Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Leaf clippings as protein factories

    Using plants to mass produce proteins for vaccines and other purposes may soon be possible without genetically engineering whole plants.

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  2. Life

    Bat that roared

    Although the human ear can't detect it, bats make astonishingly loud noises while hunting.

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  3. Humans

    Bear deadline

    Court calls for the already overdue decision on listing polar bears as a threatened species.

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  4. 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.

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  5. Ecosystems

    Eight-legged bags of poison

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

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  6. Ecosystems

    Beetle attack overturns forest carbon regime

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

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  7. Agriculture

    Study decodes papaya genome

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

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  8. Life

    Elephant kin liked the water

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

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  9. Paleontology

    China was an ancient-ape paradise

    Fossil dig uncovers the oldest known remains of ancestral gibbons

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  10. 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.

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  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

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