Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
For glass frogs, moms matter after all
Brief but important maternal care may have evolved before the elaborate egg-tending of glass frog dads.
- Health & Medicine
Getting dengue first may make Zika infection much worse
Experiments in cells and mice suggest that a previous exposure to dengue or West Nile can make a Zika virus infection worse.
- Paleontology
New tyrannosaur had a sensitive side
Tyrannosaurs may have had sensitive snouts that detected temperature and touch.
- Animals
Mosquito flight is unlike that of any other insect
High-speed video and modeling reveal a more complex understanding of mosquito flight.
- Oceans
Thinning ice creates undersea Arctic greenhouses
Arctic sea ice thinned by climate change increasingly produces conditions favorable for phytoplankton blooms in the waters below, new research suggests.
- Genetics
Gene editing of human embryos yields early results
Gene editing in embryos has started in labs, but isn’t ready for the clinic.
- Neuroscience
Sarcasm looks the same in the brain whether it’s words or emoji
Sarcasm via winking emoji affects the brain like verbal irony does.
- Neuroscience
Math-anxious brains tackle simple problems differently
An fMRI study found more variable brain activity in people who get nervous about math problems.
- Health & Medicine
Dengue fever spreads in a neighborly way
Individual strains of dengue spread locally, and new infections cluster near the home of the first person affected.
- Health & Medicine
Random mutations play large role in cancer, study finds
Mistakes made while copying DNA account for more mutations in cancer cells than environment or inheritance do.
- Genetics
In 1967, LSD was briefly labeled a breaker of chromosomes
Claims that the hallucinogenic drug damaged DNA were quickly rejected. But questions remain about how LSD works.
- Animals
Female guppies with bigger brains pick more attractive guys
A larger-brained female guppy may pick primo males, but all that mental machinery costs her in other ways.
