Life
We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Insulin-producing cells can regenerate in diabetic mice
Animal study finds that the pancreas can spontaneously regenerate beta cells.
- Life
Researchers figure out how flies taste water
A study identifies the cell membrane protein that flies use to detect water’s flavor.
- Life
When two hyenas get the giggles
Laughs of higher-status individuals are more posh, a study in a captive colony suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Bees forage with their guts
Researchers show that a gene helps honeybees choose between nectar and pollen.
- Life
First songbird genome arrives with spring
The genome of a songbird has been decoded for the first time. Zebra finches join chickens as the only birds to have detailed maps of their genetic blueprints.
- Life
Tortoise see, tortoise do
Though they rarely meet, solitary creatures can pick up skills by example.
- Life
Elephant legs bend like ‘big human limb’
Mechanics suggests the creatures are more limber than thought and use all their legs to come to a four-way stop.
- Humans
Wildlife trade meeting disappoints marine scientists
The 15th meeting of signatories to the CITES treaty ended on March 25 without passing several proposals to protect high-profile fish species.
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- Paleontology
Tyrannosaurs lived in the Southern Hemisphere, too
Australian fossils suggest the kin of T. rex dispersed globally 110 million years ago.
- Earth
Bacteria show new route to making oxygen
New discovery adds to the few known biological pathways for making and metabolically using the gas.
- Ecosystems
Athlete’s foot therapy tapped to treat bat-killing fungus
Over the past four years, a mysterious white-nose fungus has struck hibernating North American bats. Populations in affected caves and mines can experience death rates of more than 80 percent over a winter. In desperation, an informal interagency task force of scientists from state and federal agencies has just launched an experimental program to fight the plague. Their weapon: a drug ordinarily used to treat athlete’s foot.
