Life
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Animals
Great spots for white sharks
The great white sharks of the eastern Pacific may be genetically isolated from the world's other white sharks, and tagging data reveal that the animals stick to specific routes and destinations.
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Ecosystems
Predators return
Warming waters could push new predators into Antarctica's delicate ecosystems.
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Life
Banishing Sense-less Reporting
Scientific reports don't have to be dry, although they all-too-frequently are.
By Janet Raloff -
Animals
People bring both risk and reward to chimps
Tolerating human researchers and ecotourists brought a group of chimpanzees a higher risk of catching human diseases but a lower chance of attacks from poachers.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
From China, the tiniest pterodactyl
Researchers excavating the fossil-rich rocks of northeastern China have discovered yet another paleontological marvel: a flying reptile the size of a sparrow.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Flying Deaf? Earliest bats probably didn’t echolocate
Fossils of a cardinal-sized creature recently unearthed in western Wyoming suggest that primitive bats developed the ability to fly before they could track their prey with biological sonar.
By Sid Perkins -
Animals
Bird fads weaken sexual selection
There's a new look for a hot male among lark buntings every year.
By Susan Milius -
Ecosystems
Spread of nonnative fish mirrors human commerce
Invasions of foreign freshwater fish are more common in areas with relatively high economic activity, suggesting that humans are a part of the problem.
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Animals
Whales Drink Sounds: Hearing may use an ancient path
Sounds can travel to a whale's ears through its throat, an acoustic pathway that might be ancient in the whale lineage.
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Animals
The naming of the elephant-shrew
A new species of giant elephant-shrew, small bounding forest dwellers very distantly related to elephants, has been discovered in Tanzania. With video.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Traveling tubers
Potato varieties from Chile arrived in Europe several years before the blights of the mid-1800s, a new analysis of DNA from old plant collections reveals.
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Animals
Very brown sheep have a dark side
Big, dark sheep on a Scottish island are not breaking the rules of evolution after all.
By Susan Milius