Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Elephants’ struggle with poaching lingers on
Even as African elephants struggle to recover from decades-old poaching, the animals face new and renewed threats today.
- Life
A more fearsome saber-toothed cat
Analyses of fossils reveal that a third, newly recognized type of saber-toothed cat — one that killed by biting large chunks of flesh from its victim instead of biting its neck and slashing the major blood vessels there —roamed the Americas about a million years ago.
- Paleontology
How pterosaurs took flight
Extinct flying reptiles known as pterosaurs may have taken to the air with a technique akin to leapfrogging, new research suggests.
- Earth
An electronic nose that smells plants’ pain
Device can detect distress signals from plants that are harmed, under attack.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria that do logic
A team engineers microbes to perform AND, OR, NAND and NOR logic operations.
- Life
How Tiktaalik got its neck
The oldest fossil with a neck, Tiktaalik roseae, shows how animals developed a head for living on land.
- Humans
Bypassing paralyzed nerves
Implanted electrode helps paralyzed monkey clench its forearm muscles.
- 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.
- Earth
Salinity sensors
Trace elements in the carbonate shells of freshwater mussels could serve as an archive of road salt pollution.
- Health & Medicine
Body In Mind
Long thought the province of the abstract, cognition may actually evolve as physical experiences and actions ignite mental life.
- 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.
