Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Plants swap chloroplasts via grafts
The energy-converting cellular organs can pass through connections, carrying genetic material with them.
- Humans
Arsenic-based life finding fails follow-up
Tests see no evidence to confirm a bold 2010 claim that some microbes can incorporate the normally toxic element into their cellular machinery.
- Life
No sleep, no problem, but keep the grub coming
A naturally occurring strain of fruit fly can thrive without slumber, but succumbs more quickly to starvation.
- Humans
Predatory pythons shift Everglades ecology
As invasive snakes expand territory, some mammal populations drop by more than 90 percent within a decade.
- Life
Long-lived people distinguished by DNA
A controversial study finds genetic signatures that may be able to identify people with the best chance of living to 100 or beyond.
- Neuroscience
Self as Symbol
The loopy nature of consciousness trips up scientists studying themselves.
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- Life
Archaeopteryx wore black
Microscopic structures in an iconic fossil feather suggest that it was the color of a crow.
- Life
Chemo drug drives growth of some tumors
A common treatment stimulates the growth of cells that give rise to ovarian cancer, but researchers may have a fix.
- Life
Boxwood blight invades North America
The devastating fungus has already stripped shrubbery down to sticks in Europe and New Zealand.
- Life
Boas take pulse as they snuff it out
Snakes use the waning throb in their prey as a signal to stop squeezing.
