Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Genetics
Black Death immunity came at a cost to modern-day health
A genetic variant that boosts Crohn’s disease risk may have helped people survive the 14th century bubonic plague known as the Black Death.
- Animals
Honeybees order numbers from left to right, a study claims
In experiments, bees tend to go to smaller numbers on the left, larger ones on the right. But the idea of a mental number line in animals has critics.
- Animals
Some seabirds survive typhoons by flying into them
Streaked shearwaters off the coast of Japan soar for hours near the eye of passing cyclones as a strategy to weather the storm.
- Life
This ancient worm might be an important evolutionary missing link
A roughly 520-million-year-old fossil may be the common ancestor of a diverse collection of marine invertebrates.
- Paleontology
Dinosaur ‘mummies’ may not be rare flukes after all
Bite marks on a fossilized dinosaur upend the idea that exquisite skin preservation must result from a carcass's immediate smothering under sediment.
- Neuroscience
Clumps of human nerve cells thrived in rat brains
New results suggest that environment matters for the development of brain organoids, 3-D nerve cell clusters that grow and mimic the human brain.
- Life
A glimpse inside a gecko’s hand won the 2022 Nikon Small World photo contest
The annual competition highlights microscopic images that bring the smallest details from science and nature to life.
- Health & Medicine
Cooperative sperm outrun loners in the mating race
Sperm that swim in clusters travel more directly toward the uterus, while overcoming fluid currents in the reproductive tract.
- Neuroscience
Why traumatic brain injuries raise the risk of a second, worse hit
Recent hits to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa have reignited discussions of brain safety for professional football players. Brain experts weigh in.
- Animals
Tree-climbing carnivores called fishers are back in Washington’s forests
Thanks to a 14-year reintroduction effort, fishers, or “tree wolverines,” are once again climbing and hunting in Washington’s forests after fur trapping and habitat loss wiped them out.
- Life
A metal ion bath may make fibers stronger than spider silk
The work is the latest in a decades-long quest to create artificial fibers as strong, lightweight and biodegradable as spider silk.
- Microbes
How dormant bacteria spores sense when it’s time to come back to life
Bacterial cells shut down and become spores to survive harsh environments. An internal countdown signals when it’s safe for bacteria to revive.
