Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

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  1. Animals

    Diversity of indoor insects, spiders adds to life’s luxuries in high-income neighborhoods

    A massive survey of indoor spiders and insects in town finds dozens of different scientific families in homes, more in high-income neighborhoods.

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  2. Neuroscience

    Running doesn’t make rats forgetful

    Running doesn’t seem to wipe out old memories in rats, concludes a new study that contradicts earlier reports suggesting that exercise does actually help old memories fade and new memories form — in other rodents.

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  3. Paleontology

    Woolly mammoths’ last request: Got water?

    Woolly mammoths survived on an Alaskan island thousands of years after mainland mammoths went extinct. But they died out when their lakes dried up, thanks to a warming climate and rising sea levels.

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  4. Animals

    Pup kidnapping has a happy ending when a seal gets two moms

    A female fur seal kidnapped another seal’s pup. But this turned out to be a positive the young seal, scientists found.

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  5. Neuroscience

    Gift-giving brain cells are lifeline to injured nerve cells

    After an injury, astrocytes give nerve cells a gift of mitochondria, mouse study suggests.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    This week in Zika: Revised risk, new mosquito threat, U.S. on the brink

    First potential cases of locally spread Zika crop up in the continental United States, estimates of infection risk, antibodies that can fight the virus and a new mosquito species that may be able to carry Zika.

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  7. Plants

    Why a parasitic vine can’t take a bite out of tomatoes

    Cultivated tomatoes fend off parasitic vines as they would microbes.

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  8. Animals

    How Houdini tadpoles escape certain death

    High-speed video of red-eyed tree frog embryos reveals the secrets to their getaway plans.

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  9. Life

    Human eye spots single photons

    Human eyes are sensitive enough to detect individual particles of light.

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  10. Earth

    Science finds many tricks for traveling to the past

    Our editor in chief discusses what science can tell us about the past.

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  11. Animals

    Readers ponder animal flight

    Readers respond to the June 11, 2016, issue of Science News with questions on cormorants, butterflies, virus-sensing genes and more.

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  12. Life

    Distinctions blur between wolf species

    Red and eastern wolves might be gray wolf/coyote blends instead of distinct species

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