Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
By 2100, damaged corals may let waves twice as tall as today’s reach coasts
Structurally complex coral reefs can defend coasts against waves, even as sea levels rise.
- Animals
Penguin supercolony discovered in Antarctica
Scientists have found a penguin supercolony living on tiny, remote Antarctic islands.
- Earth
Early land plants led to the rise of mud
New research suggests early land plants called bryophytes, which include modern mosses, helped shape Earth’s surface by creating clay-rich river deposits.
- Animals
It’s official: Termites are just cockroaches with a fancy social life
On their latest master list of arthropods, U.S. entomologists have finally declared termites to be a kind of cockroach.
- Animals
A new species of tardigrade lays eggs covered with doodads and streamers
These elegant eggs hint that a tardigrade found in a Japanese parking lot is a new species.
- Health & Medicine
Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers
Strains of a bacteria that live on human skin make a compound that suppressed tumor growth in mice.
- Microbes
A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening
A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.
- Life
A rare rainstorm wakes undead microbes in Chile’s Atacama Desert
Microbial life in Chile’s Atacama Desert bursts into bloom when moisture is available.
- Life
These giant viruses have more protein-making gear than any known virus
Scientists have found two more giant viruses in extreme environments in Brazil.
- Animals
This scratchy hiss is the closest thing yet to caterpillar vocalization
A new way that caterpillars make noise may involve (tiny) teakettle‒style turbulence.
- Neuroscience
Some flu strains can make mice forgetful
Mice infected with influenza had memory problems a month later, a result that hints at a link between infections and brain performance.
- Earth
New mapping shows just how much fishing impacts the world’s seas
Industrial fishing now occurs across 55 percent of the world’s ocean area while only 34 percent of Earth’s land area is used for agriculture or grazing.
