Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Plants

    On hot summer days, this thistle is somehow cool to the touch

    In hot Spanish summers, the thistle Carlina corymbosa is somehow able to cool itself substantially below air temperature.

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  2. Plants

    Ancient trees’ gnarled, twisted shapes provide irreplaceable habitats

    Traits that help trees live for hundreds of years also foster forest life, one reason why old growth forest conservation is crucial.

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  3. Animals

    A new book explores the transformative power of bird-watching

    In Birding to Change the World, environmental scientist Trish O’Kane shows how birds and humans can help one another heal.

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  4. Neuroscience

    Ancient viruses helped speedy nerves evolve

    A retrovirus embedded in the DNA of some vertebrates helps turn on production of a protein needed to insulate nerve cells, aiding speedy thoughts.

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  5. Agriculture

    Mixing up root microbes can boost tea’s flavor

    Inoculating tea plant roots with nitrogen-metabolizing bacteria enhances synthesis of theanine, an amino acid that gives tea its savoriness.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Newfound immune cells are responsible for long-lasting allergies

    A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.

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  7. Animals

    Does this drone image show a newborn white shark? Experts aren’t sure

    If a claim of the first-ever sighting of a newborn white shark holds, it could help solve a mystery of where adult white sharks give birth.

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  8. Animals

    Migratory fish species are in drastic decline, a new UN report details

    The most comprehensive tally of how migrating animals are faring looks at more than 1,000 land and aquatic species and aims to find ways to protect them.

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  9. Artificial Intelligence

    How do babies learn words? An AI experiment may hold clues

    Using relatively little data, audio and video taken from a baby’s perspective, an AI program learned the names of objects the baby encountered.

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  10. Neuroscience

    A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand

    A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.

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  11. Animals

    Here’s how many shark bites there were in 2023

    The chance of being bitten by a shark is still incredibly slim, according to a new report from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

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  12. Animals

    The first known scorpion to live with ants carries mini hitchhikers

    Small arachnids hitch a ride on the scorpion, possibly to get inside food-rich ant nests.

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