Life

Ecosystems

Building Homes Where the Buffalo Roamed

A new study finds that being environmentally conscious is no guarantee you’ll put your home where you mouth is.

Ecosystems

Eight-legged bags of poison

Birds eating arachnids get high dose of toxic metal as mercury climbs up the food chain.

Ecosystems

Beetle attack overturns forest carbon regime

Ravaged Canadian region switches from carbon sink to net carbon source.

Agriculture

Study decodes papaya genome

Scientists have added another plant to the genome-sequencing roster: the tropical fruit tree papaya.

Life

Elephant kin liked the water

Moeritherium, ancient relatives of modern elephants, may have spent much of their time in lakes, rivers or swamps.

Paleontology

China was an ancient-ape paradise

Fossil dig uncovers the oldest known remains of ancestral gibbons

Life

Twin Fates

Animal and human studies suggest that a girl with a twin brother may never completely escape the influence of her opposite-sex womb-mate.

Life

Pockets of Poor Health

The trend towards longer life expectancy plateaued or reversed in some parts of the U.S., a new study finds.

Life

Rest in peace nanobacteria, you were not alive after all

New studies bid a fond farewell to nanobacteria -- the extremely tiny “microorganisms” that have sparked controversy and may cause disease.

Animals

First Frog without Lungs

An aquatic frog in fast-flowing water in Borneo turns out to be the first frog species with no lungs.

Animals

Antibiotic Alligator: Promising proteins lurk in reptile blood

Scientists are zeroing in on alligator blood proteins that show promise for fighting disease-causing microbes.

Animals

Robin stole credit for Batman’s deeds

Bats turn out to be overlooked but significant eaters of insects, pests and other arthropods on shade-grown coffee farms and in tropical forests.