Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Paleontology
Rain Forest Primeval? Colorado fossils show unexpected diversity
The size, shape, and riotous variety of fossil leaves unearthed at a site in central Colorado suggest that the region may have been covered with one of the world's first tropical rain forests just 1.4 million years after the demise of the dinosaurs.
- Animals
Butterfly ears suggest a bat influence
Researchers have found the first bat-detecting ear in a butterfly and suggest that the threat of bats triggered the evolution of some moths into butterflies.
- Animals
Oops. Woodpecker raps were actually gunshots
The knock-knock noises recorded last winter that raised hopes for rediscovering the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker in Louisiana turn out to have been gunshots instead of bird noises.
- Ecosystems
The Buzz over Coffee
Most people consider the continued spread of Africanized honeybees in the Americas as horrifying news. Nicknamed killer bees, these notorious social insects rile into stinging mobs with little provocation. But new research finds evidence that these irritable insects have been performing a hitherto unrecognized service for people around the world. They’ve helped keep down the […]
- Animals
Who’s on first with hummingbird bills
A survey of 166 hummingbird species links sex differences in bill length to sex differences in plumage and to breeding behavior.
- Animals
Marine Mules: Near-sterile hyrids boost coral diversity
Reef corals that spawn in great mixed-up soups of many species may be maintaining their diversity because their hybrids are sterile mules.
- Plants
Mirror Image: Flowers with opposite styles have a fling
Scientists have discovered a gene that controls whether flowers lean to the left or the right.
- Animals
Bay leaves may make rat nests nicer
Wood rats may be fumigating their nests with bits of California bay leaves, sprigs that killed flea larvae in lab tests.
- Paleontology
All mixed up over birds and dinosaurs
A bit of fossil fakery snookered a team of paleontologists
- Ecosystems
Plight of the Iguanas: Hidden die-off followed Galápagos spill
Residues of oil spilled in the Galapágos Islands in January 2001 may have caused a 60 percent decline in one island's colony of marine iguanas.
- Ecosystems
Famine reveals incredible shrinking iguanas
Marine iguanas in the Galápagos Islands are the first vertebrates known to reduce their size during a food shortage and then regrow to their original body lengths.
- Animals
Male bats primp daily for odor display
For the first time, scientists have described the daily routine of male sac-winged bats gathering to freshen the odor pouches on their wings.
