Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree
The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.
- Plants
Nectar: The First Soft Drink
Plants have long competed with one another to lure animals in for a sip of their sweet formulations.
- Animals
No Early Birds: Migrators can’t catch advancing caterpillars
Pied flycatcher numbers are dwindling in places where climate change has knocked the birds' migration out of sync with the food-supply peak on their breeding grounds.
- Animals
Just turn your back, Mom
A female in a species of legless amphibians called caecilians nourishes her youngsters by letting them eat the skin off her back.
- Animals
Bird hormone cuts noise distractions
A jolt of springtime hormones makes a female sparrow's brain more responsive to song.
- Animals
Grammar’s for the Birds: Human-only language rule? Tell starlings
A grammatical pattern called recursion, once proposed as unique to human language, turns out to fall within the learning abilities of starlings.
- Paleontology
Dinosaur neck size reaches new extreme
Scientists have unearthed remains of a massive, plant-eating dinosaur whose neck may have been twice as long as its body.
- Animals
Worm can crawl out of predators
A parasitic worm can wriggle out through a predator's gills or mouth if the predator eats the worm's insect host. With video.
- Ecosystems
Antarctic birds are breeding later
Rising global temperatures are causing Arctic birds to breed earlier in the spring, but for Antarctic birds, the reverse is true.
- Animals
Into Hot Water: Lab test shows that worms seek heat
Worms from deep-sea vents prefer water at temperatures near the upper limit of what animals are known to survive.
- Animals
Foodfree growth
Rattlesnakes undergo a hibernation-like state to survive long periods of famine, while continuing to grow longer.
- Animals
Hummingbirds can clock flower refills
Hummingbirds can keep track of when a particular flower has replenished its nectar and is worth visiting again.
