News
- Neuroscience
Rats can bop their heads to the beat
Rats’ rhythmic response to human music doesn’t mean they like to dance, but it may shed light on how brains evolved to perceive rhythm.
- Archaeology
A spider monkey’s remains tell a story of ancient diplomacy in the Americas
A 1,700-year-old spider monkey skeleton unearthed at Teotihuacan in Mexico was likely a diplomatic gift from the Maya.
- Animals
Long considered loners, many marsupials may have complex social lives
Some marsupials may be more sociable than previously thought, opening the door to a possible deep legacy of social organization systems in mammals
- Physics
How physics can improve the urinal
Urinals built with curves like those in nautilus shells eliminate the splash-back common with conventional commodes.
- Health & Medicine
Pollution mucks up the lungs’ immune defenses over time
A study of immune tissue in the lungs reports that particulate matter buildup from air pollution may impair respiratory immunity in older adults.
- Animals
These devices use an electric field to scare sharks from fishing hooks
SharkGuard gadgets work by harnessing sharks’ ability to detect electric fields. That could save the animals’ lives, a study suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Got a weird COVID-19 symptom? You’re not alone
From head to COVID toe, doctors have seen a bevy of bizarre cases.
- Anthropology
Carvings on Australia’s boab trees reveal a generation’s lost history
Archaeologists and an Aboriginal family are working together to rediscover a First Nations group’s lost connections to the land.
- Archaeology
Some Maya rulers may have taken generations to attract subjects
Commoners slowly granted authority to kings at the ancient Maya site of Tamarindito, researchers suspect.
- Planetary Science
The pristine Winchcombe meteorite suggests that Earth’s water came from asteroids
Other meteorites have been recovered after being tracked from space to the ground, but never so quickly as the Winchcombe meteorite.
- Ecosystems
Tiger sharks helped discover the world’s largest seagrass prairie
Instrument-equipped sharks went where divers couldn’t to survey the Bahama Banks seagrass ecosystem.
- Humans
The world population has now reached 8 billion
In a first, the global population surpassed this milestone on November 15, according to a projection from the United Nations.
