Life
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Animals
Getting a Grip: How gecko toes stick
Scientists have pinned down the molecular basis of the gecko's astonishing ability to scamper up polished walls and hang from ceilings, paving the way for a new type of synthetic dry adhesive.
By Kristin Cobb -
Plants
Time Capsules: Seeds sprout 120 years after going underground
An experiment designed by a botany professor to last longer than his own life has demonstrated that seeds of two common flowers still sprout and blossom despite more than a century in a bottle.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
New frog-killing disease may not be so new
The skin disease that savaged amphibians in remote wildernesses in the 1990s has been linked to outbreaks in the 1970s.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
What’s the Mane Point? Foes and females both have role
The condition of a lion's mane apparently advertises high-quality mates to picky females and wards off male adversaries.
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Ecosystems
Plants hitch rides with box turtles
In the pine rocklands of southern Florida, at least nine plant species find new homes by traveling through a turtle's gut.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Sunflower genes don’t fit pattern
Comparison between crop and wild sunflower genes suggests that the plant followed an easy route to domestication.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Male butterflies are driven to drink
Monarch butterflies that winter in California, especially males that had a demanding day, search out dewdrops as a water source.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Sea Dragons
About 235 million years ago, as the earliest dinosaurs stomped about on land, some of their reptilian relatives slipped back into the surf, took on an aquatic lifestyle, and became ichthyosaurs—Greek for fish lizards.
By Sid Perkins -
Ecosystems
Tougher Weeds? Borrowed gene helps wild sunflower
Feeding concerns about developing superweeds, a test of sunflowers shows for the first time that a biologically engineered gene moving from a crop can give an advantage to wild relatives under naturalistic conditions.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Flight puts the fight back into crickets
Researchers are just discovering what gamblers in China have known for centuries—flying can make a losing cricket fight again.
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Ecosystems
Males live longer with all-year mating
Male butterflies live longer in Madeira, where females are available year-round, than in Sweden, where females mature in one burst.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Why tulips can’t dance
An elliptical stem gives daffodils an unusual liveliness in the wind compared with tulips.
By Susan Milius