Life
- Animals
News Brief: No hopping for these ancient ‘roos
By hopping, today’s kangaroos can scoot swiftly through the countryside. That was not true for some of their ancient cousins. True giants, those now-extinct kangaroos would have walked on two feet — and relied on their tippy-toes.
- Animals
Coming: The sixth mass extinction?
Species are dying off at such a rapid rate — faster than at any other time in human existence — that many resources on which we depend may disappear.
- Brain
Strong body helps the mind
Study finds new link between the body and brain in mice and may help explain how exercise heals.
- Brain
Exercise builds brawn — and brains
One 20-minute session of leg exercises improved memory recall by about 10 percent.
- Brain
The distracted teenage brain
Teens often show poor judgment in decision-making. Scientists have long blamed this on the fact that their brains are still developing. A new study offers another explanation: distractions form rewarding behaviors — ones that persist even after the reward itself has disappeared.
- Health & Medicine
Artificial sweeteners may evict good gut microbes
People use saccharin and other artificial sweeteners to try to stay healthy. A study now suggests such sweeteners might actually cause harm by encouraging the wrong bacteria to grow in our guts.
- Brain
Nobel goes for finding brain’s ‘GPS’
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to scientists who discovered how the brain maps our place within our environment.
- Animals
Picture this: Too many walruses
A giant herd of walruses have hauled out onto a beach in Alaska. They don’t belong there, but with no ice nearby, they have taken to land.
- Tech
Repelling germs with ‘sharkskin’
A biotechnology company has found a way to repel superbugs without toxic chemicals. It mimics the texture of a shark’s skin.
- Animals
Rare as a rhino
Most species are rare. Some have always been rare. A problem develops when people are responsible for accelerating a species’ rarity to the point that extinction threatens.
- Fossils
Early dino-era start for modern mammals
Fossils of an extinct group of rodent-sized mammals suggest they were related to modern mammals. These ancient remains push back the origin of mammals by many millions of years.
- Microbes
Recycling the dead
When things die, nature breaks them down through a process we know as rot. Without it, none of us would be here. Now, scientists are trying to better understand it so that they can use rot — preserving its role in feeding all living things.
