Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
One bold, misinformed spider slows a colony’s ability to learn
Incorrect ideas prove more dangerous in bold velvet spiders than in shyer ones.
- Animals
Unpredictable egg scramble throws off parasitic parents
Eggs of some species of warbler and weaver birds appear to have individual signatures, which can help distinguish them from the eggs of parasitic cuckoos.
- Animals
With Tasmanian devils gone, possums come down from the trees
In areas where Tasmanian devils have largely disappeared, their prey is becoming more adventuresome, a new study finds.
- Neuroscience
Homunculus reimagined
A new study pinpoints the part of the brain that controls the neck muscles, tweaking the motor homunculus.
- Neuroscience
Homunculus reimagined
A new study pinpoints the part of the brain that controls the neck muscles, tweaking the motor homunculus.
- Animals
Moon jellies muscle their way to recovery
Symmetrization, using rapid muscle movements to repair body symmetry, is the go-to healing mechanism for the limbed stage of moon jellyfish.
- Animals
Male peacocks keep eyes low when checking out competition
Eye-tracking technology shows peacocks barely gaze at the full height of other males magnificent eyespot feather spreads.
- Animals
How a trap-jaw ant carries a baby
Powerful jaws make the Odontomachus brunneus ant a skilled escape artist.
- Animals
Why whistling caterpillars scare birds
Caterpillars that whistle when birds peck at them may be giving phony avian warning calls.
- Microbes
Spore-powered engines zoom ahead
Engines that run on the dehydration of bacterial spores can power a tiny car and an LED.
- Life
Twisty chains of proteins keep cells oriented
The counterclockwise twist of protein fibers jutting out from the edge of human cells allow the cells to distinguish right from left.
- Genetics
Pneumonia bacteria attacks lungs with toxic weaponry
Some strains of the bacteria that causes pneumonia splash lung cells with hydrogen peroxide to mess with DNA and kill cells, a new study suggests.
