Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Bird flu can jump to mammals. Should we worry?
Reports of bears and sea lions infected with H5N1 have sparked fears about the pandemic potential of bird flu. Experts are keeping a close eye on its spread.
- Environment
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill ruined long-term shore stability
For at least eight years, the oil disaster continued to kill soil-retaining marsh plants along the Louisiana coast, accelerating shoreline loss.
- Animals
What the first look at the genetics of Chernobyl’s dogs revealed
Dogs living in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant industrial area are genetically distinct from other dogs, but scientists don’t yet know if radiation is the reason.
- Climate
Wildfires in boreal forests released a record amount of CO2 in 2021
Boreal forests store about one-third of the world’s land-based carbon. With wildfires increasing there, fighting climate change could get even harder.
- Life
Plant/animal hybrid proteins could help crops fend off diseases
Pikobodies, bioengineered proteins that are part plant and part animal (thanks, llamas), loan plant immune systems a uniquely animal trait: flexibility.
- Life
‘We Are Electric’ delivers the shocking story of bioelectricity
Sally Adee’s new book spotlights the underexplored science of the body’s electricity and investigates how bioelectricity could advance medicine.
- Neuroscience
How meningitis-causing bacteria invade the brain
Microbes behind bacterial meningitis hijack pain-sensing nerve cells in the brain’s outer layers, disabling a key immune response, a mouse study shows.
- Paleontology
The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago
Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.
- Animals
The fastest claw in the sea belongs to young snapping shrimp
When juveniles snap their claws shut to create imploding bubbles, they create the fastest accelerating underwater movements of any reusable body part.
- Neuroscience
‘Mommy brain’ doesn’t capture how the brain transforms during pregnancy
During the transition to motherhood, there's more going on than “momnesia,” neuroscientists argue. The brain changes to prep for the job of caregiving
- Life
Chemical signals from fungi tell bark beetles which trees to infest
As fungi break down defensive chemicals in trees, some byproducts act as signals to bark beetle pests, telling them which trees are most vulnerable.
- Life
Fungi don’t turn humans into zombies. But The Last of Us gets some science right
Fungi like those in the post-apocalyptic TV show are real. But humans’ body temperature and brain chemistry may protect us from zombifying fungi.
