Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Genetics
Here’s why wounds heal faster in the mouth than in other skin
Wounds in the mouth heal speedily thanks to some master regulators of immune reactions.
- Health & Medicine
Lowering blood pressure may help the brain
Aggressively treating high blood pressure had a modest positive effect on the development of an early form of memory loss.
- Tech
Readers share their experiences with DNA ancestry tests
Readers delighted in learning about Emmy Noether, and asked about autonomous taxis and how the first Americans may have arrived via coastal routes.
- Paleontology
Paleontologists have ID’d the world’s biggest known dinosaur foot
Bigfoot has been found in Wyoming. It’s not a hairy, apelike creature; it’s a dinosaur.
- Earth
The giant iceberg that broke from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is stuck
A year ago, an iceberg calved off of the Larsen C ice shelf. The hunk of ice hasn’t moved much since, and that has scientists keeping an eye on it.
- Genetics
50 years ago, scientists took baby steps toward selecting sex
In 1968, scientists figured out how to determine the sex of rabbit embryos.
- Oceans
Shallow reef species may not find refuge in deeper water habitats
Coral reefs in deep-water ecosystems may not make good homes for species from damaged shallow reefs.
- Animals
A new ankylosaur found in Utah had a surprisingly bumpy head
The spiky, fossilized skull of a newly discovered dinosaur species may be a road map to its ancestors’ journey to North America.
- Neuroscience
This colorful web is the most complete look yet at a fruit fly’s brain cells
Scientists compiled 21 million images to craft the highest-resolution view yet of the fruit fly brain.
- Health & Medicine
How a variation on Botox could be used to treat pain
Drugs that incorporate modified botulinum toxin provide long-term pain relief, a study in mice finds.
- Animals
New ‘Poké Ball’ robot catches deep-sea critters without harming them
A machine that gently catches and releases animals underwater could help researchers take a more detailed census of the deep sea.
- Paleontology
This amber nugget from Myanmar holds the first known baby snake fossil
Amber preserves the delicate bone structure of a 99 million year old baby snake.
