Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Why great white shark sightings are good news
Conservation measures implemented in the 1990s halted a decline in great white sharks in the Atlantic.
- Life
Animal sex lives exposed in ‘Nature’s Nether Regions’
What the sex lives of bugs, birds, and beasts tell us about evolution, biodiversity, and ourselves.
- Animals
To ID birds, try facial recognition
Improve your backyard birding using facial recognition software.
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- Animals
Ant lions hunt despite sealed lips
Ant lions are ferocious predators, but some of them don’t have a mouth. At least not in the usual sense.
- Animals
Mysterious neurotoxin may help flatworms kill prey
Tetrodotoxin, the deadly chemical in pufferfish, could help flatworms transform their earthworm prey into puddles of goo.
- Neuroscience
Busy brain hubs go awry in disorders, study suggests
Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders may occur when the brain’s most active hubs are damaged.
- Life
HIV hides in growth-promoting genes
The discovery that HIV can trigger infected cells to divide means scientists may need to rethink strategies for treating the virus that causes AIDS.
- Physics
Tiny silica spheres put the disco in disco clams
The electric effect in disco clams is actually the result of light scattering off tiny silica spheres.
- Animals
Lionfish dance can recruit partner for hunting
Slow but superb predators recruit pals for cooperative hunting, often striking in what looks like well-mannered turn taking.
- Life
Life began when algorithms took control
Digital storage of molecular information is the key to defining life and understanding its origin, astrobiologists say.
