Big birds with bitty brains are still kind of brightWe’ve learned a lot about the remarkable intelligence of birds like crows and parrots, but not much work has been done on large flightless birds. A new study that explored the problem-solving abilities of emus, ostriches and rheas suggests that some of these birdy behemoths have impressive cognition too. In a first-of-its-kind study, a team led by University of Bristol’s Fay Clark trained the birds to use puzzles to get food, and they found that the rheas and emus were able to solve the puzzle easily, though the ostriches did not. The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.Cows jump over the moon — maybe humans should tooResearchers have done a lot of work to try and understand how astronauts can best prepare for and compensate for the muscle and bone atrophy that they will experience after long periods in zero G. A new study, led by Marco Chiaberge at Johns Hopkins University, suggests that a workout that includes jumping might be beneficial. The researchers found that by training mice to repeatedly jump up from one level to another increased their knee cartilage thickness by 26 per cent. The research was published in the journal npj Microgravity.Mary had a little lamb – 11,000 years agoSheep are among the animals that humans domesticated first, in the middle east during the dawn of agriculture. A new genetic study of hundreds of ancient sheep remains, which date across 12 millennia, is shedding light on the intertwined history of sheep and humans. The work, led by geneticist Dan Bradley of Trinity College Dublin, tells the story of how the sheep’s domestication not only gave us clothes but also milk and meat which fueled our spread around the world for thousands of years, and how humans molded sheep by selecting them for colour and wool. The research was published in the journal Science.A tiny great ape lived in Europe 12 million years agoThe tiniest member of the great ape family — the group that today includes the chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos, gorillas, and us — has been identified from fossils found in Germany. Nearly 12 million years ago, the 10-kilogram animal would have shared its environment with another, larger great ape species, something researchers didn’t think was possible. David Begun, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto, said its two fossilized teeth and a single knee bone indicated that Buronius manfredschmidi had its own ecological niche high up in the trees. The study was published in the journal PLOS One. The recipe for finding life on other planetsIn the last two decades we’ve discovered literally thousands of planets orbiting nearby stars. And our technology has advanced to the point where we’re on the cusp of being able to investigate whether there’s life on those planets. We speak to astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger, the founder of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute, about her work trying to answer that question, and her book Alien Earths: Planet Hunting in the Cosmos.

Scientists are recruiting elephant seals to learn more about the oceans’ twilight zoneBelow about 200 metres there’s still a lot going on in the ocean, but it’s tremendously hard to observe and understand even with modern technology. Scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz have maintained a long-term monitoring study of elephant seals. The team, including PhD candidate Allison Payne, has discovered they can use the seals as scientific sentinels, to help humans better understand the conditions of the dark deep sea. The research was published in the journal Science.A cave in Poland reveals a grisly history of stone-age cannibalismA detailed study of the remains of ten individuals who lived — and died — 18,000 years ago in Poland has revealed that they were butchered and probably eaten as the final act in a prehistoric conflict. Characteristic cut marks on their skulls and bones show that they were systematically de-fleshed, before their fragmented remains were tossed aside. This research was led by Francesc Marginedas, a PhD candidate at the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeo-ecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain.  Their research was published in Scientific Reports.Our ears are weird. Is that just because they’re gills?Evolution tends to repurpose things, even as it massively transforms organisms outwardly. A fascinating example is the new finding that the unique cartilage in our external ears seems to have once been gill tissue from our ancient fish ancestors. Gage Crump from the University of Southern California made the discovery using a series of gene-editing experiments on zebrafish. The research was published in the journal Nature.Rabbits replenish their calcium by digesting their teethRabbit teeth constantly grow during the life of the rodents, which means they need calcium to regrow them. A new study suggests that one of the ways rabbits supply calcium for their teeth is by ingesting and recycling the tooth material that grinds off as they chew.  