Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
On the importance of elephant poop
Asian elephants are key dispersers for tree seeds. A new study finds that buffalo and cattle can also disperse the seeds, but not nearly as well.
- Animals
Toddler seahorses are bumbling and adorable
Rice-grain-sized youngsters can’t yet get a grasp with their tails.
- Neuroscience
Age affects brain’s response to anesthesia
Anesthesia has different effects on young and old brains.
- Animals
Help ornithologists develop bird photo ID tool
Cornell ornithology lab’s computer identification of common North American avian species needs your photos.
- Life
Antibody that fights MERS found
Scientists have isolated a human immune protein that fights the MERS virus in mice.
- Life
Microbes’ role in truffle scents not trifling
Truffles make their prized aroma with a little help from their microbes, chemists suggest.
- Life
Laser light made inside cells
Microscopic beads and oil droplets become lasers when implanted into cells.
- Paleontology
Fossils illustrate evolution of life
Paleontologist Donald Prothero takes readers through the evolution of life on Earth from the earliest oozes of goo to our recent relative Lucy.
- Animals
Stinkbugs are color conscious when it comes to their eggs
P. maculiventris moms control the color of their eggs, seemingly pairing darker eggs with darker surfaces.
- Animals
Stink bug moms are color conscious when it comes to their eggs
P. maculiventris moms control the color of their eggs, seemingly pairing darker eggs with darker surfaces.
- Animals
Social pecking order gives roosters something to crow about
Small groups of laboratory roosters keep to the rankings for orderly morning crows.
- Paleontology
Sudden heat spikes did in Ice Age’s mammoth mammals
Abrupt warming and excessive hunting by ancient humans were responsible for the disappearance of many large mammals, including woolly mammoths, during Earth’s last glacial period.
