Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Paleontology
Microbes indicted in ancient mass extinction
About 252 million years ago an estimated 96 percent of all species were wiped from Earth, and now scientists have a new suspect in the killing — methane-belching microbes.
- Psychology
Twenty-two emotions are written on our faces
People’s faces express at least 22 feelings – far more than the six emotions scientists previously recognized.
- Health & Medicine
This rare skull-thickening disease led to a 3-D-printed replacement
A skull implant made with a 3-D printer replaced the 2-inch-thick skull of a Dutch woman with the rare van Buchem disease.
- Neuroscience
Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why
Scott Weems, a neuroscientist, takes readers on a wide-ranging tour that explains what humor is and why readers should care.
- Animals
As their homes warm, salamanders shrink
Many species of salamanders respond to climate change by getting smaller.
- Animals
Giant pandas like sweets, but prefer the natural ones
Despite sustaining themselves on bamboo, which isn't very sweet, giant pandas will indulge in a bit of sugar, if they can.
- Animals
Bats’ dinner conversation may go over your head
Hunting big brown bats do more than echolocate. When male bats compete for a single prize, they send social calls to keep other bats at bay.
- Neuroscience
Ten thousand neurons linked to behaviors in fly
By studying the wiggles of 37,780 fly larvae, scientists link specific neurons to 29 distinct behaviors.
- Life
First chromosome made synthetically from yeast
Work with yeast marks the first time scientists have synthesized a chromosome from organisms with complex cells and represents a major step toward lab-created eukaryotic life.
- Health & Medicine
Diet fix eases Huntington’s symptoms in mice
Supplement improves health of rodents with mutation that causes neurodegeneration like that seen in Huntington’s disease.
- Life
With Taxol, chromosomes divide and get conquered
New mechanism discovered for how the cancer drug Taxol works.
- Paleontology
Ancient oceans’ top predator was gentle filter feeder
New fossils suggest that a distant relative of lobsters used bristled limbs to net its prey, not spike it.