Dr. Johanna Mäkitaipale is a veterinary orthopedic surgeon and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She led this research that was published in The Veterinary Journal.Is dark energy dying? A new theory suggests that the universe has different time zonesFor more than two decades, cosmologists have been invoking the idea of a mysterious dark energy to explain observations that appeared to show an acceleration in the expansion of the universe. But more recent observations are adding weight to a different theory that does away with the dark energy. Ryan Ridden, an astronomer from the University of Canterbury, said the “timescape theory” suggests time simply runs differently in the large empty regions of the universe. Their study is in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

As soon as the last ice age glaciers melted, Indigenous people occupied this siteA recently discovered archaeological site in Saskatchewan, dated to just less than 11,000 years ago is the oldest settlement in the region by about 1,500 years. It also is evidence that Indigenous people settled there as soon as the environment could support them after the glaciers disappeared. Glenn Stuart, from the University of Saskatchewan, is one of the archaeologists working along with local Indigenous community members to preserve and study the site.Just the right magnetic field will make sea turtles do a ‘happy dance’Researchers investigating how sea turtles navigate the vast and trackless ocean have discovered just how sensitive the reptiles’ magnetic sense is, as they can even use it to identify the location of food resources. While feeding the loggerhead turtles in the lab, Kayla Goforth, a postdoctoral researcher at Texas A&M University noticed that the turtles would perform a ‘happy dance’ when they recognized the right magnetic signature. She led this research that was published in the journal Nature.Intense exercise causes our bodies to belch out DNA that may reduce inflammationScientists were surprised to discover that the more intensely you exercise, the more certain immune cells belch out fragments of DNA that can form webs to trap pathogens, and lead to fewer pro-inflammatory immune cells circulating in our blood. Canadian researcher Stephen Montgomery, a professor of pathology at Stanford University, said their findings suggest that circulating cell-free DNA may play a role in how exercise lowers inflammation in the body. The study was published in the journal PNAS. An ancient Antarctic duck lived at the time of T-RexBirds are the last surviving lineage of dinosaurs, but modern birds are surprisingly ancient – dating to before the extinction of the rest of their family. An extremely rare, nearly intact bird skull found in Antarctica and dated to about 69 million years ago confirms this. This waterfowl had similarities to ducks and loons. Chris Torres is an assistant professor at the University of the Pacific in Stockton California and was part of the team that analyzed this fossil. Their research was published in the journal Nature.Science is being transformed by the AI revolutionThe stunning advances in artificial intelligence that we see with internet AI apps are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to science. Researchers from almost every field are experimenting with this powerful new tool to diagnose disease, understand climate change, develop strategies for conservation and discover new kinds of materials. And AI is on the threshold of being able to make discoveries all by itself. Will it put scientists out of a job?Producer Amanda Buckiewicz spoke with:Jeff Clune, a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute, and a senior research advisor to DeepMind. He’s also a co-author of The AI Scientist.Allison Noble, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford and a Foreign Secretary at the Royal Society, and chair of the Science in the Age of AI working group.Elissa Strome, executive director of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy at CIFAR.Cong Lu, postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the University of British Columbia and the Vector Institute, and a co-author of The AI Scientist.Fred Morstatter, a research assistant professor at the University of Southern California, and a principal scientist at USC's Information Sciences Institute.

