Life

  1. Ecosystems

    Tadpole Science Gets Its Legs . . .

    The amazingly complex tadpole now shines in ecological studies.

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  2. Animals

    Hanging around Mom’s web helps everybody

    For nearly grown spiderlings, lingering in their mother's web instead of setting off on their own turns out to be a boon for the mom, as well as themselves.

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  3. Ecosystems

    Mistletoe, of all things, helps juniper trees

    A mistletoe that grows on junipers may do the trees a favor by attracting birds that spread the junipers' seeds.

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  4. Animals

    Unknown squids—with elbows—tease science

    Glimpses from around the world suggest that the ocean depths hold novel, long-armed squids that belong in no known family.

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  5. Animals

    Crows appear to make tools right-handedly

    A study of 3,700 leaf remnants from crows making tools suggests that the birds prefer to work "right-handed."

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  6. Paleontology

    Turn Your Head and Roar

    The analysis of fossils that preserve evidence of diseases that appear to be similar or identical to afflictions that strike modern animals, including humans, could help scientists better grasp the causes and courses of today's ailments.

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  7. Animals

    Female ducks can double eggs by trickery

    Female goldeneye ducks can double their offspring by sneaking eggs into other females' nests before settling down to a nest of their own.

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  8. Animals

    New lizard ties for ‘world’s smallest’

    A newly discovered lizard small enough to curl up on a dime ties for the title of the smallest of its kind in the world.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Move over, Leo. Give me more elbow room

    The average size of the largest land animals on each of 25 oceanic islands and five continents strongly depends on the land area there.

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  10. Animals

    The Tropical Majority

    The abundant studies of temperate-zone birds may have biased ornithology when it comes to understanding the tropics.

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  11. Animals

    Birds with a criminal past hide food well

    Scrub jays that have stolen food from other bird's caches hide their own with extra care.

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  12. Paleontology

    New fossils threaten an extinction theory

    Recent discoveries of long-dead marine invertebrates call into question the occurrence of a catastrophic global extinction during the Late Devonian period, between 385 and 375 million years ago.

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