Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Climate changes, and there goes the neighborhood
The ranges of rattlesnakes and voles are likely to shift drastically with warming, analyses of past changes suggest.
- Chemistry
Guards of the blood-brain barrier identified
Specialized cells called pericytes are crucial to protecting the central nervous system, two new studies demonstrate.
- Life
More than a chicken, fewer than a grape
A decade after the completion of the Human Genome Project, the exact number of human genes remains elusive.
- Life
New species a little nipper
A mongoose-like creature from Madagascar is the first new carnivore to be discovered in more than two decades.
- Life
Pterosaurs might have soared 10,000 miles nonstop
Flight analysis suggests ancient reptiles were record setters.
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- Life
One small step for a snail, one giant leap for snailkind
Experiments suggest that gastropods shed their shells in one fell swoop during the evolutionary transition that created slugs.
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- Life
The unusual suspects
With no obvious culprit in sight, geneticists do broader sweeps to identify autism’s causes.
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- Animals
A little climate change goes a long way in the tropics
In hot places, even minor warming could rev up metabolism in animals that don’t generate their own heat, a new analysis suggests.
- Life
Massive count a drop in the bucket
As the decade-long Census of Marine Life totes up thousands of new species, it leaves much yet to discover in the world’s oceans.
