Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Plants

    How a tomato plant foils a dreaded vampire vine

    Tomatoes can foil a dodder plant attack by getting scared and scabbing over.

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  2. Animals

    Ways to beat heat have hidden costs for birds

    Birds that look as if they’re coping with heat waves and climate change may actually be on a downward slide, with underappreciated disadvantages of panting and seeking shade.

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  3. Animals

    The weird mating habits of daddy longlegs

    Scientists studying the sex lives of daddy longlegs are finding there’s a lot of diversity among this group of arachnids.

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  4. Oceans

    Lack of nutrients stalled rebound of marine life post-Permian extinction

    Warm sea surface temperatures slowed the nitrogen cycle in Earth’s oceans and delayed the recovery of life following the Permian extinction, researchers propose.

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  5. Genetics

    Darwin’s Dogs wants your dog’s DNA

    The Darwin’s Dogs citizen science project is collecting canine DNA to better understand dog genetics and behavior.

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  6. Animals

    Bird nest riddle: Which shape came first?

    Today’s simple cup-shaped songbird nests look as if they just had to have evolved before roofed nests. But that could be backward.

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  7. Neuroscience

    Fentanyl’s death toll is rising

    The ability of fentanyl, an opioid, to freeze chest muscles within minutes may be to blame for some overdoses, a new autopsy study shows.

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  8. Animals

    Hoverflies (probably) can’t sense gravity

    Acrobatic insects called hoverflies may simply use visual and airflow cues and not gravity to orient their bodies midair.

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  9. Neuroscience

    Eating shuts down nerve cells that counter obesity

    A group of nerve cells shut down when food hits the lips, a study of mice finds.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Zika kills brain cells in adult mice

    Zika virus may harm more than babies: The virus can infect and kill brain cells in adult mice, too.

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  11. Archaeology

    How to get Ötzi’s look

    DNA from Ötzi the Iceman’s clothes and quiver traced to both domesticated and wild animals.

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  12. Animals

    Evidence piles up for popular pesticides’ link to pollinator problems

    Neonicotinoid pesticides linked to population declines in California butterflies and wild bee extinctions in Great Britain.

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