Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Paleontology
Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record
The newly identified species Icaronycteris gunnelli lived about 52.5 million years ago in what is now Wyoming and looked a lot like modern bats.
- Animals
Freshwater leeches’ taste for snails could help control snail-borne diseases
A freshwater leech species will eat snails, raising the possibility that leeches could be used to control snail-borne diseases that infect humans and livestock.
- Animals
The last leg of the longest butterfly migration has now been identified
After a long journey across the Sahara, painted lady butterflies from Europe set up camp in central Africa to wait out winter and breed.
- Science & Society
The Smithsonian’s ‘Lights Out’ inspires visitors to save the fading night sky
The exhibition examines how light pollution harms astronomy, ecosystems and human cultures. But it also offers hope.
- Animals
This sea cucumber shoots sticky tubes out of its butt. Its genes hint at how
A new genetics study is providing a wealth of information about silky, sticky tubes, called the Cuvierian organ, that sea cucumbers use to tangle foes.
- Oceans
‘Jet packs’ and ultrasounds could reveal secrets of pregnant whale sharks
Only one pregnant whale shark has ever been studied. New underwater techniques using ultrasound and blood tests could change that.
- Animals
Invasive yellow crazy ants create male ‘chimeras’ to reproduce
Yellow crazy ants are first known species where chimerism is required in males: Each of their cells holds DNA from just one of two genetic lineages.
- Life
How some beetles ‘drink’ water using their butts
Red flour beetles, a major agricultural pest, suck water out of the air using special cells in their rear ends, a new study suggests.
- Life
Capybaras thrive, even near humans, because they’re not picky eaters
Scientists didn’t expect capybaras to eat both grasses and forest plants. The rodents’ flexible diet helps them live everywhere from cities to swamps.
- Anthropology
Native Americans corralled Spanish horses decades before Europeans arrived
Great Plains groups incorporated domestic horses into their cultures by the early 1600s, before Europeans moved north from Mexico.
- Neuroscience
Scientists triggered the flow of spinal fluid in the awake brain
If future studies confirm these waking waves wash away toxic proteins from the brain, the finding could lead to new treatments for brain disorders.
- Life
T. rex may have had lips like a modern lizard’s
Dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus have long been portrayed as lipless, but new research suggests this wasn’t so.
