Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Animals

    Slithering on Air: Flying snakes glide through the treetops

    The paradise tree snake flies by flattening its body and slithering through the air.

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  2. Animals

    Strong Medicine: Over-the-counter remedy snags snakes

    Acetaminophen—the active ingredient in Tylenol—vanquishes brown tree snakes, the bane of Guam.

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  3. Ecosystems

    Pfiesteria’s Bite: Microbe may kill fish by skinning, not poisoning

    At least one kind of Pfiesteria—accused of killing fish and threatening human health—does not produce a toxin but kills by eating holes in fish's skin, some researchers say.

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  4. Plants

    Recent tree scourge poses garden threat

    Lab tests suggest that a lethal disease of oak trees in California and Oregon could strike some popular garden shrubs in the rhododendron family.

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  5. Plants

    Disease outpacing control in largest chestnut patch left

    An unusual test of a biological control for the blight that's killing American chestnuts doesn't look good in the largest remaining patch.

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  6. Animals

    Hyena androgens exact high cost

    Blocking androgens for spotted hyenas before they're born shows that the exposure of a female fetus to male hormones normally takes a heavy physical toll when females bear their own pups.

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  7. Animals

    Deer littermates have different dads

    Twin fawns may not have the same dad—the first time multiple paternity has turned up in a large, free-ranging hoofed mammal.

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  8. Plants

    Bleeding Trees: Microbial suspect named in beech deaths

    A microbe related to the one that caused the Irish potato famine may be killing majestic old beech trees in the northeastern United States.

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  9. Animals

    Dragonfly Glitter

    Dragonflies bring a lot of glitter to glamour shots. Texas A&M’s entomology program offers a variety of stunning images to illustrate the considerable diversity of dragonfly species. A video captures a female laying eggs, and a sequence of images shows how junior grows up. Go to: http://stephenville.tamu.edu/~fmitchel/dragonfly/index.html

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  10. Paleontology

    Bone Crushers: Teeth reveal changing times in the Pleistocene

    Tooth-fracture incidence among dire wolves in the fossil record can indicate how much bone the carnivores crunched and, therefore, something about the ecology of their time.

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  11. Paleontology

    Unknown creature made birdlike tracks

    Paleontologists have found a multitude of birdlike footprints left by a yet undiscovered creature in rocks more than 60 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the first bird to have left fossils of its body parts.

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  12. Ecosystems

    Making Scents of Flowers

    Science gets the tools to start sniffing around the ecology of floral scent.

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