News in Brief
- Animals
Bird nest riddle: Which shape came first?
Today’s simple cup-shaped songbird nests look as if they just had to have evolved before roofed nests. But that could be backward.
- Health & Medicine
Zika kills brain cells in adult mice
Zika virus may harm more than babies: The virus can infect and kill brain cells in adult mice, too.
- Life
Two stationary kinds of bacteria can move when mixed
Bacteria stuck when alone on a dry surface get moving — and get faster — when they evolve together.
- Life
For bacteria, assassination can breed cooperation
Cholera bacteria stabbing each other can encourage the evolution of cooperation.
- Astronomy
Dark matter candidate particles are a no-show in Hitomi data
Before the Hitomi satellite broke apart, it captured data that cast further doubt on evidence of X-rays from dark matter particles in a galaxy cluster.
- Animals
Colugo genome reveals gliders as primate cousins
New genetic analysis suggests gliding mammals called colugos are actually sisters to modern primates.
- Genetics
Scientists get a glimpse of chemical tagging in live brains
For the first time scientists can see where molecular tags known as epigenetic marks are placed in the brain.
- Animals
Betty the crow may not have invented her hook-bending tool trick
Textbook example of Betty the crow’s proposed insight into toolmaking is now called into question by observations of similar hook bending by wild New Caledonian birds.
- Particle Physics
Cooling stars hint at dark matter particles
Stars that cool faster than expected can be explained by hypothetical particles called axions.
- Particle Physics
Upon further review, suspected new particle vanishes
Hints of a new particle at the LHC have disappeared.
- Plants
Internal clock helps young sunflowers follow the sun
A circadian clock helps sunflowers follow the sun’s daily path across the sky
- Health & Medicine
Zika vaccines work in rhesus monkeys
Three vaccines can protect rhesus monkeys from infection with Zika. One of them fended off viral strains from both Brazil and Puerto Rico.
