New Scientist - Life

New Scientist - Life
New Scientist - Life
  1. Is every species necessary or can we let some die out?
    There are thousands of species at risk of extinction, and we can’t save them all – how do conservationists think about which ones to focus on?
  2. Horses used in therapy often avoid people if they are given a choice
    Horses show signs of stress if people touch them while they are tethered, but they appear much less anxious if they are able to walk away
  3. Birds make an 'after you' gesture to prompt their mate to enter nest
    Japanese tits sometimes flutter their wings in an apparent gesture of encouraging their mate to enter their shared nest first
  4. Tiny deer from the dry valleys of Peru recognised as new species
    A 38-centimetre-tall deer, found in an arid region in the central Andes, is the first new deer species found in South America for over 60 years
  5. Dogs really do understand that words stand for objects
    Pet dogs have different patterns of brain activity when they are shown an object that doesn’t match the word they hear, suggesting they have a mental representation of what words mean
  6. Ant queens have good reasons for eating their own babies
    Feasting on family members may be an unorthodox way for ant queens to keep their fledgling colonies from being overrun by lethal fungi
  7. Male and female spiders pair up to look like a flower
    Together, a dark-hued male crab spider and a larger, paler female resemble a flower, in what researchers suspect is the first case of cooperative mimicry
  8. Fluffy beetle discovered in Australia may be the world's hairiest
    The exceptionally long white hairs on the newly named longhorn beetle Excastra albopilosa may deceive predators into thinking it is covered in fungus
  9. Blue tits shared a tree hollow with bird-eating bats – and survived
    A pair of blue tits were seen nesting in a tree cavity that was also inhabited by about 25 greater noctule bats, which commonly eat blue tits, but the birds lived to tell the tale
  10. Extinct freshwater dolphin from the Amazon was largest of all time
    A dolphin that lived in the Amazon 16 million years ago grew to a length of 3.5 metres – larger than any other freshwater dolphin

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