News in Brief
- Tech
3-D–printed body helps jumping robot land on its feet
To launch itself into the air, a jumping robot relies on a 3-D–printed body made of a gradient of soft and stiff plastics.
- Astronomy
Beta Pictoris planet makes waves
Spiral waves whip through the belt of debris around a young star — and it’s all a giant planet’s fault.
- Genetics
Why mammoths loved the cold
An altered temperature sensor helped mammoths adapt to the cold.
- Health & Medicine
Genetic tweak turned plague bacterium deadly
Two genetic changes allowed plague bacteria to cause deadly lung infections and pandemic disease.
- Astronomy
X-ray rings reveal neutron star’s distance
Concentric X-ray rings around a neutron star help astronomers triangulate the star’s distance.
- Life
How vitamin B12 makes pimples pop up
Vitamin B12 causes acne by altering metabolism of skin bacteria.
- Planetary Science
Evidence mounts for active volcanoes on Venus
The Venus Express orbiter detected possible signs of active volcanism on the planet next door.
- Animals
How mantis shrimps spar
In ritualized combat between deadly mantis shrimp, blows count but don’t kill.
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotics can treat appendicitis
Antibiotics can successfully treat the majority of cases of a type of appendicitis, researchers find.
- Animals
Unpredictable egg scramble throws off parasitic parents
Eggs of some species of warbler and weaver birds appear to have individual signatures, which can help distinguish them from the eggs of parasitic cuckoos.
- Neuroscience
Homunculus reimagined
A new study pinpoints the part of the brain that controls the neck muscles, tweaking the motor homunculus.
- Animals
Male peacocks keep eyes low when checking out competition
Eye-tracking technology shows peacocks barely gaze at the full height of other males magnificent eyespot feather spreads.
