Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Climate
Grape expectations
Global warming has delivered long, warm growing seasons and blockbuster vintages to the world’s great wine regions. But by mid-century, excessive heat will push premium wine-making into new territory.
- Earth
Life’s early traces
Tiny tufts, rolls and crinkles in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that cellular life got a relatively quick start on Earth.
- Life
How to tell good gut microbes from bad
Researchers sort out influences of specific bacteria on body fat, the immune system.
- Health & Medicine
Ancient history of canine cancer decoded
A contagious cancer has been plaguing dogs for 11,000 years, a new genetic analysis reveals.
- Animals
Animals were the original twerkers
From black widow spiders to birds and bees, shaking that booty goes way back.
- Animals
Mantis shrimp’s bizarre visual system may save brainpower
The mantis shrimp sees each color separately with one of a dozen kinds of specialized cells, a system that may help the animal quickly see colors without a lot of brainpower.
- Animals
Eight ways that animals survive the winter
Migrating to a warmer place is just the start when it comes to finding ways to stay toasty as temperatures drop.
- Animals
Sloths, moths, algae may live in three-way benefit pact
Insects and green slime may justify the slow mammal’s risky descent from trees.
- Life
Pigment pas de deux puts stripes on zebrafish
Interactions between color-producing cells generate patterns on fish fins.
- Paleontology
Hunting fossils in England
On Monmouth Beach, just west of the center of Lyme Regis, amateur and professional collectors have been making discoveries for more than two centuries.
- Archaeology
After 2,000 years, Ptolemy’s war elephants are revealed
A genetic study sheds light on world’s only known battle between Asian and African elephants.
- Animals
Sperm on a stick for springtails
Many males of the tiny soil organisms sustain their species by leaving drops of sperm glistening here and there in the landscape in case a female chooses to pick one up.
