Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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- Animals
Snake Pits: Viper heat sensors locate cool spots
Scientists who glued aluminum foil and plastic balls to live rattlesnakes say that snakes use their heat-sensing organs for more than hunting prey.
- Plants
Sun-tracking dads make better pollen
In one of the first tests of paternal behavior in plants, snow buttercups that were allowed to follow their natural tendency to track sun movement made more-viable pollen than did tethered blooms.
- Animals
Skin Scam: Parasite’s host provides an insect hideaway
A group of parasitic insects called Strepsiptera can hide inside their victim by making the host form a protective bag of its own skin.
- Ecosystems
Zebra mussels to the rescue
Bioengineers have harnessed zebra mussels to help avert algal blooms by cleaning particles, including algae, from the water.
- Paleontology
Earful of data hints at ancient fish migration
Small bony growths that developed in the ears of fish more than 65 million years ago are providing a wealth of information about the species’ environment and lifestyle.
- Paleontology
Ancient wood points to arctic greenhouse
Chemical analyses of wood that grew in an ancient arctic forest suggest that the air there once was about twice as humid as it is now.
- Paleontology
Winging South: Finally, a fly fossil from Antarctica
A tiny fossil collected about 500 kilometers from the South Pole indicates that Antarctica was once home to a type of fly that scientists long thought had never inhabited the now-icy, almost insectfree continent.
- Paleontology
First Family’s last stand
New evidence indicates that about 3.2 million years ago, at least 17 Australopithecus afarensis individuals were killed at the same time by large predators at an eastern African site.
- Animals
Ballistic defecation: Hiding, not hygiene
Evading predators may be the big factor driving certain caterpillars to shoot their waste pellets great distances.
- Animals
Toothy valves control crocodile hearts
The odd cog teeth of the crocodile heart may be the first cardiac valve known to control blood flow actively.
- Plants
Any Hope for Old Chestnuts?
Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of chestnut blight in the United States, but enthusiasts still haven't given up hope of restoring American chestnut forests.
