Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Plants
Giant trees have tricks to work around drought
Samples collected at daring heights provide evidence for an untested theory of tree drought adaptation, while countering another.
- Life
The natural history of every U.S. state is on display at a new D.C. exhibit
The Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s latest exhibit, “From These Lands,” connects visitors with America’s natural history.
- Animals
The animal behind most aggressive wildlife encounters may surprise you
Analysis of 3,000 incidents in Canada reveals which animal–human activity combos are especially risky. Of note: Elk and campgrounds are a bad mix.
- Animals
Young gulls’ drab plumage may help them avoid adult attacks
Fake, painted decoys suggest immature coloring acts as a social signal, reducing aggression from territorial nesting gulls.
- Animals
A new species of walking shark has been found in Papua New Guinea
Walking sharks crawl on their fins across reefs and even out into tide pools. The newfound Dudgeon walking shark brings the known species count to 10.
- Microbes
This microbe turns into a cannibalistic ‘Hulk’
Euplotes gigatrox’s shape-shifting may reveal how early life learned to act in surprisingly complex ways.
- Animals
Crabs can’t hide from an octopus with a mirror
New experiments show that octopuses can understand where an item is based solely on its reflection.
- Animals
A whopping 14 million species of insects — or more — may roam Earth
New calculations suggest that the insect species inhabiting our planet may be double or triple previous estimates.
- Science & Society
A discovery about this bat’s diet was hiding in a Renaissance painting
Renaissance painter Jan Brueghel the Elder painted a bat eating a bird — 400 years before scientists would document the behavior.
- Animals
Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a gene to endure starvation
The enormous deep-sea cousins of your garden’s pill bugs can go five years without food. A gene they pilfered from bacteria may be part of the secret.
- Neuroscience
Brains break and repair DNA to grow
Newborn mice neurons can snap both DNA strands to migrate, then repair the breaks within a day. The process may be a normal part of brain development.
- Microbes
New science on algae die-offs is too late for the Reflecting Pool
Iron and hydrogen peroxide trigger cell death via ferroptosis, which cascades killer molecules through the population, causing mass die-offs of algae.
