Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
In emergencies, fire ants get lots of grips to form rafts
First look inside fire ant architecture shows how lots of leg grips assemble rafts, bridges and balls.
- Genetics
How you bet is affected by your genes
When betting, people's decisions are influenced by variations in a set of genes that regulate the brain chemical dopamine.
- Life
Avian flu could strike Asian poultry markets outside China
H7N9 influenza has a higher chance of spreading to humans in urban areas close to water, researchers predict.
- Animals
Mosses hitch rides on the wings of birds
Seeds may travel from far north to south hidden in the feathers of migratory birds.
- Neuroscience
Visualization offers view of a nerve cell’s dispatch center
To get a closer look at how messages move in the brain, researchers created a 3-D visualization that provides a clearer view of how nerve cells communicate.
- Health & Medicine
Ulcer microbe changes quickly to avoid immune attack
During the initial weeks of infection, Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, mutates at a high rate, apparently to evade the body’s defenses.
- Life
Genetic mutation quenches quantum quirk in algae
Studying algae that can and cannot use quantum coherence to harvest light could lead to better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices.
- Neuroscience
Neurons pull together as a brain learns
Learning and memory in rats is linked with increases in cortical oscillations, or brain cells firing off in groups, a new study shows.
- Neuroscience
Brain signal reappears after ADHD symptoms fade
In adults who no longer have ADHD, brain synchrony appears.
- Paleontology
‘Dinosaurs Without Bones’ gives glimpse of long-gone life
Ichnologist Anthony J. Martin explains his research piecing together dinosaurs’ lives from footprints and other traces.
- Animals
Swimming evolved several times in treetop ants
Certain ants living in tropical forest canopies turn out to be fine swimmers.
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