Animals
- Life
Good news for giant pandas
The animal’s immune system has higher than expected genetic diversity, which could lead to better breeding programs.
- Animals
The colorful lives of squid
Your calamari, it turns out, may have come from a temporary transvestite with rainbows in its armpits.
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- Animals
Amphibian killer forces immune-cell suicides
Fungal menace to frogs and their kin shuts down key parts of the animals’ defenses.
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- Animals
Young chimps catch human yawns
Juvenile chimps yawn contagiously when they see humans do it, a response that could signal the animals are developing empathy.
- Animals
Lurking males lead to hard-to-fertilize mouse eggs
Mixed-sex society raises resistance to sperm in what may be a long-running arms race between the sexes over fertilization.
- Animals
Dogs pick up robots’ social cues
Dogs were more likely to pay attention to a PeopleBot robot — a machine with a laptop head and Mickey Mouse–style hands — after watching it walk, talk and shake hands with humans.
- Genetics
Male zebrafish sex tool stops fin regeneration
Tiny, spiked structures on the pectoral fins of male zebrafish help them hold females steady while mating. However, the structures produce a protein that seems to hinder the fish’s ability to regenerate fins.
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- Animals
Hibernating turtles don’t slip into a coma
Winterized red-eared sliders shut down their lungs but spring into action when they see light.
