Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    Here’s how dust mites give dermatitis sufferers the itch

    Dust mites can make people with eczema truly miserable. Now, scientists have figured out why they make some people scratch, and resolved a dermatological debate.

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  2. Animals

    Tiny hummingbirds can fly a long, long way

    Some ruby-throated hummingbirds may be capable of flying more than 2,000 kilometers without stopping, scientists calculate.

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  3. Plants

    How to keep seagrasses as happy as a clam

    Drought can do more damage to seagrass meadows if their partnership with clams break down.

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  4. Animals

    Great tits sing with syntax

    Humans are no longer the only species to use compositional syntax. Great tits do, too.

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  5. Neuroscience

    Readers respond to stress, tattoos, and the universe

    Stress, tattoos, cosmic origins and more reader feedback.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Cells from fat mend bone, cartilage, muscle and even the heart

    Stem cells and other components of fat can be coerced to grow into bone, cartilage, muscle or to repair the heart.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Molecules found to counter antibiotic resistance

    Molecules made in a lab can foil antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    New techniques regrow lens, cornea tissue

    Preliminary stem cell discoveries may restore lenses and corneas.

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  9. Anthropology

    H. erectus cut, chewed way through evolution

    A diet that included raw, sliced meat changed the face of early Homo evolution, scientists say.

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  10. Oceans

    Swirls of plankton decorate the Arabian Sea

    The dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans is taking over in the Arabian Sea, posing a potential threat to its ecosystem.

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  11. Neuroscience

    Scientists still haven’t solved mystery of memory

    50 years have refined a basic understanding of the brain, but scientists are still exploring how memories form, change and persist.

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  12. Animals

    New chameleon has strange snout, odd distribution

    A new species of chameleon from Tanzania echoes the unusual range of the kipunji monkey.

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