Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Just ain’t natural

    Monster data crunch strengthens case that climate is disrupted.

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  2. Life

    Identifying viable embryos

    New genetic tests to distinguish viable from nonviable embryos may help eliminate risky multiple births from fertility procedures.

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  3. Tech

    The flap on dragonfly flight

    New experiments have revealed an aerodynamic trick that dragonflies use to fly efficiently — a trick that engineers could exploit to improve the energy efficiency of small aerial vehicles with a similar design.

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  4. Life

    Good night, Sloth

    First EEG of free-roaming animals finds less sleeping in the real world.

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  5. Plants

    One gene, many shapes

    A single genetic change may lead to the notable diversity of leaves seen in Galapagos Island tomato plants.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    BOOK REVIEW | Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

    Review by Elizabeth Quill.

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  7. Life

    BOOK LIST | Manipulative Monkeys: The Capuchins of Lomas Barbudal

    Primatologists follow the social lives of these big-brained Costa Rican monkeys. Harvard Univ. Press, 2008 358 p. $45 MANIPULATIVE MONKEYS

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  8. Plants

    BOOK LIST | Winter Trees

    In this picture book, a child uses sight and touch to identify seven common trees, even after they’ve lost their leaves. Charlesbridge Publishing, 2008, 30 p. $15.95 WINTER TREES

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  9. Life

    It’s the network, stupid

    The complexity of humans may lie not in genes but in the web of interactions among the proteins they make.

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  10. Life

    Epic Genetics – Sidebar

    Epigenetic changes can be undone in some circumstances.

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  11. Life

    Epic Genetics

    The way genes are packaged by "epigenetic" changes may play a major role in the risk of addiction, depression and other mental disorders.

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  12. Life

    Duckbill decoded

    With a mix of reptilian, bird and mammalian features, the duck-billed platypus genome looks as strange as the animal.

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