Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Excess folic acid sits idle
Humans metabolize folic acid at a slow rate, suggesting that additional folic acid may yield no more benefits than recommended doses do, researchers report.
- Life
Bomb-tastic new worms
Scientists find previously unknown deep-sea species that launch bioluminescent packets.
- Animals
Back off, extinct moa
A New Zealand tree’s peculiar leaves may have served as defenses against long-gone giant birds.
- Life
Tasmanian devils have no star networkers
Tasmanian devils all know each other, a new study shows. The discovery could mean that stopping the spread of an infectious cancer will be harder than previously thought.
- Health & Medicine
Worm-inspired superglue
Researchers create a material that may one day be used to paste together bones in the body.
- Animals
Vocal abilities lost, found and drowned out
Reports from the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union
- Earth
Rapid evolution may be reshaping forest birds’ wings
Logging during the last century might have driven birds in mature boreal forests toward pointier wings while reforestation in New England led to rounder wings.
- Life
A gene for a short night’s sleep
Alterations in a gene called DEC2 lead to a shortened sleep period in people, mice and fruit flies.
- Animals
SOS: Call the ants
Emergency ant workers bite at snares, dig and tug to free trapped sisters
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- Agriculture
Pesticide potency can depend on bug’s clock
The daily rhythms in gene activity can affect the toxicity of some poisons.
