Life
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Ecosystems
Predators return
Warming waters could push new predators into Antarctica's delicate ecosystems.
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Life
Banishing Sense-less Reporting
Scientific reports don't have to be dry, although they all-too-frequently are.
By Janet Raloff -
Animals
People bring both risk and reward to chimps
Tolerating human researchers and ecotourists brought a group of chimpanzees a higher risk of catching human diseases but a lower chance of attacks from poachers.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
From China, the tiniest pterodactyl
Researchers excavating the fossil-rich rocks of northeastern China have discovered yet another paleontological marvel: a flying reptile the size of a sparrow.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Flying Deaf? Earliest bats probably didn’t echolocate
Fossils of a cardinal-sized creature recently unearthed in western Wyoming suggest that primitive bats developed the ability to fly before they could track their prey with biological sonar.
By Sid Perkins -
Animals
Bird fads weaken sexual selection
There's a new look for a hot male among lark buntings every year.
By Susan Milius -
Ecosystems
Spread of nonnative fish mirrors human commerce
Invasions of foreign freshwater fish are more common in areas with relatively high economic activity, suggesting that humans are a part of the problem.
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Animals
Whales Drink Sounds: Hearing may use an ancient path
Sounds can travel to a whale's ears through its throat, an acoustic pathway that might be ancient in the whale lineage.
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Animals
The naming of the elephant-shrew
A new species of giant elephant-shrew, small bounding forest dwellers very distantly related to elephants, has been discovered in Tanzania. With video.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Traveling tubers
Potato varieties from Chile arrived in Europe several years before the blights of the mid-1800s, a new analysis of DNA from old plant collections reveals.
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Animals
Very brown sheep have a dark side
Big, dark sheep on a Scottish island are not breaking the rules of evolution after all.
By Susan Milius