Life
- Life
Dieting may plant seeds of weight regain
Cutting calories causes changes in the brains of mice that appear to encourage binge eating under stressful conditions years later.
- Chemistry
Snot has the power to alter scents
Enzymes in mice's nasal mucus can alter certain odors before the nose can detect them, a new study finds.
- Life
Getting dissed could be partly genetic
In marmot social networks, victimization may be to some degree heritable.
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- Life
Mammal size maxed out after dinos’ demise
Opening new ecological niches led to a worldwide boom in size, up to a point.
- Life
Big reveals for genome of tiny animal
Tunicates’ scrambled gene order suggests that arrangement may not matter for vertebrate body plan and hints at the origins of mysterious DNA chunks called introns.
- Animals
Island orangs descend from small group
Bornean apes went through a genetic bottleneck when isolated during an ancient glaciation.
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- Paleontology
Ancient trumpets played eerie notes
Acoustic scientists re-create and analyze sounds from 3,000-year-old shell instruments for insight into pre-Inca civilization.
- Life
Genes jump more in one type of autism
A mutation that causes Rett syndrome also increases the activity of retrotransposons in the brain.
- Animals
DEET of the sea
Before turning in for the night, some reef-dwelling fish apply a slimy mucus shield to deter biting bugs.
- Humans
BPA induces sterility in roundworms
Bisphenol A does a real number on the genes responsible for successful reproduction in a 1-millimeter-long soil-dwelling roundworm. And that suggests BPA might pose similar risks to people because geneticists are finding that this tiny critter can be a remarkably useful “lab rat” — predicting impacts in mammals, including us.
