Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Red Sweat: Hippo skin oozes antibiotic sunscreen
The hippo version of sweat, which is red-orange, contains pigments that can block microbial growth and some ultraviolet light.
- Plants
Wind Highways: Mosses, lichens travel along aerial paths
Invisible freeways of wind may account for the similarity of plant species on islands that lie thousands of kilometers apart.
- Paleontology
Rare English bits are oldest known charcoal
Analyses of small black chunks of material extracted from 420-million-year-old rocks found along the England-Wales border suggest that they're remnants of the earliest known wildfire.
- Paleontology
Fossil confirms that early arthropods molted
A 505-million-year-old fossil provides hard proof of that ancient arthropods shed their exoskeletons during growth, just as their modern relatives do.
- Paleontology
Ancient Buzzing: German site yields early hummingbird fossils
Excavations in Germany have yielded the only known fossils of hummingbirds from the Old World and by far the oldest such fossils unearthed anywhere.
- Animals
Toxin Takeout: Frogs borrow poison for skin from ants
Scientists have identified formicine ants as a food source from which poison frogs acquire their chemical weapons.
- Animals
Din among the Orcas: Are whale watchers making too much noise?
Whale-watching boats may be making so much noise that killer whales off the coast of Washington have to change their calls to communicate over the racket.
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- Paleontology
Early Biped Fossil Pops Up in Europe
A newly described, nearly complete 290-million-year-old fossil of an ancient reptile pushes back the evidence for terrestrial bipedalism by 60 million years.
- Animals
Shielded cells help fish ignore noise
Fish can sort out the interesting ripples from the background rush of water currents through sensors shielded in canals that run along their flanks.
- Animals
Male spiders amputate organs, run faster
Tiny male spiders of a species common to the southeastern United States routinely remove one of their two oversize external sex organs, enabling them to run faster and longer.
- Animals
Hooking the Gullible
Research into fish behavior often reveals ways that bait designers can trick a fish into biting odd-looking lures, but angler appeal can also be an important marketing consideration.
