Life
We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Paleontology
Ancient oceans’ top predator was gentle filter feeder
New fossils suggest that a distant relative of lobsters used bristled limbs to net its prey, not spike it.
- Animals
Skewed gender ratios turn bird world into a soap opera
Infidelity, divorce and polygamy become more common among birds when one sex is rarer and has more choice in partners.
- Neuroscience
Scans suggest how the mind solves ethical dilemmas
Brain scans suggest how the mind solves a moral dilemma.
- Life
When hummingbirds fly unfriendly skies
Hummingbirds hover easily in turbulent air as long as the disturbances aren’t too wide.
- Genetics
Mice lose a gene to drop some weight
Mice lacking gene have less fat, more muscle and lived longer than normal.
- Animals
Mama frog’s care includes a gift of poison
Strawberry poison frog tadpoles get defensive chemicals through unfertilized, nutritious eggs provided by mom.
- Life
To do: Exhibits to explore in the U.S. and London
Highlights include the impending arrival of a T. rex skeleton in Washington, D.C., a pterosaur exhibit coming to New York City, and the history of longevity at the Royal Society in London.
- Health & Medicine
Small molecule makes brain cancer cells collapse and die
A small molecule, Vacquinol-1, may provide a different way to target and kill cells in glioblastomas, a type of brain tumor.
- Plants
Milkweed ‘horns’ may equal wins in reproduction battle
Plants may be ripping a page right from bucks’ playbooks, developing hornlike weapons to improve their chances of reproduction.
- Animals
A parasitic cuckoo can be a good thing
Great spotted cuckoo chicks show that brood parasites may benefit their hosts.
- Plants
Fossil fern showcases ancient chromosomes
Fossil nuclei and chromosomes seen in a 180-million-year-old fern reveals that the plants have stayed mostly the same.
- Life
Human noses know more than 1 trillion odors
Sense of smell displays a vast reach in study of people’s ability to distinguish between scents.
