Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Squid edit their RNA to keep cellular supply lines moving in the cold
Squid change their RNA more often in the cold, producing motor proteins that keep cellular cargo on track.
- Animals
These are our favorite animal stories of 2022
Goldfish driving cars, skydiving salamanders and spiders dodging postcoital death are among the critters that most impressed the Science News staff.
- Paleontology
Mysterious ichthyosaur graveyard may have been a breeding ground
Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do, a study finds.
- Life
Long genital spines on male wasps can save their lives
A male wasp’s genital spines can save his life in an encounter with a scary tree frog, a new study shows.
- Life
These science discoveries from 2022 could be game changers
Gophers that farm, the earliest known hominid, a strange hybrid monkey and the W boson's mass are among the findings awaiting more evidence.
- Neuroscience
Adult mouse brains are teeming with ‘silent synapses’
Nerve cell connections thought to be involved mainly in development could explain how the brain keeps making new memories while holding onto old ones.
- Animals
Scientists thought snakes didn’t have clitorises. They were wrong
Snakes were long thought to be the only reptile group to lack clitorises. But new findings suggest the sex organs are present after all.
- Paleontology
Katydids had the earliest known insect ears 160 million years ago
Fossils from the Jurassic Period show katydid ears looked identical to those of modern katydids and could pick up short-range calls.
- Microbes
The ancestor to modern brewing yeast has been found hiding in Ireland
Previously found in Patagonia and elsewhere, the brewing yeast Saccharomyces eubayanus has been found in Europe for the first time.
- Paleontology
Armored dinos may have used their tail clubs to bludgeon each other
Broken and healed spikes on Zuul's flanks are consistent with the armored beast receiving a mighty blow from the tail club of another ankylosaur.
- Life
A parasite makes wolves more likely to become pack leaders
In Yellowstone National Park, gray wolves infected with Toxoplasma gondii make riskier decisions, making them more likely to split off from the pack.
- Animals
A new book asks: What makes humans call some animals pests?
In an interview with Science News, science journalist Bethany Brookshire discusses her new book, Pests, and why humans vilify certain animals.
