Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Losing amphibians may be tied to spikes in human malaria cases
Missing frogs, toads and salamanders may have led to more mosquitoes and potentially more malaria transmission, a study in Panama and Costa Rica finds.
- Paleontology
Pterosaurs may have evolved from tiny, fast-running reptiles
A mysterious little ground-dwelling reptile unearthed in a Scottish sandstone over 100 years ago turns out to be part of a famous flying family.
- Animals
Video captures young mosquitoes launching their heads to eat other mosquitoes
New high-speed filming gives a first glimpse of mosquito hunting too fast for humans to see.
- Animals
‘Wonderful nets’ of blood vessels protect dolphin and whale brains during dives
Complex networks of blood vessels called retia mirabilia that are associated with cetaceans’ brains and spines have long been a mystery.
- Animals
This spider literally flips for its food
The Australian ant-slayer spider’s acrobatics let it feast on insects twice its size, a new study shows,
- Humans
How to get a crying baby to sleep, according to science
Science has come up with a recipe for lulling a crying baby to sleep: Carry them for five minutes, sit for at least five more and then lay them down.
