Life
We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Tongue’s sour-sensing cells taste carbonation
A protein splits carbon dioxide to give fizz its unique flavor.
- Life
Fly pheromones can say yes and no
A new study begins to decode pheromone messages and finds that the same chemicals that attract can also maintain the species barrier.
- Ecosystems
Windy with a chance of weevils
Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.
- Earth
Darwinopterus points to chunky evolution
A newly discovered pterosaur had the legs of its ancestors and the head of its descendants.
- Life
Paralyzed, then unparalyzed, by the light
Different types of light freeze and then reinvigorate roundworms fed a shape-changing molecule.
- Paleontology
Fungi thrived during mass extinction
Fossil analyses hint that several species thrived during the world’s largest mass extinction.
- Life
Circadian clockwork takes unexpected turns
Some neurons in the brain’s master clock fall silent in the afternoon. The unexpected finding prompts scientists to rethink how the clock works.
- Chemistry
New view reveals how DNA fits into cell
A new technique allows scientists to map the 3-D structure of the entire human genome.
- Life
Monkey moms and babies communicate from the start
Macaque mothers and infants engage in emotional interactions similar to those of human moms and their babies, a new study suggests.
- Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry commends finding and use of green fluorescent protein
One researcher is awarded for discovering the protein that helps jellyfish glow and two for making the protein into a crucial tool for biologists.
- Health & Medicine
Pigs use mirrors
After some time to play around with a mirror, pigs figure out what to do when they glimpse a reflection of food.
- Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for ribosome research
Ada Yonath, Thomas Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will share the prize for unmasking the structure of the ribosome.
