Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Neuroscience
There’s no rest for the brain’s mapmakers
Navigational grid cells stay on the job during sleep.
- Genetics
We’re more Neandertal than we thought
Neandertals contributed more to human traits than previously thought.
- Animals
New deep-sea sponge could play a starring role in monitoring ocean health
A new species of sponge that dwells on metal-rich rocks could help scientists track the environmental impact of deep-sea mining.
- Animals
Ancient whale turns up on wrong side of the world
A Southern Hemisphere whale species was briefly a northern resident.
- Tech
Superbugs may meet their match in these nanoparticles
Quantum dots and antibiotics hit bacteria with a one-two punch.
- Neuroscience
New book offers a peek into the mind of Oliver Sacks
The wide-ranging essays in Oliver Sacks’ ‘The River of Consciousness’ contemplate evolution, memory and more.
- Agriculture
Much of the world’s honey now contains bee-harming pesticides
A controversial group of chemicals called neonicotinoids has a global impact, tests of honey samples show.
- Genetics
Ancient humans avoided inbreeding by networking
Ancient DNA expands foragers’ social, mating networks.
- Plants
José Dinneny rethinks how plants hunt for water
Plant biologist José Dinneny probes the very beginnings of root development, which may have important implications for growing food in a changing climate.
- Life
KC Huang probes basic questions of bacterial life
A physicist by training, Kerwyn Casey Huang tries to understand cell shape, movement and growth.
- Life
Lena Pernas sees parasitic infection as a kind of Hunger Games
In studies of Toxoplasma, parasitologist Lena Pernas has reframed infection as a battle between invader and a cell’s mitochondria.
- Neuroscience
Kay Tye improvises to understand our inner lives
To figure out how rich mental lives are created by the brain, neuroscientist Kay Tye applies “a new level of neurobiological sophistication.”
