Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
For upside-down sloths, what goes down can’t come up
Upside-down sloths have to hold their organs up and their food down.
- Animals
Winds predict deadly jellyfish blooms
A change in the winds flowing over Australia’s Great Barrier Reef coincides with reports of the potentially fatal Irukandji syndrome.
- Animals
Fly more, live longer
An examination of animal lifestyles reveals that the most important factor linked to longer life is the ability to fly.
- Genetics
Qatari people carry genetic trace of early migrants out of Africa
Qatari genomes carry shards of DNA that date back 60,000 years, when humans began to leave Africa.
- Environment
Fukushima contamination affects butterfly larvae
Butterfly larvae fed leaves with radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear disaster had a higher rate of death and development abnormalities than larvae that got leaves from a location farther from the accident.
- Paleontology
Fragments of long-bodied dino found in Argentina
Named Leinkupal laticauda, the new species dino probably lived into the early Cretaceous period, which began roughly 145 million years ago.
- Animals
Anemone eats bird, and other surprising animal meals
A fuzzy green anemone eating a bird many times its size shows that you can’t take anything for granted when it comes to which animals can eat each other.
- Paleontology
Giant 17-million-year-old fossil sperm found
Giant sperm have been found in 17-million-year-old fossilized mussel shrimp. The specimens, collected in Queensland, Australia, sport the oldest petrified sex cells on record.
- Health & Medicine
Two U.S. health care workers fall ill after treating patient with MERS
Two Florida hospital employees have reportedly fallen ill with flulike symptoms after coming in contact with a patient suffering from MERS.
- Neuroscience
Playing football linked to brain changes
Division I college football players have smaller hippocampi, especially if they’ve had concussions.
- Neuroscience
To pee or not to pee
Mice recognize others’ scents through proteins in urine, suggesting that mouse pheromones produce more complex behaviors than previously thought.
- Animals
A tale of wolves, moose and missing ice
Wolves have persisted on Lake Superior’s Isle Royale for decades, keeping moose in check, but climate change may doom the balance between the two species.
