BALANCING ACT Early multicellular organisms that relied on nutrients diffusing into their bodies to eat may have been precursors to animals.
Marc Laflamme
LURKER The twitches that let a European garden spider know that lunch has landed may not be as easy to detect if strands of its web anchor to human-made materials.
kellylovesphotography/iStockphoto
YAWN BONDS Chimps catch yawns not only from members of their group but from familiar and unfamiliar people, a new study finds. Researchers suggest that the apes employ this form of empathic behavior with humanlike flexibility.
M. Campbell and F. de Waal 2014/Yerkes National Primate Research Center/Emory Univ.
CLOSER LOOK AT PHOSPHORENE Sheets of phosphorous just one atom thick have a ridged structure, as shown in this illustration. Graphene sheets, which are made of carbon, are flat.
P. Ye
PING ME The skull of the 28-million-year-old Cotylocara macei suggests that this early toothed whale used echolocation.
James Carew and Mitchell Colgan
Science News
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Roman gladiator school digitally rebuilt
Imaging techniques unveil a 1,900-year-old Roman gladiators’ training center that’s buried beneath a site in Austria.
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Milk protein a potential flame retardant
Protein found in milk offers a nontoxic way to extinguish fabric fires.
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Science Visualized
Second wave of bird flu ups pandemic worries
The H7N9 avian influenza virus, which first appeared in 2013, is sweeping China with a second, larger wave of illness.
Feature
The addiction paradox
Addiction is often seen as a chronic disease that requires maintenance treatment even after years of sobriety. But even without help, most addicts eventually can quit for good.
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Experimental drug might get the salt out
Tests in people and rats show sodium levels in blood drop as drug candidate limits the body’s salt absorption.
Feature
Cloudy forecast
Over decades climatologists have grown more confident in their projections of the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But whether shifts in cloudiness will amplify global warming continues to vex researchers.
News in Brief
Pianists learn better by playing
Pianists’ muscle memory helped them recognize incorrect notes.
Say What?
Osmotroph
An organism that eats by osmosis, relying on nutrients diffusing into its body from a higher concentration in its environment.
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Acid-bath method for making stem cells under fire
No one has been able to reproduce a new technique for creating stem cells called STAP cells, leading some researchers to call for the retraction of the original research papers.
It's Alive
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
News in Brief
MS milder when patients begin with higher vitamin D levels
Multiple sclerosis patients with low concentrations of vitamin D early in their disease have more nerve damage several years later.
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