Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
How thin, delicate butterfly wings keep from overheating
Structures in butterfly wings help living tissues such as veins release more heat than the rest of the wing.
- Life
The board game Oceans captures the beauty and ferocity of marine life
North Star Games' Oceans refines the gameplay of its predecessor, Evolution, and creates an immersive, nuanced game world.
- Neuroscience
Brain cells called microglia eat away mice’s memories
Immune cells that eliminate connections between nerve cells may be one way that the brain forgets.
- Animals
Beaked whales may evade killer whales by silently diving in sync
To slip past predators, beaked whales appear to synchronize their deep dives, staying silent while not hunting and ascending far from where they dove.
- Neuroscience
Injecting nanoparticles in the blood curbed brain swelling in mice
Nanoparticles divert inflammation-causing cells away from the brain after a head injury, a mouse study shows.
- Ecosystems
Fewer worms live in mud littered with lots of microplastics
The environmental effects of microplastic pollution are still hazy, but new long-term, outdoor experiments could help clear matters up.
- Life
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Tailored microbes defend bees with a gene-silencing process called RNA interference that takes on viruses or mites.
- Genetics
A new genetic analysis reveals that modern Africans have some Neandertal DNA too
Humans migrating back to Africa brought genetic material from humans’ extinct Neandertal relatives along for the ride.
- Life
How pandas use their heads as a kind of extra limb for climbing
Short legs on a stout bear body means pandas use a rare technique to climb up a tree.
- Neuroscience
Psilocybin may help cancer patients with depression and anxiety for years
A study hints that a hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms could reshape how people cope with hard diagnoses over the long term.
- Archaeology
A Siberian cave contains clues about two epic Neandertal treks
Stone tools and DNA illuminate an earlier and a later journey eastward across Asia.
- Paleontology
A squid fossil offers a rare record of pterosaur feeding behavior
150 million years ago, a pterosaur attempted to snatch a squid from the ocean surface and lost a tooth in the process.
