Life

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Life

    Gut fungi might be linked to obesity and inflammatory bowel disorders

    Fungi are overlooked contributors to health and disease.

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  2. Animals

    To understand the origins of pain, ask a flatworm

    A danger-sensing protein responds to hydrogen peroxide in planarians, results that hint at the evolutionary origins of people’s pain sensing.

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  3. Animals

    Surgeon aims to diagnose deformities of extinct saber-toothed cats

    Using CT scans, one orthopedic surgeon is on a quest to diagnose deformities in long-dead saber-toothed cats.

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  4. Climate

    During El Niño, the tropics emit more carbon dioxide

    El Niño increases carbon emissions from the tropics — mimicking future climate change.

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  5. Neuroscience

    There’s no rest for the brain’s mapmakers

    Navigational grid cells stay on the job during sleep.

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  6. Genetics

    We’re more Neandertal than we thought

    Neandertals contributed more to human traits than previously thought.

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  7. Animals

    New deep-sea sponge could play a starring role in monitoring ocean health

    A new species of sponge that dwells on metal-rich rocks could help scientists track the environmental impact of deep-sea mining.

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  8. Animals

    Ancient whale turns up on wrong side of the world

    A Southern Hemisphere whale species was briefly a northern resident.

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  9. Tech

    Superbugs may meet their match in these nanoparticles

    Quantum dots and antibiotics hit bacteria with a one-two punch.

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  10. Neuroscience

    New book offers a peek into the mind of Oliver Sacks

    The wide-ranging essays in Oliver Sacks’ ‘The River of Consciousness’ contemplate evolution, memory and more.

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  11. Agriculture

    Much of the world’s honey now contains bee-harming pesticides

    A controversial group of chemicals called neonicotinoids has a global impact, tests of honey samples show.

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  12. Genetics

    Ancient humans avoided inbreeding by networking

    Ancient DNA expands foragers’ social, mating networks.

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