Life: Science news of the year, 2008

Read summaries of the year's best stories on research about the past, present and future of plants and animals.

Science News writers and editors looked back at the past year’s stories and selected a handful as the year’s most interesting and important in Life. Follow hotlinks to the full, original stories.
The largest review in a decade by the conservation monitoring organization IUCN reports that as much as a third of mammals face extinction. African elephants, at least, are classified now as nearly threatened rather than vulnerable.
The largest review in a decade by the conservation monitoring organization IUCN reports that as much as a third of mammals face extinction.