Notebook
- Microbes
One giant leap for zit-causing microbes
A bacterium that lives on humans and causes acne also hopped to domesticated grapevines and relies on the plant for crucial DNA repairs.
- Neuroscience
What’s behind rising autism rates
Better diagnosis may be driving a recent spike in autism.
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- Animals
See-through shrimp flex invisible muscle
Much of the body of a Pederson’s transparent shrimp looks like watery nothing, but it’s a superhero sort of nothing.
- Paleontology
Ancient crustacean had elaborate heart
The now-extinct Fuxianhuia protensa had a fancy cardiovascular system that sent blood to its limbs and organs, including its brain.
- Science & Society
Millions of working mamas
It has been a long time since millions of American women working outside the home was big sociological news. Women are now 47 percent of the U.S. workforce.
- Psychology
Grief takes its toll
A person’s risk of heart attack or stroke is doubled in the month following the death of a spouse or partner.
- Tech
English Channel tunnel
First proposed in 1802 as a tunnel for horse-drawn carriages, the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, was built starting in 1987 and opened in 1994.
- Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
- Psychology
How string quartets stay together
New data tracking millisecond-scale corrections suggests that some ensembles are more autocratic — following one leader —while other musical groups are more democratic, making corrections equally.
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