Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Ecosystems
Climate Upsets: Big model predicts many new neighbors
The biggest effects of climate change during the next 50 years may not be extinctions but major reshuffling of the species in local communities.
- Animals
Toxic Tools: Frogs down under pack their own poison
An Australian frog can synthesize its own protective poison, rather than obtain it from the insects it eats.
- Plants
Trees dim the light on spring flowers
Early spring flowers and the sugar maples they grow under use different alarm clocks to get going in the spring, which can make life hard for the flowers in northern forests.
- Animals
Lamprey Allure: Females rush to males’ bile acid
An unusual sex attractant has turned up in an analysis of sea lampreys, and it may inspire new ways to defend the Great Lakes against invasive species.
- Animals
Real pandas do handstands
A giant panda that upends itself into a handstand may be sending a message that it's one big bamboo-thrasher and not to be messed with.
- Animals
Nephews, Cousins . . . Who Cares? Detecting kin doesn’t mean favoring them
New tests of the amazing nose power of Belding's ground squirrels has solved a 25-year-old puzzle about doing dangerous favors for relatives.
- Animals
Lemonade from Broken Amber
The fossilized microbes found inside termites that have been encased in amber for 20 million years are remarkably similar to those found within the ancient insects' modern cousins.
- Animals
Cold Hamsters: Wild species boosts immunity for winter
Hamsters that have to survive winter outdoors in Siberia rev up their immune systems, including their response to psychological stress, when days grow short.
- Animals
Leave It to Evolution: Duplicated gene aids odd monkey diet
A duplicated gene that has rapidly evolved helps certain monkey species thrive on a diet of leaves.
- Paleontology
Old Frilly Face: Triceratops’ relative fills fossil-record gap
Fossils of a creature the size of a Texas jackrabbit cast new light on the early evolution of a group of horned dinosaurs that include the 8-meter-long Triceratops.
- Paleontology
Early hunters are guilty as charged
Scientists find that hunting is the likely cause of New Zealand's prehistoric bird extinctions rather than habitat destruction or pest introduction.
- Paleontology
Did Mammals Spread from Asia? Carbon blip gives clue to animals’ Eden
A new dating of Chinese fossils buttresses the idea than an Asian Eden gave rise to at least one of the groups of mammal species that appeared in North America some 55 million years ago.
