animals

    Animals give clues to the origins of human number crunching

    Guppies, dogs, chickens, crows, spiders — lots of animals have number sense without knowing numbers.

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  10. Oceans

    Coral die-off in Great Barrier Reef reaches record levels

    Bleaching has killed more than two-thirds of corals in some parts of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists have confirmed.

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  11. Life

    Blue leaves help begonias harvest energy in low light

    The iridescent color of some begonias comes from tiny structures that also help the plant convert dim light into energy.

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  12. Microbes

    Cut leaves in bagged salads help Salmonella grow

    Juice from torn-up leafy greens helps Salmonella spread in bagged salads.

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