Life

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We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Fossil find may document largest snake

    Rocks beneath a coal mine in Colombia have yielded fossils of what could be the world's largest snake, a 12.8-meter–long behemoth that's a relative of today's boa constrictors.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Bacteria that do logic

    A team engineers microbes to perform AND, OR, NAND and NOR logic operations.

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  3. Life

    How Tiktaalik got its neck

    The oldest fossil with a neck, Tiktaalik roseae, shows how animals developed a head for living on land.

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  4. Humans

    Bypassing paralyzed nerves

    Implanted electrode helps paralyzed monkey clench its forearm muscles.

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  5. Life

    Grunting humans, moles scare earthworms

    Science tackles the old mystery of why worm grunters who rub a stake in the ground can catch earthworms.

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  6. Earth

    Salinity sensors

    Trace elements in the carbonate shells of freshwater mussels could serve as an archive of road salt pollution.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Body In Mind

    Long thought the province of the abstract, cognition may actually evolve as physical experiences and actions ignite mental life.

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  8. Life

    Parenthood: Male sharks need not apply

    A second case of a virgin shark birth suggests some female sharks may be able to reproduce without males.

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  9. Life

    Climate warms, creatures head for the hills

    Unusual data let scientists test predictions that global warming drives species up slopes.

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  10. Life

    Community of one

    Scientists have discovered how a single bacterial species living in a gold mine in South Africa survives on its own. Its genome contains everything it needs to live independently.

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  11. Paleontology

    New arthropod species really stuck together

    Recent fossil discovery shows that new species of arthropod formed chains, raising the possibility of communal behavior.

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  12. Life

    A better understanding of inherited breast cancer

    New studies on a type of inherited breast cancer identify a key factor with different roles in different cancers.

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