Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Paleontology
Teeth tell tale of warm-blooded dinosaurs
Evidence locked within the fossil teeth of some dinosaurs may help bolster the view that some of the animals were, at least to some degree, warm-blooded.
- Animals
Toothy valves control crocodile hearts
The odd cog teeth of the crocodile heart may be the first cardiac valve known to control blood flow actively.
- Animals
Slavemaker Ants: Misunderstood Farmers?
A test of what once seemed too obvious to test—whether ant colonies suffer after being raided by slavemaker ants—suggests that some of the raiding insects have been getting unfair press.
- Paleontology
Feathered fossil still stirs debate
More than 2 years after scientists first described 120-million-year-old fossils of a feathered animal, a new analysis seems to bolster the view that the turkey-size species was a bird has-been and not a bird wanna-be.
- Plants
Team corners culprit in sudden oak death
After 5 years of mystery, California pathologists announced they may have identified the cause of a new tree disease called sudden oak death.
- 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.
