Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- 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.
- Animals
Bird fads weaken sexual selection
There's a new look for a hot male among lark buntings every year.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Animals
Very brown sheep have a dark side
Big, dark sheep on a Scottish island are not breaking the rules of evolution after all.
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- Ecosystems
Big Foot: Eco-footprints of rich dwarf poor nations’ debt
The first global accounting finds rich and middle-income nations stomping heavy footprints on poorer ones.
- Paleontology
Life explodes twice
The Ediacaran fauna were as varied as all animals in existence today and, more impressively, as in the Cambrian, report paleontologists.
- Animals
Fenced-off trees drop their friends
Protecting acacia trees from large, tree-munching animals sets off a chain of events that ends up ruining the trees' partnership with their bodyguard ants.
