Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Crow Tools: Hatched to putter
The New Caledonian crow is the first vertebrate to be shown definitively to have an innate tendency to make and use tools, according to researchers who doubled as bird nannies.
- Paleontology
Reptilian Repast: Ancient mammals preyed on young dinosaurs
Two nearly complete sets of fossilized remains from 130-million-year-old rocks are revealing fresh details about the size and dietary habits of ancient mammals, hinting that some of these creatures were large enough to feast on small dinosaurs.
- Animals
Sparrows learn song from pieces
Young white-crowned sparrows don't have to hear a song straight through in order to learn it; playing the song in mixed-up paired phrases will do.
- Animals
Mixing Genes: Bird immigrants make unexpected differences
A pair of decades-long studies of birds moving into other birds' neighborhoods show that immigration can have a quirkier effect than predicted by the usual textbook view.
- Ecosystems
Fallout Feast: Vent crabs survive on victims of plume
Researchers in Taiwan propose an explanation for how so many crabs can survive at shallow-water hydrothermal vents.
- Animals
Paper wasps object to dishonest face spots
Female wasps with dishonest faces, created by researchers who altered the wasps' natural status spots, have to cope with extra aggression.
- Ecosystems
The Birds Are Falling: Avian losses could hit ecosystems hard
If many bird populations dip toward extinction in the coming century, widespread harm could come to ecosystems that depend on these birds.
- Animals
Song Fights
Birds settle many of their disputes by some rough-and-tough singing bouts, and recording equipment now lets researchers pick a song fight, too.
- Animals
Grow-Slow Potion: Pheromone keeps bee youngsters youthful
Researchers have identified a compound made by the senior workers in a honeybee colony that prolongs the time that teenage bees stay home babysitting.
- Animals
Color at Night: Geckos can distinguish hues by dim moonlight
The first vertebrate to ace tests of color vision at low light levels—tests that people flunk—is an African gecko.
- Paleontology
Subway dig in L.A. yields fossil trove
Fossil finds made when a subway line was extended from Los Angeles into the San Fernando Valley include bones of mastodons, ground sloths, extinct bison and camels, and 39 new species of fish.
- Plants
Botany under the Mistletoe
Twisters, spitters, and other flowery thoughts for romantic moments.
