Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
A gene critical for speech
Scientists argue a newly discovered stretch of DNA essential for larynx development may have allowed the evolution of language.
- Life
Humpback whale alters song if another one sings along
Acoustical study of male songs shows first evidence of the whales responding musically to each other.
-
- Life
Estrogen helps ward off belly fat
Hormone is one reason that men and women carry weight differently
- Life
Fossil find sparks debate on primate origins
A 37-million-year-old jaw suggests the famous fossil Darwinius does not, as had been suggested, fill a gap in human evolution.
- Animals
Junk food turns rats into addicts
Bacon, cheesecake and Ho Hos elicit addictive behavior in rats similar to the behavior of rats addicted to heroin.
- Life
People can control their Halle Berry neurons
Researchers pinpoint individual brain cells that respond to particular people and objects.
- Life
Golgi’s job stretches it thin
Researchers have pinpointed the protein that gives a cell’s control room its shape and also keeps it functioning.
- 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.
