Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Flowers, not flirting, make sexes differ
Thanks to lucky circumstances, bird researchers find rare evidence that food, not sex appeal, makes some male and female hummingbirds look different.
- Ecosystems
Ultimate Sea Weed Loose in America
The unusually invasive strain of seaweed that has been smothering coastal areas of the Mediterranean has shown up in a California lagoon, the first sighting of this ecologically devastating alga in the Americas.
- Ecosystems
Lab ecosystems show signs of evolving
An ambitious test of group selection considers whether natural selection can act on whole ecosystems as evolutionary units.
- Paleontology
Was it sudden death for the Permian period?
The massive extinctions that came at the end of the Permian period could have occurred within a mere 8,000 years, which suggests a catastrophic cause for the die-offs.
- Animals
He and she cooperate on anti-aphrodisiacs
Scientists have for the first time identified a chemical that serves as a butterfly anti-aphrodisiac.
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- Paleontology
Overlooked fossil spread first feathers
A new look at a fossil that had been lying in a drawer in Moscow for nearly 30 years has uncovered the oldest known feathered animal.
- Animals
Single singing male toad seeks same
Male spadefoot toads of the Spea multiplicata species evaluate male competitors by the same criterion females use.
- Animals
The whole beehive gets a fever…
When bee larvae are fighting off disease, the nest temperature rises, so the whole hive gets a fever.
- Animals
Female owls: First to advertise good genes
Swiss researchers find the first case of a female flashing ornaments that advertise her gene quality to choosy males.
- Paleontology
Fossils Hint at Who Left Africa First
Fossil skulls found in central Asia date to 1.7 million years ago and may represent the first ancestral human species to have left Africa.
- Plants
New gene-altering strategy tested on corn
Scientists have created herbicide-resistant corn with a new kind of genetic engineering that involves subtly altering one of the plant's own genes rather than adding a new gene.