A little bit of scratching can do some good, but too much can hurtScratching an itch can feel great, so scientists decided to dig into why that is the case since we know too much scratching isn’t good for us. Dr. Dan Kaplan, a professor of dermatology and immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, said they found that scratching drives inflammation to the skin, which, in light moderation, helps to fight bacterial skin infections. But he warns that continual or excessive scratching can prolong an itch and potentially damage the skin. Their study is in the journal Science. Bear hazing goes high-tech with dronesA wildlife manager in the US has found that drones can be a safe and effective way to discourage problem bears from troubling human habitation and livestock. Wesley Sarmento started working in the prairies of Montana to prevent bear-human conflicts, but found the usual tricks of the trade were not as effective as he wanted them to be. Previously he tried to use noisemakers, dogs, trucks, and firearms, but buzzing bears with flying robots turned out to work much better. Now a PhD student at the University of Montana, he published an article about his hazing research in Frontiers in Conservation Science.Ants can remember and hold grudges against those who trouble themWhen ants fight with those from another nearby colony, it makes an impression. A new study has found the insects can remember the chemical signature of the aggressors, and will respond more vigorously and violently the next time they cross paths. Dr. Volker Nehring, a researcher at the University of Freiburg, Germany, describes the phenomenon as “the nasty neighbour" where ants are most aggressive to ant colonies closest to them, and says this is due to resource protection. Dr Nehring and his team’s research was published in the journal Current Biology.Scientists on the front line of permafrost thaw describe changes in the Arctic The acceleration of change in the Arctic due to global warming is transforming the landscape on a year-to-year basis, often in surprising ways. That’s according to scientists who’ve been studying the effects of climate change in the North. One study found that lakes in Western Greenland shifted from pristine blue to dirty brown from one year to the next due to increased permafrost melting and runoff. Jasmine Saros, a lake ecologist from the University of Maine, said they were astonished by the magnitude of change they saw in all 10 lakes they studied and how quickly it happened. That study was published in the journal PNAS. We also speak with William Quinton, a permafrost hydrologist from Wilfred Laurier University and the director of the Scotty Creek Research Station in southern Northwest Territories, an area he describes as “the frontline of permafrost thaw.” Quinton was part of a research team, led by Anna Virkkala from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre, that found that 34 per cent of the Arctic Boreal Zone — a region where carbon was safely locked up in the permafrost for thousands of years — has now become a carbon source. That study is in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Bits of Bennu have building blocks of lifeNASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission took six years to travel to the asteroid Bennu and return samples to Earth. Now, the first results from the analysis of these rocks are being released. Researchers found evidence of salty water, as well as the elements necessary for life, such as amino acids and the building blocks for RNA and DNA. We spoke with Kim Tait, senior curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and co-author of one of the recent studies, published in the journal Nature.Unlocking the secret of Polar bear de-icingPolar bears spend so much time going in and out of the water that they are considered marine mammals. So when they do this in the frozen Arctic, why are they not covered in ice? A new study reveals the secret turns out to lie in the unique oils they produce that covers their white fur. Julian Carolan, a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin, worked with scientists in Norway, Denmark and the U.K. on this paper published in the journal Science Advances.Truffle-hunting dog finds fabulous new fungusA chance discovery has turned out to reveal a new species of North American truffle. These fungi can be desirable and valuable delicacies. An American truffle hunter, Lois Martin, and her  trained dog Monza found a distinctive truffle in a city park that turned out to be a fungus new to science. Although native to North America, it was more similar to European truffles than any found in the Americas. Dr. Greg Bonito at Michigan State University named this new truffle Tuber canirevelatum,  meaning the ‘dog-found’ truffle in honour of Monza and other dogs who look for truffles. The work was published in the journal Mycologia.  Voiding your bowels can improve cognitive performanceTo maximize your cognitive function, it might be a good idea to make sure you have a poo first. That’s according to a recent study in the journal Sports Medicine and Health Science. In it, scientists found that 9 out of 13 individuals improved how well they did in a mentally taxing cognitive test if they defecated first, whereas all 13 of them improved in their performance when they took a mild laxative the night before. Chia-Hua Kuo, a professor of sports medicine and nutrition at the University of Taipei, said they also saw an increase in oxygen consumption in the test subjects’ subnavel regions as they were doing the test, suggesting a previously unsuspected link between the rectum and the brain. Saving species on Earth, preserving them on the moonThe world is in a biodiversity crisis. We’re losing species at an unprecedented rate, thanks to climate change, habitat loss, overexploitation and more. We look at some of the more out-of-the-box solutions that are currently in the works – from creating an internet of animals to monitor biodiversity, to saving samples of Earth’s biological resources on the moon.We spoke with:Martin Wikelski, the director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, honorary professor of ornithology at the University of Konstanz, and the scientific head of the ICARUS project.Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and senior author of a recent paper published in the journal Bioscience proposing a passive biorepository on the moon.

