News in Brief
- Animals
Chimps keep numbers high as forest losses mount
African apes show surprising resilience in face of forest destruction.
- Neuroscience
Altered protein makes mice smarter
By tweaking a single gene, scientists have turned average mice into supersmart daredevils.
- Astronomy
Eight more galaxies found orbiting the Milky Way
The dozens of satellite galaxies that orbit the Milky Way make excellent laboratories for studying dark matter.
- Animals
Light pollution may disrupt firefly sex
Females of a common big dipper firefly weren’t as flashy when forced to flirt in LED light pollution.
- Neuroscience
Hints of how the brain “sees” dreams emerge
Nerve cells that make sense of visual input keep chugging away during REM sleep, suggesting that these cells may help a sleeper “see” dreams.
- Astronomy
Faint red stars can build water worlds drip by drip
Rocky planets around faint red stars have a hard time getting water, but they’re still probably the most common habitable locales in the Milky Way, new computer simulations suggest.
- Animals
Parasitic wasp larva gets more than a meal from its spider host
Parasitic wasps coerce spiders to construct strong supports for cocoons.
- Materials Science
Buckyballs turn on copper’s magnetism
Exposure to buckyballs bestows ironlike magnetic properties onto the normally nonmagnetic metals copper and manganese.
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- Health & Medicine
Spicy food linked to longevity
Spicy food in the diet seems to contribute to longevity, a study of thousands of people in a Chinese registry finds.
- Neuroscience
Astrocytes help speed up brain’s messages
Astrocytes may help speed nerve cells’ electrical messages.
- Planetary Science
Map of Ceres’ surface shows surprises
Clusters of craters on Ceres and smooth landscapes hint at an unusual past for the dwarf planet.
