Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
How these tiny insect larvae leap without legs
High-speed filming reveals how a blob of an insect can leap more efficiently than it crawls.
- Life
Why people with celiac disease suffer so soon after eating gluten
In people with celiac disease, some T cells release immune chemicals within hours of encountering gluten, triggering the fast onset of symptoms.
- Chemistry
A fungus makes a chemical that neutralizes the stench of skunk spray
A compound produced by fungi reacts with skunk spray to form residues that aren’t offensive to the nose and can be more easily washed away.
- Earth
Decades of dumping acid suggest acid rain may make trees thirstier
Acidified soil loses calcium, which can affect trees’ ability to hang on to water.
- Animals
There’s more to pufferfish than that goofy spiked balloon
Three odd things about pufferfishes: how they mate, how they bite and what’s up with no fish scales?
- Life
Monkeys can use basic logic to decipher the order of items in a list
Rhesus macaque monkeys don’t need rewards to learn and remember how items are ranked in a list, a mental feat that may prove handy in the wild.
- Health & Medicine
A new study challenges the idea that the placenta has a microbiome
A large study of more than 500 women finds little evidence of microbes in the placenta, contrary to previous reports on the placental microbiome.
- Paleontology
This newfound predator may have terrorized the Cambrian seafloor
A newly discovered spaceship-shaped predator raked through the Cambrian seafloor in search of food.
- Life
Mapping how the ‘immortal’ hydra regrows cells may demystify regeneration
In the continually regenerating hydra, fluorescent markers help researchers track stem cells on the way to their cellular fate.
- Life
Giving cats food with an antibody may help people with cat allergies
Research by pet-food maker Purina aims to disable the major allergen carried in cat saliva, a protein called Fel d1.
- Life
Immune system defects seem to contribute to obesity in mice
Subtle defects affecting T cells altered the animals’ microbiome and fat absorption, providing hints of what might also be going on in people.
- Life
This is the first fungus known to host complex algae inside its cells
In the lab, an alga and a fungus teamed up to exchange food, similar to lichens. But instead of staying outside, the alga moved into the fungal cells.
