Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Butterfly’s clock linked to compass
The most detailed look yet at the monarch butterfly's daily rhythm keeper suggests it's closer to ancient forms than to the fruit fly's or mouse's inner clock.
- Paleontology
The warm jungles of ancient France
Chemical analyses of amber excavated near Paris suggest that France was covered with a dense tropical forest about 55 million years ago.
- Animals
Purring birds teach their chicks to beg
African birds called pied babblers teach their chicks that certain parental noises mean food is on the way.
- Paleontology
Whales started small
The ancestors of whales, some of which are the largest creatures ever to evolve, probably were mammals no larger than a fox.
- Paleontology
Struck from above
Evidence of an extraterrestrial object striking Earth at the height of the last ice age comes from micrometeorites embedded in the tusks of creatures that were grazing the Alaskan tundra when the object burst in the air above.
- Animals
Not So Spineless
Looking for personalities in animals, even among spiders and insects, could add new twists to ideas about evolution and explain some odd animal behavior.
- Animals
Hatch a Thief: Brains incline birds toward a life of crime
When it comes to a bird family's propensity to pilfer, a larger than usual brain for a particular body size is more important than body size alone.
- Animals
Female antelopes take the lead in courtship
Topi antelopes, with their hesitant males, reverse the usual sex roles in mammal courtship.
- Ecosystems
Prairie Revival
Prairie restoration is attracting interest, but because so little long-term monitoring and comparative studies have been done, researchers are still wondering whether it's really possible to re-create a prairie.
- Plants
Botanists refine family tree for flowering plants
Two research teams have used the biggest array of flowering-plant genes yet to try to reconstruct the elusive evolutionary history of today's flowers.
- Plants
So Sproutish: Anti-aging gene for plants gives drought protection
A gene that can hold off the decrepitude of old age in plants offers an unusual approach to protecting crops from drought.
- Plants
It Takes a Village: Tweaking neighbors reroutes evolution
The other residents of a plant's neighborhood can make a big difference in whether evolutionary forces favor or punish a plant's trait.
