Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Sponge Moms: Dolphins learn tool use from their mothers
Dolphins that carry sponges on their beaks while looking for food may have learned the trick from their mothers instead of just inheriting a sponge-use gene.
- Plants
World’s fastest plant explodes with pollen
A high-speed camera has revealed the explosive pollen launches of bunchberry dogwood flowers as the fastest plant motion known.
- Animals
Comeback Bird
Looking for a long-lost woodpecker had its special challenges, including anticipating what would happen if the hunt actually succeeded.
- Animals
Anemone Wars: Clone armies deploy scouts, attack tidally
The first description of clashing armies of sea anemones has revealed unsuspected military tactics.
- Plants
Built-in bird perch spreads the pollen
Tests confirm the idea that a plant benefits from growing a bird perch to let pollinators get the best angle for reaching the flowers.
- Ecosystems
Empty Nets
New research has begun challenging long-held assumptions about the consequences for fish stocks of harvesting the biggest fish first.
- Ecosystems
Pesticide makes bees bumble
The pesticide spinosad, previously thought safe for bees, may damage their ability to forage for nectar.
- Animals
New Mammals: Coincidence, shopping yield two species
Researchers have identified a new species of monkey in Africa and a rodent in Asia that belongs to a new family among mammals.
- Animals
Built for Blurs: Jellyfish have great eyes that can’t focus
Eight of a box jellyfish's eyes have superb lenses, but their structure prevents them from focusing sharply.
- Animals
Alive and Knocking: Glimpses of an ivory-billed legend
New observations confirm that the famed ivory-billed woodpecker has not gone extinct after all.
- Ecosystems
Decades of Dinner
Sunken whale carcasses support unique marine ecosystems that display stages of succession and change, just as land ecosystems do.
- Ecosystems
Where Tuna Go: Atlantic fish mix for feeding, not spawning
The largest high-tech tag study yet of Atlantic bluefin tuna suggests that two groups mix on feeding grounds but spawn on opposite sides of the ocean.
