Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- Ecosystems
Making Scents of Flowers
Science gets the tools to start sniffing around the ecology of floral scent.
- Paleontology
Skimming the Surface: Flying reptile may have scooped its meals
Fossils unearthed in Brazil strengthen the idea that some species of ancient flying reptiles snatched their meals on the fly, snapping up fish as they swooped low over the water's surface.
- Animals
Redder is healthier in squawking birds
When barn swallow nestlings open wide for food, their parents may be looking for the healthiest throats.
- Animals
Why don’t racing horses fry their brains?
Lumpy sacs bulging out of a horse's auditory tubes may solve the mystery of how such an athletic animal keeps its brain from overheating during exercise.
- Animals
Altruistic Sperm: Mouse gametes team up to power one winner
The sperm of wood mice hook together by the thousands to form high-speed teams racing toward an egg, even though only one of the pack will get the prize.
- Animals
Pesticides Mess with Immunity: Double whammy promotes frog deformities
Agricultural pollutants may conspire with parasites to cause the epidemic of limb deformity that's sweeping through North America's frog populations.
