Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
Year in review: New dates, place proposed for dogs’ beginnings
This year’s dog research suggested older origins and a new location of domestication for man's best friend.
- Genetics
Year in review: Fluke extinction surprises lab
A die-off of bacteria in a carefully controlled lab experiment offered an evolutionary lesson this year: Survival depends not only on fitness but also on luck.
- Neuroscience
Year in review: Gaps in brain nets might store memories
Holes in nets that surround nerve cells may store long-term memories, scientists proposed this year.
- Life
Science explains what makes dogs such sloppy drinkers
There’s hidden precision in the splashy mess of a dog drinking.
- Animals
Forgetful male voles more likely to wander from mate
Poor memory linked to a hormone receptor in the brain could make male prairie voles more promiscuous.
- Plants
Single gene influences a petunia’s primary pollinator
Mutations on a single gene determine how much ultraviolet light a petunia flower absorbs, and in turn, which animal pollinates the flower.
- Life
To push through goo, use itty, bitty propellers
Newly designed micropropellers mimic bacteria to move through viscous surroundings.
- Animals
New movie asks viewers to care about whale hunters. Will they?
A new movie tells the tale of sailors shipwrecked by a whale. But it’s hard to feel sorry for the people trying to kill the animal.
- Life
Microbes show up on schedule after death
Microbes in the soil beneath dead bodies offer forensic clues for time and place of death.
- Neuroscience
Brain shapes come from mom and dad
By linking genes to brain shapes, scientists have a new way to study how the brain works.
- Animals
Some warblers make their long winter migration even longer
Blackpoll warblers in western North America head east to fatten up before their transoceanic migration.
- Animals
Playful pups conceived via in vitro fertilization for the first time
Scientists have solved the mystery of how to perform in vitro fertilization in dogs, which could help rid canines of heritable diseases.
