Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
The Monkey’s Voyage
By 26 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s New World monkeys had arrived in South America. How those primates reached the continent is something of a conundrum.
- Animals
There’s plenty of bling in the natural world
Beetles that look like solid gold are just the start to jewel-like and metallic looks in nature.
- Life
Protein linked to motor nerve cells being fast or slow
The protein, Delta-like homolog 1, is made in 30 percent of motor neurons and helps to determine at which speed the cells work, research shows.
- Animals
Amphibian diseases flow through animal trade
Discovery of chytrid fungus and ranaviruses in frogs and toads exported from Hong Kong shows how pathogens may spread.
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- Animals
Sing a song of bird phylogeny
A new study challenges assumptions about birdsong, finding that the majority of songbird species have female singers.
- Health & Medicine
Imbalance in gut bacteria may play role in Crohn’s disease
Identifying the onset of Crohn’s disease may best be done by looking at bacteria in the cellular linings intestinal tissue.
- Paleontology
Fossil whale skull hints at echolocation’s origins
Ancestors of toothed whales used echolocation as early as 34 million years ago, analysis of a new fossil skull suggests.
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- Neuroscience
Pianists learn better by playing
Pianists’ muscle memory helped them recognize incorrect notes.
- Animals
Chimps catch people’s yawns in sign of flexible empathy
Chimpanzees may show humanlike empathy, as evidenced by their contagious yawning.
- Neuroscience
Brain chemicals help worms live long and prosper
Serotonin and dopamine accompany long lives in C. elegans worms under caloric restriction.
