Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Breaking down the science behind some of your favorite summer activities
Inject some science into your summer.
- Anthropology
Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Philistines
A mysterious Biblical-era population may have fled Bronze Age calamities.
- Ecosystems
Why some insect eggs are spherical while others look like hot dogs
Analyzing a new database of insect eggs’ sizes and shapes suggests that where eggs are laid helps explain some of their diversity of forms.
- Health & Medicine
Rogue immune cells can infiltrate old brains
Killer T cells get into older brains where they may make mischief, a study in mice and postmortem human brain tissue finds.
- Neuroscience
This brain region may be why some robots send chills down your spine
Scientists may have traced the source of the “uncanny valley” sensation in the brain.
- Health & Medicine
Vision cells can pull double duty in the brain, detecting both color and shape
Neurons in a brain area that handles vision fire in response to more than one aspect of an object, countering earlier ideas, a study in monkeys finds.
- Plants
‘Slime’ shows how algae have shaped our climate, evolution and daily lives
The new book ‘Slime’ makes the case that algae deserve to be celebrated.
- Health & Medicine
In mice, a high-fat diet cuts a ‘brake’ used to control appetite
A fatty diet changes the behavior of key appetite-regulating cells in a mouse brain.
- Health & Medicine
Antioxidants may encourage the spread of lung cancer rather than prevent it
Antioxidants protect lung cancer cells from free radicals, but also spur metastasis, two new studies suggest.
- Animals
Some ancient crocodiles may have chomped on plants instead of meat
Fossil teeth of extinct crocodyliforms suggest that some ate plants and that herbivory evolved at least three times in crocs of the Mesozoic Era.
- Genetics
DNA reveals a European Neandertal lineage that lasted 80,000 years
Ancient DNA from cave fossils in Belgium and Germany shows an unbroken genetic line of the extinct hominids emerged at least 120,000 years ago.
- Archaeology
Peru’s famous Nazca Lines may include drawings of exotic birds
Pre-Inca people depicted winged fliers from far away in landscape art.
