Life

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We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. 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.

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  2. 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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  3. 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.

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  4. Plants

    Why tulips can’t dance

    An elliptical stem gives daffodils an unusual liveliness in the wind compared with tulips.

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  5. Animals

    When Ants Squeak

    In the past 20 years, researchers studying sound communication in ants have discovered a sort of ant-ernet, zinging with messages about lost relatives, great food, free rides for hitchhikers, caterpillars in search of ant partners, and impending doom.

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  6. Animals

    Bees log flight distances, train with maps

    After decades of work, scientists crack two problems of how bees navigate: reading bee odometers and mapping training flights.

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  7. Animals

    Slithering on Air: Flying snakes glide through the treetops

    The paradise tree snake flies by flattening its body and slithering through the air.

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  8. Animals

    Strong Medicine: Over-the-counter remedy snags snakes

    Acetaminophen—the active ingredient in Tylenol—vanquishes brown tree snakes, the bane of Guam.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Pfiesteria’s Bite: Microbe may kill fish by skinning, not poisoning

    At least one kind of Pfiesteria—accused of killing fish and threatening human health—does not produce a toxin but kills by eating holes in fish's skin, some researchers say.

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  10. Plants

    Recent tree scourge poses garden threat

    Lab tests suggest that a lethal disease of oak trees in California and Oregon could strike some popular garden shrubs in the rhododendron family.

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  11. Plants

    Disease outpacing control in largest chestnut patch left

    An unusual test of a biological control for the blight that's killing American chestnuts doesn't look good in the largest remaining patch.

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  12. Animals

    Hyena androgens exact high cost

    Blocking androgens for spotted hyenas before they're born shows that the exposure of a female fetus to male hormones normally takes a heavy physical toll when females bear their own pups.

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