Life

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  1. 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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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. Animals

    Deer littermates have different dads

    Twin fawns may not have the same dad—the first time multiple paternity has turned up in a large, free-ranging hoofed mammal.

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  5. Plants

    Bleeding Trees: Microbial suspect named in beech deaths

    A microbe related to the one that caused the Irish potato famine may be killing majestic old beech trees in the northeastern United States.

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  6. Animals

    Dragonfly Glitter

    Dragonflies bring a lot of glitter to glamour shots. Texas A&M’s entomology program offers a variety of stunning images to illustrate the considerable diversity of dragonfly species. A video captures a female laying eggs, and a sequence of images shows how junior grows up. Go to: http://stephenville.tamu.edu/~fmitchel/dragonfly/index.html

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  7. Paleontology

    Bone Crushers: Teeth reveal changing times in the Pleistocene

    Tooth-fracture incidence among dire wolves in the fossil record can indicate how much bone the carnivores crunched and, therefore, something about the ecology of their time.

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  8. Paleontology

    Unknown creature made birdlike tracks

    Paleontologists have found a multitude of birdlike footprints left by a yet undiscovered creature in rocks more than 60 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the first bird to have left fossils of its body parts.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Making Scents of Flowers

    Science gets the tools to start sniffing around the ecology of floral scent.

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  10. Paleontology

    Skimming the Surface: Flying reptile may have scooped its meals

    Fossils unearthed in Brazil strengthen the idea that some species of ancient flying reptiles snatched their meals on the fly, snapping up fish as they swooped low over the water's surface.

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  11. Animals

    Redder is healthier in squawking birds

    When barn swallow nestlings open wide for food, their parents may be looking for the healthiest throats.

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  12. Animals

    Why don’t racing horses fry their brains?

    Lumpy sacs bulging out of a horse's auditory tubes may solve the mystery of how such an athletic animal keeps its brain from overheating during exercise.

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