Life
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BrainGasp! At the movies, your breaths reveal your emotions
Researchers took air samples as they screened movies. What people exhaled were linked to film scenes’ emotional tone, they found.
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Health & MedicineZika vaccines look promising
As a Zika epidemic surges through Brazil and northward, scientists are looking for drugs to keep more people from becoming infected. Several vaccines show promise in early tests — but none has yet been tried in people.
By Meghan Rosen -
AnimalsThis mammal has the world’s slowest metabolism
A sloth species manages to exist with a super-slow metabolism by moving little and using its environment for heating and cooling its body.
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AnimalsSinging lemurs sync up — until one goes solo
The indri lemurs of Madagascar sing in chorus to mark their territory. But young males sometimes solo, which may help them attract a mate.
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AnimalsSnout goo may help sharks sense prey
Scientists may be one step closer to understanding how sharks sense their prey. Pores on their snout and face are lined with a gel that may help relay electrical currents created by prey’s movements.
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AnimalsLeapin’ eels! Video shows they attack with zaps
When a predator threatens an electric eel from above, the animals leap up to deliver a shocking defense.
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AnimalsHow a moth went to the dark side
Peppered moths and some butterflies are icons of evolution. Now scientists have found a gene responsible for making them so.
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AnimalsThe turning of wolves into dogs may have occurred twice
The process of turning wolves into dogs, called domestication, may have occurred twice — in the East and the West — ancient DNA suggest.
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AnimalsTeens use science to worm through plastic waste
Some beetle larvae can eat plastic, which might be good for our pollution problem. But which types eat the most can vary a lot, these young scientists find.
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AnimalsCatching ‘Dory’ fish can poison entire coral reef ecosystems
More than half of saltwater-aquarium fish sold in the United States may have been caught in the wild using cyanide, new data show.
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EarthFighting big farm pollution with a tiny plant
Fertilizer runoff can fuel the growth of toxic algae nearby lakes. A teen decided to harness a tiny plant to sop up that fertilizer.
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LifeScientists Say: Exocytosis
For a cell to remove something large from inside itself, it turns to a process called exocytosis.