Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Animals

    How snails breathe through snorkels on land

    Shells with a tube counterintuitively sealed at the end have hidden ways to let Asian snails snorkel while sealed in their shells.

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  2. Animals

    How snails breathe through snorkels on land

    Shells with a tube counterintuitively sealed at the end have hidden ways to let Asian snails snorkel while sealed in their shells.

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  3. Neuroscience

    Post-stroke shifts in gut bacteria could cause additional brain injury

    The gut’s microbial population influences how mice fare after a stroke, suggesting that poop pills might one day prove therapeutic following brain injury.

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  4. Animals

    Beetles that battle make better moms than ones that never fight

    Female burying beetles that have to fight before reproducing spend more time caring for offspring than beetles with no fighting experience, a new study finds.

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  5. Life

    When mouth microbes pal up, infection ensues

    A common and usually harmless species of mouth bacteria can help harmful bacteria become more powerful by providing oxygen.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    ‘Cracking the Aging Code’ tackles aging from evolutionary perspective

    In 'Cracking the Aging Code', theoretical biologist Josh Mitteldorf and writer Dorion Sagan take a different approach to the science of growing old.

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  7. Animals

    Documentary looks for meaning in Koko the gorilla’s life

    'Koko — The Gorilla Who Talks' documents the nearly 45-year relationship between researcher Penny Patterson and Koko, the subject of an ape sign language project.

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  8. Climate

    Phytoplankton’s response to climate change has its ups and downs

    In a four-year experiment, the shell-building activities of a phytoplankton species underwent surprising ups and downs.

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  9. Life

    Mini ‘wind farm’ could capture energy from microbes in motion

    Bacteria could spontaneously organize and rotate turbines, computer simulations show.

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  10. Life

    Hightailing it out of the water, mudskipper style

    A robot and a land-walking fish show how a tail might have made a huge difference for early vertebrates conquering the slippery slopes of terrestrial life.

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  11. Tech

    Light-activated heart cells help guide robotic stingray

    Layers of silicone, gold and genetically engineered rat heart cells make up the body of a new stingray robot that can swim in response to light.

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  12. Life

    Artificial hearing has come a long way since 1960s

    Scientists envisioned artificial hearing 50 years ago. Today, they are working to make it superhuman.

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