Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
After eons of isolation, these desert fish flub social cues
Pahrump poolfish flunked a fear test, but maybe they’re scared of other things.
- Animals
Drumming woodpeckers use similar brain regions as songbirds
Woodpeckers drum on trees and other objects using brain regions similar to those that songbirds use to sing, suggesting a common evolutionary origin for the complex behaviors.
- Animals
Video shows the first red fox known to fish for food
Big fish in shallow water are easy pickings for one fox — the first of its kind known to fish, a study finds.
- Life
Here’s what triggers giant honeybees to do the wave
A new study is revealing details about what sets off a defensive behavior in open-nesting bees known as shimmering.
- Climate
How Kenyans help themselves and the planet by saving mangrove trees
Communities in Kenya took action to restore their coastal mangrove forests, reaping economic and environmental benefits. Others are following suit.
- Life
Not all camouflage is equal. Here are prey animals’ best options
When prey masquerade as innocuous objects in the environment, they slow detection from predators by nearly 300 percent.
- Animals
Need to keep cockatoos out of your trash? Try bricks, sticks or shoes
In Sydney, humans may be in an escalating arms race with cockatoos. People are trying new tools to keep the pesky parrots out of their trash.
- Genetics
Can’t comb your kid’s hair? This gene may be to blame
Scientists linked variants of one hair shaft gene to most of the uncombable hair syndrome cases they tested.
- Animals
DNA reveals donkeys were domesticated 7,000 years ago in East Africa
When and where donkeys were domesticated has been a long-standing mystery. DNA now reveals they were tamed much earlier than horses.
- Neuroscience
An AI can decode speech from brain activity with surprising accuracy
Developed by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help people who can’t communicate through speech, typing or gestures.
- Paleontology
Living fast may have helped mammals like ‘ManBearPig’ dominate
Staying in the womb for a while but being born ready to rock may have helped post-dinosaur mammals take over the planet.
- Plants
The worldwide water-lifting power of plants is enormous
The energy used per year by the world’s plants to lift sap rivals the amount of energy generated by all hydroelectric dams, a new study suggests.
