Life
- Animals
Some mama whales may whisper to keep calves safe from orcas
Even enormous whales can fear the threat that orcas pose to their babies. It now seems that some have taken to whispering to help their young stay off the killer whales’ radar.
- Earth
Record seaweed belt spanned from Africa to Gulf of Mexico
Blooms of Sargassum seaweed used to form at the mouth of the Amazon River each year. In 2011, they mushroomed in size to where they now span from South America across to Africa.
- Life
Scientists Say: Mitosis
Mitosis is a type of cell division where one cell divides into two identical copies, called daughter cells.
- Brain
High fat diet removes brain’s natural brake on overeating
At least in mice, high-fat diets promote overeating. And the problem appears to trace to changes that these foods make to cells in an appetite-control center within the brain.
- Microbes
A surface crater in viruses may be key to keeping colds from spreading
A newly discovered pit on the surface of one family of viruses could help scientists fight the common cold and other infections.
- Health & Medicine
A sixth finger can prove extra handy
Two people born with six fingers on each hand adeptly control their extra digits, using them to do tasks better than five-fingered hands.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Hagfish
Hagfish are eel-shaped fish with many traits that make them similar to long-vanished fossils. When threatened, they can pump out piles of slime.
- Health & Medicine
A fungus plus a spider toxin equals a weapon to kill mosquitoes
A new weapon could help fight mosquitoes that spread malaria. It’s an engineered fungus that infects the insects — then kills them with a spider poison.
- Humans
DNA reveals clues to the Siberian ancestors of the first Americans
Researchers discovered a previously unknown population of Ice Age people who crossed the Asia-North America land bridge.
- Microbes
Gut bacteria may affect how well your medicines work
Gut bacteria can chemically change the drugs people swallow. ID-ing a patient’s microbes might one day help doctors prescribe the most effective drugs.
- Health & Medicine
Bats are now the primary source of U.S. rabies deaths
Although human rabies is not common in the United States, it still occurs. But here dogs are no longer the likely source of this oft-lethal infection: Bats are.
- Earth
Antibiotics pollute many of the world’s rivers
A survey of 165 rivers finds unsafe levels of antibiotics at one in six sites tested. Such pollution can leave germs resistant (unharmed) by the drugs.
