News
- Neuroscience
Shots of brain cells restore learning, memory in rats
Scientists healed damage caused to rats’ brains from radiation by injecting cells that replenish the insulation on neurons.
- Neuroscience
With good timing, experiences can rewire old brains
New experiences can rewire old brains — but the timing has to be just right.
- Paleontology
Monkeys reached Americas about 36 million years ago
Peruvian fossils suggest ancient African primates somehow crossed the Atlantic Ocean and gave rise to South American monkeys.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Geologists discover tectonic plate’s slippery underbelly
Slippery layer of partially melted rock underneath tectonic plate revealed using reflected dynamite blast vibrations.
- Animals
Cockroach personalities can speed or slow group decisions
The mix of temperaments in an alarmed cluster of cockroaches changes how quickly they make group decisions.
By Susan Milius - Humans
Baby brains undergo dramatic changes in utero
Developing human brains experience more than 28,000 changes in a molecular process that governs gene activity.
- Anthropology
Ancient Maya bookmakers get paged in Guatemala
New discoveries peg ritual specialists as force behind bark-paper tomes and wall murals.
By Bruce Bower - Cosmology
Dust erases evidence for gravity wave detection
The claimed detection of primordial gravitational waves does not hold up after taking into account galactic dust, a new analysis concludes.
By Andrew Grant - Neuroscience
Chicks show left-to-right number bias
Recently hatched chicks may have their own version of the left-to-right mental number line.
By Susan Milius - Neuroscience
Newly identified brain circuit could be target for treating obesity
In mice, specific nerve cells control compulsive sugar consumption, but not normal feeding, hinting at a new therapeutic target for treating obesity.
- Astronomy
Oldest solar system unearthed by Kepler
Five rocky planets orbit the 11.2-billion-year-old star Kepler 444, suggesting that Earth-sized worlds formed in the early universe.
- Climate
Central American fires may intensify U.S. tornadoes
Smoke originating from Central American fires may strengthen U.S. tornadoes.