Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Yellower blue tits make better dads
The yellow feathers on a male blue tit's breast could tell females that he'll be a good provider for the chicks.
- Plants
Tropical plants grow cool flowers
Tropical plants that position their flowers in the general direction of the sun are keeping the temperature comfortable for pollinators.
- Plants
Petite pollinators: Tree raises its own crop of couriers
A common tropical tree creates farms in its buds, where it raises its own work force of tiny pollinators.
- Ecosystems
Genetic lynx: North American lynx make one huge family
A new study of lynx in North America suggests the animals interbreed widely, sometimes with populations thousands of kilometers away.
- Plants
Shower power: Raindrops shoot seeds out with a splat
In a seed-dispersal mechanism scientists have never seen before in flowering plants, rain plops into a capsule and makes seeds shoot out the corners.
- Ecosystems
Tadpole Science Gets Its Legs . . .
The amazingly complex tadpole now shines in ecological studies.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
- 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.
