Life
- Brain
Heartbeat can affect racial perception of threat
Links between nerves in the heart and the brain shed light on why some police may be more likely to shoot an unarmed person who’s black than one who is white.
- Health & Medicine
Cleaner water helps male fish again look and act like guys
Water pollution can give male fish female traits — such as the ability to make eggs. And that’s not a good thing. Better water treatment may prevent that, data now show.
- Health & Medicine
Bullying hurts — but peer support really helps
Bullied kids face more mental illness as adults, new studies find. Other research suggests support from other kids can lessen the impacts.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Torpor
When an animal enters torpor, its body temperature goes down and so does the amount of energy it uses.
- Animals
Deep-sea mining could imperil rare, ghostlike octopus
A newly discovered octopus lays its eggs in a dangerous spot: where companies are looking to mine valuable metals for use in cell phones and computers.
- Brain
Stuttering: Blood flow in the brain may play a role
A new study shows people who stutter have less blood flow to a language center in the brain known as Broca’s area.
- Animals
What killed the dinosaurs?
New evidence is emerging that a devastating combo of events — an asteroid impact and supervolcanoes — may be behind the dinosaurs’ demise.
- Genetics
Explainer: How PCR works
The polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, is like a DNA-copying machine. It duplicates genetic material over and over. Here’s how.
- Genetics
Scientists find genes that make some kids’ hair uncombable
Scientists have pinpointed three genes that cause ‘uncombable hair syndrome’ in some kids.
- Animals
How birds know what not to tweet
How do birds perfect their pitches? The chemical dopamine spikes when they sing right, and dips when they drop a note, new data show.
- Brain
Explainer: What is dopamine?
Dopamine is a chemical messenger that carries signals between brain cells. It also gets blamed for addiction. And a shortage of it gets blamed for symptoms of diseases such as Parkinson’s.
- Brain
Explainer: What is neurotransmission?
When brain cells need to pass messages to one another, they use chemicals called neurotransmitters. This sharing of chemical secrets is known as neurotransmission.
