Life
- Paleontology
Turn Your Head and Roar
The analysis of fossils that preserve evidence of diseases that appear to be similar or identical to afflictions that strike modern animals, including humans, could help scientists better grasp the causes and courses of today's ailments.
- Animals
Female ducks can double eggs by trickery
Female goldeneye ducks can double their offspring by sneaking eggs into other females' nests before settling down to a nest of their own.
- Animals
New lizard ties for ‘world’s smallest’
A newly discovered lizard small enough to curl up on a dime ties for the title of the smallest of its kind in the world.
- Ecosystems
Move over, Leo. Give me more elbow room
The average size of the largest land animals on each of 25 oceanic islands and five continents strongly depends on the land area there.
- Animals
The Tropical Majority
The abundant studies of temperate-zone birds may have biased ornithology when it comes to understanding the tropics.
- Animals
Birds with a criminal past hide food well
Scrub jays that have stolen food from other bird's caches hide their own with extra care.
- Paleontology
New fossils threaten an extinction theory
Recent discoveries of long-dead marine invertebrates call into question the occurrence of a catastrophic global extinction during the Late Devonian period, between 385 and 375 million years ago.
- Animals
She-male garter snakes: Some like it hot
Male garter snakes that emerge from hibernation and attract a mob of deluded male suitors may just be looking for safety in numbers and body heat.
- Animals
Finches figure out solo how to use tools
The woodpecker finches of the Galápagos, textbook examples of birds that use tools, pick up their considerable skills without copying each other.
- Animals
Magnetic field tells nightingales to binge
Young birds that have never migrated before may take a cue from the magnetic field to fatten up before trying to fly over the Sahara.
- Paleontology
Fossils Indicate. . .Wow, What a Croc!
Newly discovered fossils of an ancient cousin of modern crocodiles suggest that adults of the species may have been dinosaur-munching behemoths that grew to the length of a school bus and weighed as much as 8 metric tons.
- Plants
Torn to Ribbons in the Desert
Botanists puzzle over one of Earth's oddest plants: the remarkably scraggly Welwitschia of southwestern Africa.
