Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
This is the teenager’s brain on peer pressure
Research shared during the fourth day of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting remained diverse: What happens in the brain when teenagers feel peer pressure, a study in mice suggesting a new way to treat depression, the best way to relearn walking after a stroke, and the long lasting effects of disrupted sleep.
- Animals
Forensics’ next tool: Hair-collecting caterpillars
First human DNA extraction from hair bits in moth larval case.
- Humans
Moonsleeping bad for spacewalking
Day three of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting offered news about Down syndrome and sleep cycles.
- Health & Medicine
Neandertals, gut microbes and mail-order ancestry tests
Geneticists weigh in during the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.
- Health & Medicine
Diversity of human skin bacteria revealed
First large-scale inventory of microbes charts types, locales of bacteria.
- Life
Supreme Court lifts restriction on Navy sonar testing
Justices overturn restrictions that require Navy to stop using sonar when marine mammals are within 2,200 yards of vessels.
- Ecosystems
Costs of Choked-Up Waters
Scientists tally the economic toll of fertilizing pollutants on water quality.
- Life
Stone Age gal gets hip
Researchers have found an approximately 1-million-year-old fossil pelvis that, in their view, indicates that Homo erectus females gave birth to surprisingly big-brained babies.
- Life
Schools make fish smarter
A study of consensus decision making shows that sticklebacks make wider choices in groups of three or more.
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- Life
Morse Toad: When amphibians tap their toes
Toe wiggling creates motions, vibrations that get potential prey moving.
- Chemistry
First complete cancer genome sequenced
With the entire genome sequence of a tumor now in hand, scientists may be able to start answering basic questions about cancer.