Reintroducing Hawaii’s sacred crow to the wildThe world’s most endangered crow, the Hawaiian crow or or ʻalalā, is making tentative steps towards a comeback. After going extinct in the wild, only 120 birds remain in captivity, in two facilities operated by the San Diego Zoo. Over the years, researchers have attempted reintroductions in the bird's native habitat on the Big Island of Hawaii, but those efforts have all been unsuccessful. Recently, the team tried something different - reintroducing the birds to a different island than their native home. The initial release happened in October and so far, the team, including Bryce Masuda, has high hopes and positive signs from their latest attempt.Lasers tell us about the pterosaur’s unique tailThe great flying reptiles of the dawn of the age of dinosaurs, the pterosaurs, took flight with delicate but flexible internal tail structure that allowed it to work like a kite. Scientists used recently developed technology to enable them to see a lattice-like structure in the soft tissue in the early pterosaur soft tissue that was otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Natalia Jagielska, a paleontologist at the Lyme Regis Museum in Dorset, England, said their kite-like tail vane would have stood upright and could have functioned as a display and to help them in flight. The study was published in the eLife journal, Evolutionary Biology. How gophers help re-seed volcanic landscape with lifeAfter Mt. St. Helens exploded in 1980 it left a shattered, ash-covered, barren landscape behind. But the one-time reintroduction of gophers to one area led to a remarkably fast recovery of plants and other fauna. Forty-years later, changes to the environment are still being documented by  Dr. Mia Maltz, assistant professor of Microbial Ecology and Soil Earth at the University of Connecticut, and her team. They published their research in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes.Desert ants’ magnetic navigationDesert ants that navigate the endless sands of the Sahara use the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way, which is not unusual. But unlike other animals like birds and turtles they don’t appear to have an internal compass that aligns north and south. Instead they are unique in that they  use a more subtle cue – the polarity of the magnetic field. A study looking at this led by Dr. Pauline Fleischmann, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oldenburg in Germany  was published in the journal Current Biology. Celestial body mysteries: dark comets and meteorites from young asteroid families The thousands of small celestial bodies in our solar system are now a bit less mysterious, thanks to several recent discoveries. One group of astronomers have traced back the origins of 84 per cent of all known meteorites that have pummeled Earth to just a few young asteroid families in the asteroid belt. Michaël Marsset, from the European Southern Observatory in Chile, said collisions in the asteroid belt create a collisional cascade that produces fragments, some of which end up raining down on Earth as meteorites. Two of their papers were published in the journal Nature and a third in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Another group of astronomers have identified two populations of stealthy dark comets that are something in between a comet and an asteroid. They’ve found fourteen of these objects whose orbital motion is comet-like, but which lack a visible tail like regular comets. Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, said they’ve found two types of these unusual solar system bodies: larger ones in an elliptical orbit out to Jupiter and smaller ones in orbit around Earth. Their study was published in the journal PNAS.

Ancient human ancestors didn’t eat meat, and so couldn’t build big brainsOne of the main reasons scientists think we became so smart is because at some point in our evolutionary past, our ancestors started eating energy-dense meat to fuel the growth of large brains. However it hasn’t been clear when this started. Using a new technology, scientists were able to analyze the tooth enamel of seven 3.5 million year old Australopithecines to directly measure their meat consumption. Tina Lüdecke, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, said it revealed they were primarily herbivores so meat eating would have had to come later in our evolutionary history. Their study was published in the journal Science. Building a robot bee that could one day pollinate cropsBees do an incredibly important job pollinating crops and wild plants. Now scientists in the US are trying to emulate their skills with a tiny robot bee that has all the agility and ability of the real insect. They hope eventually they can be used in indoor factory farms where real bees can’t survive.  Kevin Chen, associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at M.I.T and PhD candidate Suhan Kim were a part of this project. Their research was published in the journal Science Robotics.We are made of star stuff – but how did it get here?Elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that are essential to life were forged in supernovae billions of years ago. Now new research is helping to explain how these elements – especially essential carbon – were concentrated in such a way as to be plentifully available for the chemistry of life. The study, led in part by astronomer Trystyn Berg, discovered a cosmic conveyer belt funneling carbon in and out of our galaxy over billions of years. The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.Australia’s vanishingly rare marsupial mole gets a genetic checkupIn the southern desert of Australia, there lives an elusive and unique animal - the marsupial mole. It lives under the sand and is so rare that very few people have ever seen it. Scientists have now published the very first genetic research on this animal in the journal Science Advances, thanks to tissue samples donated by a local museum. Sarah Lucas is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Münster, Germany, and was part of the team. A climate researcher makes the case for scientist-activistsThe stereotype of a scientist is a dispassionate, objective and neutral seeker of nature’s truths, and many think that this makes a career in science incompatible with political activism. Canadian climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe thinks that this is a mistake. She sees her role more like that of a physician for the planet – diagnosing its ills and advocating for the health of her patient, and her patient’s inhabitants. She recently co-authored a paper in the journal Nature Climate Action arguing her case.

