Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Life
Hawaiian caterpillars are first known amphibious insects
Developing underwater or above, it’s all good for moths that evolved new lifestyle in the islands
- Health & Medicine
Ingredient of dark roasted coffees may make them easier on the tummy
A compound generated in the roasting process appears to reduce acid production in the stomach.
- Plants
Bees face ‘unprecedented’ pesticide exposures at home and afield
Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plaque that has a name — colony collapse disorder – but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. It found “unprecedented levels” of mite-killing chemicals and crop pesticides in hives across the United States and parts of Canada.
- Life
There are rules in fiddler crab fight club
Territorial crustaceans will defend their own rivals, but only to keep stronger ones out.
- Paleontology
Fossilized poop bears tooth marks
Shark-bitten fecal matter probably came from an assault on an ancient croc.
- Earth
Ice drilling nets shrimpy surprise
Underwater camera captures an Antarctic crustacean, as a serendipitous part of a larger ice shelf study.
- Life
Who reined the dogs in
New genetic data reveals that Fido likely originated in the Middle East.
- Chemistry
Methane-making microbes thrive under the ice
Antarctica’s ice sheets could hide vast quantities of the greenhouse gas, churned out by a buried ecosystem.
- Life
To catch a thief, follow his filthy hands
Bacteria from a person’s hands may provide a new type of fingerprint.
- Ecosystems
Iron fertilization in ocean nourishes toxic algae
Efforts to prevent global warming by fertilizing the oceans with iron could trigger harmful algal blooms.
