Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Pirates of the Amphibian: Males fertilize eggs of another guy’s gal
For the first time among amphibians, scientists have found frogs that sneak their sperm onto egg clutches left by another mating pair.
- Plants
A new, slimy method of self-pollination
When all else fails for pollination, a Chinese herb in the ginger family resorts to something botanists say they haven't seen before: a do-it-yourself oil slick.
- Animals
Super Bird: Cooing doves flex extra-fast muscles
Muscles that control a dove's cooing belong to the fastest class of muscles known.
- Animals
Owls use tools: Dung is lure for beetles
Burrowing owls' habit of bringing mammal dung to their burrows attracts edible beetles and counts as form of tool use.
- Animals
Mom bears more sons when she gets extra bouquets
When researchers spiff up a male starling's courtship by delivering some extra bouquets to his mate on his behalf, the couple tends to produce more sons than usual.
- Animals
Policing egg laying in insect colonies
Kinship by itself can't explain the vigilante justice of some ant, bee, and wasp workers.
- Animals
How dingoes got down under
DNA analysis suggests that Australia got its famous dingoes from a very few dogs brought along with people fanning out from East Asia some 5,000 years ago.
- Plants
Smokey the Gardener
Wildfire smoke by itself, without help from heat, can trigger germination in certain seeds, but just what the vital compound in that smoke might be has kept biologists busy for years.
- Paleontology
Growth Spurt: Teenage tyrannosaurs packed on the pounds
Detailed analyses of tyrannosaur fossils suggest that the creatures experienced an extended growth spurt during adolescence.
- Plants
Lowering lilies on the tree of life
Water lilies may belong on the lowest branch of the family tree of flowering plants, along with a shrub called Amborella.
- Paleontology
Fossil find extends ants’ ancient lineage
The recently described, 92-million-year-old fossil of a primitive worker ant pushes back the first record of its particular subfamily by 40 million years, forcing researchers to reevaluate their ideas about the early evolution of these insects.
- Animals
Time to revise right whales’ family tree?
A statistical analysis of DNA from nearly 400 right whales around the world suggests there may be three species of Eubalena, not just two—a conclusion that may boost conservation efforts.
