Life
- Animals
Little push turns snail lefties to righties
Bumping an early embryo’s cells can switch the direction of its spiral.
- Life
Bone regulators moonlight in the brain as fever inducers
Study in mice suggests proteins could be source of post-menopausal hot flashes.
- Life
Fecal architecture is beetle armor
Predators have a hard time getting through the layers of excrement some beetle moms give their young.
- Agriculture
Nation by nation, evidence thin that boosting crop yields conserves land
Intensifying agriculture may not necessarily return farmland to nature without policy help.
- Earth
Where humans go, pepper virus follows
Plant pathogen could help track waters polluted with human waste.
- Animals
Classic view of leaf-cutter ants overlooked nitrogen-fixing partner
A fresh look at a fungus-insect partnership that biologists have studied for more than a century uncovers a role for bacteria.
- Life
Corn genome a maze of unusual diversity
Multiple teams announce complete draft of the maize genome, with a full plate of surprises that include hints about hybrid vigor.
- Life
Climate not really what doomed large North American mammals
Prevalence of a dung fungus over time suggests megafauna extinctions at end of last ice age started before vegetation changed.
- Life
Killer bees aren’t so smart
Brains are probably not what powers the invasive bee’s takeover from European honeybees
- Life
Penguin DNA evolving faster than thought
Comparing the DNA in modern birds to that in ancient generations shows molecular evolution happens at varying rates, and that each species has its own rate of evolution.
- Ecosystems
Impatiens plants are more patient with siblings
Streamside wildflower holds back on leaf competition when roots meet close kin
- Life
Newborn cells clear space in brain’s memory-maker
Rodent study offers first evidence that neurogenesis clears old memories in key part of the brain to make way for new ones.
