Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Neuroscience
White House gives progress report on BRAIN Initiative
More pieces of President Obama’s ambitious BRAIN Initiative announced April 2013 have fallen into place.
- Animals
Baby fish are noisier than expected
Gray snapper larvae may be able to communicate in open water using tiny knocks and growls.
- Animals
Dolphins appear to perceive magnetic fields
Bottlenose dolphins take less time to start exploring a magnetized block, suggesting they can sense magnetic fields.
- Animals
Videos hint at why tree bats may die at wind turbines
Using heat-sensitive cameras, scientists were able to watch how tree bats interact with wind turbines and determine what behaviors may lead to their deaths.
- Animals
Blind cavefish got no (circadian) rhythm
Eyeless Mexican cavefish have lost their circadian rhythm and become more efficient in the dark, a new study finds.
- Paleontology
Strange fossils from China hint at early multicellular life
New fossils of strange, oblong organisms that lived 600 million years ago are giving scientists hints to how living things may have moved from being single- to multi-celled.
- Animals
Even on remote islands, busy ports mean more invasives
Islands with lots of trading ties are more likely to be colonized by invasive species, even when they are geographically remote, a new study of anoles reveals.
- Neuroscience
Mighty muscles may stave off depression
Strong muscles protect the brain from stress-induced toxin associated with depression, a study in mice suggests.
- Psychology
Balancing the excitation and inhibition tightrope in depression
A new study looks at how a balance of positive and negative inputs in the lateral habenula might relate to disappointment and depression.
- Life
Fledgling birds change rules for caterpillar color
An unusual experiment shows that larvae lose the advantage of warning colors during the seasonal flush of naïve predators.
- Animals
Sneaky little giraffe weevils beat big rivals
A little stealth gives smaller giraffe weevil males a leg up when competing with big ones for mates.
- Animals
Chimps raised among humans may have problems as adults
Chimpanzees taken away from their mothers and raised to be pets or entertainers have problems relating to other chimps later in life.
