Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    BPA sends false signals to female hearts

    The ingredient of some plastics and food packaging can interfere with cardiac rhythm at surprisingly low concentrations.

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  2. Life

    The electric mole rat acid test

    Naked mole rats don’t feel the burn of acid thanks to tweaks in a protein involved in sending pain messages to the brain.

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  3. Humans

    Uncommitted newbies can foil forceful few

    Decisions more democratic when individuals with no preset preference join a group.

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  4. Life

    Borneo tough for red-haired vegans

    Island’s natural fruit supply iffy for orangutans.

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  5. Life

    Walking may have had wet start

    Based on the way that primitive lungfish use their fins to move along tank bottoms, researchers argue for an underwater start to four-legged locomotion.

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  6. Life

    Mere fear shrinks bird families

    Just hearing recordings of predators, in the absence of any real danger, caused sparrows to raise fewer babies.

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  7. Life

    He’s no rat, he’s my brother

    Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free.

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  8. Life

    Cilia control eating signal

    Little hairlike appendages in brain cells control weight by sequestering an appetite hormone.

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  9. Life

    Building the body electric

    Eyes can be grown in a frog’s gut by changing cells’ electrical properties, scientists find, opening up new possibilities for generating and regenerating complex organs.

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  10. Life

    Eggs have own biological clock

    Reproductive cells age independently from the rest of the body, research in worms reveals.

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  11. Life

    Bacteria in bondage

    Cells unleash proteins to cage unwanted invaders.

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  12. Humans

    DNA highlights Native American die-off

    A genetic analysis points to widespread New World deaths after Europeans arrived.

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