Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Smoker’s breath saves caterpillars’ lives
Larvae of the tobacco hornworm caterpillar exhale nicotine, driving away predatory spiders.
- Ecosystems
New Yorkers should relax about new roach species
Japanese roaches may be able to survive in the cold, but the added competition and their decreased allergic potential may mean the roaches’ arrival isn’t all bad.
- Plants
Kleptoplast
A cellular part such as a light-harvesting chloroplast that an organism takes from algae it has eaten.
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- Genetics
Top genomes of 2013
Scientists continue to decode the genetic blueprints of the planet’s myriad flora and fauna.
- Microbes
Microscopic menagerie
The microbes dwelling in and on multicellular organisms should be viewed as evolutionarily inseparable from their hosts, some biologists argue.
- Humans
Mother lode
Certain sugar molecules in human breast milk do more to foster beneficial microbes, and banish harmful ones, than they do to nourish newborns.
- Microbes
The vast virome
When it comes to the microbiome, bacteria get all the press. But virologists are starting to realize that their subjects also do a lot more than make people sick.
- Life
Year in Review: Gift of steroids keeps on giving
Mouse muscles stay juiced long after doping ends.
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