Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
New books explore why dogs and humans have such a special bond
‘Dog Is Love’ and ‘Our Dogs, Ourselves’ delve into the complicated, sometimes contradictory relationship that we have with our canine companions.
- Health & Medicine
These tiny aquatic animals secrete a compound that may help fight snail fever
A newly identified molecule from rotifers paralyzes the larvae of worms that cause schistosomiasis, which affects over 200 million people worldwide.
- Life
Acrobatic choanoflagellates could help explain how multicellularity evolved
A newfound single-celled microbe species forms groups of multiple individual organisms that change shape in response to light.
- Paleontology
Big dinosaurs kept cool thanks to blood vessel clusters in their heads
Giant dinosaurs evolved several strategies for cooling their blood and avoiding heatstroke.
- Neuroscience
Organoids offer clues to how brains are made in humans and chimpanzees
Three-dimensional clumps of brain cells offer clues about how brains get made in humans and chimpanzees.
- Health & Medicine
A precision drug for prostate cancer may slow the disease’s spread
The drug olaparib could be used to treat men with certain genetic mutations and severe types of prostate cancer, a clinical trial finds.
- Animals
Humpback whales use their flippers and bubble ‘nets’ to catch fish
A study reveals new details of how humpback whales hunt using their flippers and a whirl of bubbles to capture fish.
- Life
Extreme snowfall kept most plants and animals in one Arctic ecosystem from reproducing
A very snowy winter in 2018 left parts of Greenland covered well into the summer, causing an ecosystem-wide reproductive collapse in one area.
- Archaeology
Ancient European households combined the rich and poor
Homes combined “haves” and “have-nots” in a male-run system, suggests a study that challenges traditional views of ancient social stratification.
- Earth
50 years ago, an Antarctic fossil pointed to Gondwanaland’s existence
Fifty years ago, fossils from Antarctica helped seal the deal that the southern continents were once connected in one, giant landmass called Gondwanaland.
- Life
How tardigrades protect their DNA to defy death
Tardigrades encase their DNA in a cloud of protective protein to shield from damage by radiation or drying out.
- Ecosystems
Burrowing birds create pockets of rich plant life in a desert landscape
Mounds of sand dug out by birds are hot spots for plants in Peru’s Atacama Desert, possibly providing a sheltered and moist area for seed germination.
