All Stories by Amy Maxmen
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- Life
Duckbill decoded
With a mix of reptilian, bird and mammalian features, the duck-billed platypus genome looks as strange as the animal.
- Health & Medicine
Mondo bizarro
Psychiatrists measuring the degree of similarity between dreams and psychotic ruminations report some strange features common to both.
- Earth
Refuge for the resilient
Some conservationists recommend creating marine parks in areas most likely to survive climate change.
- Animals
Comb jellies take root in a new tree of animal life
A team of biologists places comb jellies, not sponges, at the base of a new tree of animal life.
- Earth
Tibetan Plateau history gets a lift
The Tibetan Plateau formed when the Indian and Eurasian plates collided, but scientists may have had the order of events wrong.
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Calorie Kick: Desire for sweets not only a matter of taste
Chemical fireworks in the brain's reward system explode in response to calories, independent of flavor, suggests a new study of mice.
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Crustacean shuffle
A twisted joint might have made all the difference to scurrying crabs as they diverged from their clunky lobsterlike brethren.
- Health & Medicine
Dual Role: Painkiller may affect brain
A class of drugs being developed to block pain could obstruct memory formation as well.
- Paleontology
Twice upon a Time
New fossil finds suggest that the complex features of mammals originated earlier than previously thought and might even have evolved independently in different mammalian lineages.
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Animal Origins: Genome reveals early complexity
Analysis of DNA from a choanoflagellate, the closest known living nonanimal relative of animals, allows scientists to infer the genetic starter kit possessed by the first animal.
