Life

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We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Missing chemicals on Titan could signal life

    Methane-based organisms on one of Saturn’s moons might be consuming the materials.

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  2. Earth

    Possible snake shortage looms

    Declines among species in Europe and Africa raise herpetologists’ worries of widespread population losses.

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  3. Climate

    With warming, some commercial fish may boom and bust

    Higher temps in Arctic waters might be good for some species but not for others, new research suggests.

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  4. Life

    Marine creature cooks up chemical defense from food

    The sea hare transforms a benign algal pigment into a noxious molecule to help ward off crabs and other predators, new studies show.

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  5. Animals

    Sex, crickets and videotape

    Security cameras focused on insects in the wild are looking at whether lab science has gotten the singing, mating and fighting right.

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  6. Humans

    Tracing Jewish roots

    An analysis of the entire genome of Jewish people shows Middle Eastern roots and traces ancestry across the globe.

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  7. Animals

    Diversified portfolio yields benefit for salmon stocks

    Local diversity keeps sockeye from going bust every few years, a study finds.

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  8. Life

    Seaweed genome reveals tools for multicellular lifestyle

    Genetic blueprints of a brown alga reveal adaptations to changing tides and may give clues for to evolution of more complex life.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Honeybee death mystery deepens

    Government scientists link colony collapse disorder to mix of fungal and viral infections.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Shark cartilage doesn’t appear to help lung cancer

    Patients taking an extract show no improvement.

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  11. Paleontology

    Octopus origins

    After examining more than 90 new specimens of Nectocaris pteryx, paleontologists put it near the root of the cephalopod evolutionary tree.

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  12. Life

    Bacterial chitchat proves distracting for wound healing

    Microbial communication signals partially block skin cells from closing a cut.

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