Life

  1. Animals

    Bad Breath: Insects zip air holes to cut oxygen risks

    The need to avoid overdosing on oxygen may drive certain insects to shut down their breathing holes periodically.

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  2. Plants

    In a Snap: Leaf geometry drives Venus flytrap’s bite

    Behind a Venus flytrap's rapid snap lies an extraordinary shape-changing mechanism.

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  3. Ecosystems

    Bivalve Takeover: Once-benign clams boom after crab influx

    European green crabs invading a California bay have triggered a population explosion of a previously marginal clam.

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  4. Paleontology

    Pieces of an Ancestor: African site yields new look at ancient species

    Fossils unearthed at sites in eastern Africa provide a rare look at Ardipithecus ramidus, a member of the human evolutionary family that lived more than 4 million years ago.

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  5. Animals

    Crow Tools: Hatched to putter

    The New Caledonian crow is the first vertebrate to be shown definitively to have an innate tendency to make and use tools, according to researchers who doubled as bird nannies.

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  6. Paleontology

    Reptilian Repast: Ancient mammals preyed on young dinosaurs

    Two nearly complete sets of fossilized remains from 130-million-year-old rocks are revealing fresh details about the size and dietary habits of ancient mammals, hinting that some of these creatures were large enough to feast on small dinosaurs.

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  7. Animals

    Sparrows learn song from pieces

    Young white-crowned sparrows don't have to hear a song straight through in order to learn it; playing the song in mixed-up paired phrases will do.

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  8. Animals

    Mixing Genes: Bird immigrants make unexpected differences

    A pair of decades-long studies of birds moving into other birds' neighborhoods show that immigration can have a quirkier effect than predicted by the usual textbook view.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Fallout Feast: Vent crabs survive on victims of plume

    Researchers in Taiwan propose an explanation for how so many crabs can survive at shallow-water hydrothermal vents.

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  10. Animals

    Paper wasps object to dishonest face spots

    Female wasps with dishonest faces, created by researchers who altered the wasps' natural status spots, have to cope with extra aggression.

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  11. Ecosystems

    The Birds Are Falling: Avian losses could hit ecosystems hard

    If many bird populations dip toward extinction in the coming century, widespread harm could come to ecosystems that depend on these birds.

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  12. Animals

    Song Fights

    Birds settle many of their disputes by some rough-and-tough singing bouts, and recording equipment now lets researchers pick a song fight, too.

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