Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Hey, kids, it’s time for drool
A researcher has for the first time decoded a vibrational signal used by paper wasps.
- Animals
When a chipmunk teases a rattlesnake
Several of the Northeast's least ferocious forest creatures taunt rattlesnakes.
- Animals
Faithful voles have hidden infidelities
Prairie voles, used for studying the biological basis of monogamy, do form social bonds but they also have more out-of-pair sexual encounters than most biologists had expected.
- Animals
Coati version of spoiled brats
A biologist reports that ring-tailed coatis in Argentina have a kind of dominance structure never before documented in animals, with adolescents as a group outranking their moms and older half-sibs.
- Animals
Getting the Gull: Baiting trick spreads among killer whales
A young male orca that spits up fish and then ambushes gulls attracted to the mess seems to have started a wave of cultural transmission.
- Animals
Myth of the Bad-Nose Birds
Even though a lot of people still believe birds have no sense of smell, certain species rely on their noses for important jobs, such as finding food and shelter, and maybe even a mate.
- Paleontology
Just for Frills?
The more that paleontologists scrutinize some dinosaurs' plates, frills, and other anatomical oddities, the more they suspect that the rationale behind these features is simply the need to be recognizably different.
- Animals
Out of the Jungle: New lemurs found in Madagascar’s forests
Two new species of lemur have been discovered in Madagascar, the only home of these tiny and endangered primates.
- Paleontology
Young and Helpless: Fossils suggest that dinosaur parents cared
Skeletal remains found in the fossilized eggs of an early dinosaur hint that adults of the species may have cared for their hatchlings.
- Animals
Wing Ding: Bird rubs feathers for cricketlike song
Scientists say that they have found the first vertebrate to make its courtship music in the same way as a cricket does.
- Animals
Meat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down
A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.
- Animals
Ladybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food
When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.
