Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Animals

    It’s a bad idea for a toad to swallow a bombardier beetle

    Toads are tough. But there are some insects even they shouldn’t swallow.

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  2. Paleontology

    This ancient creature looks like a spider with a tail

    A newly discovered ancient creature looks like a spider and has silk spinners and spidery male sex organs.

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  3. Plants

    Pollinators are usually safe from a Venus flytrap

    A first-ever look at what pollinates the carnivorous Venus flytrap finds little overlap between pollinators and prey.

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  4. Neuroscience

    A blood test could predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease

    A blood test can predict the presence of an Alzheimer’s-related protein in the brain.

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  5. Animals

    A peek into polar bears’ lives reveals revved-up metabolisms

    Polar bears have higher metabolisms than scientists thought. In a world with declining Arctic sea ice, that could spell trouble.

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  6. Animals

    A killer whale gives a raspberry and says ‘hello’

    Tests of imitating sounds finds that orcas can sort of mimic humans.

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  7. Life

    Here’s how cells rapidly stuff two meters of DNA into microscopic capsules

    Scientists have figured out how cells quickly pack up their chromosomes before a cell divides.

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  8. Animals

    Slower speed, tricky turns give prey a chance against cheetahs and lions

    A bonanza of data on wild predators running shows that hunting is more than sprinting.

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  9. Animals

    Here’s why so many saiga antelope mysteriously died in 2015

    Higher than normal temperatures turned normally benign bacteria lethal, killing hundreds of thousands of the saiga antelopes.

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  10. Earth

    Life may have been possible in Earth’s earliest, most hellish eon

    Heat from asteroid bombardment during Earth’s earliest eon wasn’t too intense for life to exist on the planet, a new study suggests.

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  11. Environment

    Plastic pollution increases risk of devastating disease in corals

    Researchers estimate about 11 billion pieces of plastic are polluting Asia-Pacific corals, raising the risk of disease at scores of reefs.

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  12. Genetics

    Scientists find 10 new defense systems used by bacteria

    Scientists identify 10 groups of genes that appear to govern defense systems used by bacteria against virus attacks.

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