Genevieve Willis from London, Ontario asks: Is there any evidence to suggest that “getting cold” by, say, dressing inadequately in cold weather, or sitting in a cold draft, actually increases our susceptibility to illness?For the frigid answer, we spoke with Michael Kennedy who is an associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Alberta. Jim Raso from St. Albert Alberta wrote us: My question has to do with our sense of time passing. As I have gotten older – I am 73 now –  I noticed that time seemed to pass more quickly.  Why does this happen?For the answer, we asked Dr. Holly K. Andersen, a professor of philosophy at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.Dan from Chateau-Richer in Quebec writes: Where does moon dust come from?We reached out to planetary geologist Gordon Osinski, a professor of Earth Sciences at Western University, who has studied samples sent back from the Apollo missions. Scott Beach from East York Ontario asks: Why do dogs sniff and lick each other's butts?To get the answer, we reached out to Simon Gadbois, the principal investigator at the Canine olfaction lab at Dalhousie University.Robert Smith from Victoria asks: Is there evidence to suggest red-heads are particularly sensitive to pain? To find out, we spoke with someone who has studied this in the past: Jeffrey Mogil, the E.P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies at the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University.Stephen Quinn from St. John’s, Newfoundland asks: How can the universe be expanding at the same time as galaxies are colliding?For the smashing answer, we spoke with Sara Ellison, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Victoria. Susan Boyd from Ottawa asks: Since some of the elements in the periodic table do not occur naturally, is there a limit to the new elements that could be created? If so, what is the limiting factor? We went to the National Research Council Canada’s element expert, Juris Meija, for this answer. Robert LaRoche in Halifax asks: Why is the color of wet clothes always more vivid than when they are dry?For the answer, we turned to Sarah Purdy, a Physicist at the University of Saskatchewan who uses light to investigate materials. Paul Vander Griendt of Newmarket, Ontario asks: If animals wake up at sunrise and go to sleep at sunset, how do they cope with the varying hours of sunlight? How do they do compared to humans who are supposed to get 8 to 9 hours of sleep regardless of the length of sunlight? For the answer we turned to Ming Fei Li a Phd candidate at the University of Toronto in Anthropology who is studying the sleep patterns of animals. Marie Beaudoin from Salt Spring Island, BC asks: How do birds where the males and females look the same tell each other apart when it comes to mating?” We went to Matt Reudinik, a professor of biology at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, for the answer. Warren Saylor of London, Ontario asks: Could Neanderthals speak? If they could not, would that contribute to the dominance of Homo Sapiens?We spoke to paleoanthropologist Dr. Bence Viola, an associate professor in the department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Some optimistic and positive science news to end the year.For rats, anticipation of a pleasurable event is a pleasure in itself One day early in the pandemic, behavioural neuroscientist Kelly Lambert from the University of Richmond went to check on her rats. The rats responded with excitement when they saw her, anticipating the treats they were about to receive. That inspired her to pivot her research to study the effects that anticipating pleasurable experiences could have on the brain. She’s found in research that has yet to be published, that building in anticipation periods before they get to do something they enjoy, increases, which, if her findings extend to humans, could help boost mental resiliency. Their previous work was published in Behavioural Brain Research. How Marine Protected Areas are improving tuna fisheriesA comprehensive study of province-sized marine protected areas in the tropical pacific has shown that they not only provide a refuge for fish, but improve tuna fisheries harvests in the areas outside their borders, making a win-win for conservation and industry. John Lynham, a professor of Economics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, led the study which was published in the journal Science.For chimpanzees, play and the world plays with youA study of chimpanzees in Zambia has revealed that play and grooming are infectious behaviours. Animals who observe others performing these activities