Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Climate
Malin Pinsky seeks to explain how climate change alters ocean life
As global temperatures rise, Malin Pinsky’s research attempts to understand how marine ecosystems are changing and why.
- Genetics
Dog behaviors like aggression and fearfulness are linked to breed genetics
A study looking at how 101 dog breeds behave finds a strong association between genetics and 14 personality traits.
- Humans
Human embryos have extra hand muscles found in lizards but not most adults
In developing human embryos, muscles are made, then lost, in a pattern that mirrors the appearance of the structures during evolution.
- Humans
Personalized diets may be the future of nutrition. But the science isn’t all there yet
How a person responds to food depends on more than the food itself. But what exactly is still a confusing mix of genes, microbes and other factors.
- Space
‘Imagined Life’ envisions the odd critters of other planets
The authors of ‘Imagined Life’ rely on science to sketch out what kind of organisms might exist on exoplanets.
- Life
Connecting our dwindling natural habitats could help preserve plant diversity
As pristine habitats shrink worldwide, a massive, 18-year experiment suggests that linking up what's left with natural corridors could help ecosystems retain plant diversity.
- Health & Medicine
A mouse’s metabolism may follow circadian rhythms set by gut bacteria
While animals’ circadian clocks control functions from sleep to hormone release, gut bacteria dictate when mice’s small intestines take up fat.
- Life
Losing genes may have helped whales’ ancestors adapt to life under the sea
Jettisoning genes tied to saliva and the lungs, among others, could have smoothed ancient cetaceans’ land-to-water transition 50 million years ago.
- Climate
How climate change is already altering oceans and ice, and what’s to come
A new IPCC report gives the lowdown on how climate change is already wreaking havoc on Earth’s oceans and frozen regions, and how much worse things could get.
- Health & Medicine
Disabling one protein might one day lead to a cure for the common cold
Scientists have identified a protein in humans that some viruses, including those that cause colds, need to spread.
- Life
Cats may have ‘attachment styles’ that mirror people’s
In a new study, 65 percent of felines formed secure attachments with their owners. Like people, other cats were ambivalent or avoidant.
- Plants
Why tumbleweeds may be more science fiction than Old West
A tumbleweed is just a maternal plant corpse giving her living seeds a chance at a good life somewhere new.
