Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Neuroscience
How obesity may harm memory and learning
In obese mice, immune cells chomp nerve cell connections and harm brainpower.
- Science & Society
Before it burned, Brazil’s National Museum gave much to science
When Brazil’s National Museum went up in flames, so did the hard work of the researchers who work there.
- Animals
These songbirds violently fling and then impale their prey
A loggerhead shrike that skewers small animals on barbed wire gives mice whiplash shakeups.
- Agriculture
How plant microbes could feed the world and save endangered species
Scientists have only scratched the surface of the plant microbiome, but they already believe it might increase crop yield and save species from extinction.
- Genetics
German skeletons hint that medieval warrior groups recruited from afar
Graveyard finds may come from an ancient European warrior household with political pull.
- Health & Medicine
Teens born from assisted pregnancies may have higher blood pressure
Kids born from reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization are susceptible to high blood pressure as adolescents, a small study finds.
- Animals
A gentoo penguin’s dinner knows how to fight back
Cameras attached to gentoo penguins off the Falkland Islands revealed that, despite the birds’ small size, their lobster krill prey can sometimes win in a fight.
- Climate
As temperatures rise, so do insects’ appetites for corn, rice and wheat
Hotter, hungrier pests likely to do 10 percent to 25 percent more damage to grains for each warmer degree.
- Neuroscience
Newfound skull tunnels may speed immune cells’ trek to brain injuries
Minuscule channels connect the skull to the brain’s outer membrane, studies in mice and people show.
- Health & Medicine
CRISPR gene editing relieves muscular dystrophy symptoms in dogs
Scientists have used CRISPR’s molecular scissors in beagle puppies to repair a genetic mutation that causes muscular dystrophy.
- Life
How the poppy got its pain-relieving powers
Analyzing the poppy’s genome reveals the evolutionary history of morphine.
- Animals
Naked mole-rats eat the poop of their queen for parenting cues
Hormones in the naked mole-rat queen’s poop turn subordinate nest-mates into surrogate parents.
