Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Mother deer can’t ID their fawns by call
Fawns can distinguish their mom's voice from another deer's, but a mom can't pick out her fawn's call.
- Paleontology
Flying with Their Legs: Hind feathers made primitive bird nimble
The earliest-known bird had feathers on its legs that may have provided lift for flight, improving its maneuverability.
- Animals
Crickets on Mute: Hush falls as killer fly stalks singers
Within just 5 years, singing has nearly died out among a population of cricket on a Hawaiian island.
- Animals
Sexually Deceptive Chemistry: Beetle larvae fake the scent of female bees
Trick chemistry lets a bunch of writhing caterpillars attract a male bee that they then use as a flying taxi on their way to find food.
- Animals
Family Tree: An arboreal genome is sequenced
Researchers have sequenced the genome of a tree for the first time.
- Animals
Battle of the Hermaphrodites
A biologist argues that combining the sexes can actually make gender wars worse.
- Animals
Hey, Roach Babe: Male cockroaches give fancy courting whistles
Some male cockroaches whistle at females with surprisingly complex, almost birdlike whistles.
- Ecosystems
On the Rise: Siberian lakes—Major sources of methane
Field studies suggest that Siberian lakes are a much larger source of atmospheric methane than had been previously recognized.
- Ecosystems
Bad-News Beauties
Discarded aquarium fish are the likely source of an alien species that's breeding in the Atlantic and could threaten economically important U.S. fisheries.
- Ecosystems
Madagascar’s Fantastic Forests
Produced by WBUR in Boston to accompany a special program on Madagascar, this award-winning Web site offers a remarkably detailed look at life on this island, with a focus on the struggle to preserve Earth’s diversity of life. It includes photo galleries, audio clips, videos, maps, and much more. Go to: http://www.wbur.org/special/madagascar/
- Paleontology
Frozen rainforest
Fossils trapped in amber provide evidence that the Amazonian rainforest dates back 10 to 15 million years.
- Animals
Flea treatment shows downside of social life
The flealike parasites that build up in a shared burrow take an unexpectedly large toll on the ground squirrel's reproductive success.
