Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
New Butterfly: High-alpine species from low-life parents
Little bluish butterflies high in the Sierra Nevada could be one of the few animal species to have arisen from crossbreeding of two other species.
- Animals
Fighting Styles: Gene gives flies his, her conflict moves
Switching forms of one gene can make a male fruit fly fight like a girl, and vice versa.
- Animals
Tough policing deters cheating in insects
In insect societies that have tough police, it's coercion, rather than kinship, that's preventing crime.
- Animals
Chicken Speak: Birds pass test for fancy communication
The chicken may be the first animal other than primates that's been shown to make sounds that, like words, represent something in the environment. With audio.
- Animals
Hey, that’s me!
A test with a jumbo-size mirror suggests that Asian elephants may be among the few species that can recognize their own images.
- Paleontology
Asian amber yields oldest known bee
A tiny chunk of amber from Southeast Asia contains the remains of a bee that's at least 35 million years older than any reported fossil of similar bees.
- Paleontology
Early tetrapod likely ate on shore
The skull structure of Acanthostega, a semiaquatic creature that lived about 365 million years ago, suggests that the animal fed on shore or in the shallows, not in deep water.
- Paleontology
Society sans frills
The discovery of the fossils of several young dinosaurs in one small space suggests that the members of one dinosaur group evolved complex social behaviors millions of years earlier than previously suspected.
- Paleontology
DNA analysis reveals extinct type of wolf
New genetic analyses of the remains of gray wolves found in Alaska indicate that a distinct subpopulation of that species disappeared at the end of the last ice age, possibly because of its dietary habits.
- Paleontology
Rodents tell a geologic tale
The sudden appearance of many new species of rodents in Chile about 18 million years ago may have marked the rise of the southern Andes.
- Ecosystems
Brave Old World
If one group of conservation biologists has its way, lions, cheetahs, elephants, and other animals that went extinct in the western United States up to 13,000 years ago might be coming home.
- Ecosystems
Worthless waters
The biological riches of the oceans will be spent within decades if current trends continue.