are more likely to groom and play themselves, which the researchers think promotes social cohesion in the troop. Zanna Clay, a professor of Psychology at Durham University, was part of the team, which published their research in the journal PLOS One.The oceans smallest plants and animals could help suck up excess atmospheric carbonResearchers may have discovered a new, fairly simple way to stimulate life in the ocean to capture and lock up atmospheric carbon. Phytoplankton absorbs and then releases 150 billion tons of atmospheric carbon every year. The researchers found that by adding just a little bit of clay to a phytoplankton bloom, this glues carbon particles together, creating “carbon snow” that falls down and is eaten by zooplankton, who then deposit it in the deep ocean. Mukul Sharma, a professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College, says that in the lab this method locked up 90 per cent of the carbon that phytoplankton released. His study was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.A seal of approval: Unique elephant seal behaviour observed by a failed experimentA team of researchers developed a sophisticated deep-water experiment to observe and listen for sounds made by sablefish. They were startled when their study site was repeatedly visited by elephant seals, who would chase and chow down on the sablefish — all at 645 meters below the ocean's surface. This accidental observation was made in the Barkley Canyon Node, part of the Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) cabled video-observatory. It was the first time that elephant seals were studied in the deep ocean, giving unexpected and valuable new insights into seal resting and foraging behaviour. The findings were published in the journal PLOS One.Producer Amanda Buckiewicz spoke with Rodney Rountree, an independent biologist, ichthyologist, and adjunct marine biologist in the Department of Biology at Victoria University.And Héloïse Frouin-Mouy, an assistant scientist at the University of Miami's Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, and affiliate at the University of Victoria.

A NASA probe is going to touch the Sun for ChristmasThe Parker Solar Probe is going to be making its closest approach to our Sun on Dec. 24, diving at 800,000 km/h into the corona of our star and getting within 6.5 million kilometers to the solar surface. It’s the culmination of a successful mission during which the probe has measured the solar wind and flown through solar storms. We speak with C. Alex Young, the Associate Director for Science Communication in the Heliophysics Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center about the highlights of the mission and what’s next for the intrepid spacecraft.Pinning down the how and when Neanderthals interbred with humansStudies of Neanderthal remains have revealed that many modern humans have around two per cent Neanderthal DNA in our genomes. A study led by Leonardo Iasi, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, shows that the mixture happened over a period of 7,000 years, lasting from about 50,000 years ago until the Neanderthals started to disappear. The Neanderthal genes that persist in our genome are tied to metabolism and immunity, which might be because humans were traveling to new places and eating new foods to which Neanderthals were already adapted. Iasi’s research was published in the journal Science.What Donner and Blitzen might have been saying to RudolphResearchers from Concordia University have released a new study about caribou vocalizations, and what the animals might be signaling to each other. The vocalizations are similar to those of elk and moose, but as herd animals, caribou signaling is less about summoning mates from a distance, and more about males warning competitors to fly off elsewhere. Biologists Robert Weladji and Laura Puch analyzed recordings of these calls to search for information buried in the grunts. They found that the frequencies gave signals as to the age and size of the animal. The research was published in the journal Bioacoustics.Do crustaceans feel pain? A new study of their neural activity says yesBy monitoring the neural activity in crabs while delivering painful stimuli, researchers concluded the response they measured is associated with what we would think would be a painful experience. This study, in the journal Biology, adds to the evidence that crustaceans can sense painful stimuli as the kind of negative experience that we tend to associate with pain. Lynne Sneddon, from the University of Gothenburg led the work. Scientists are making a map of the human body accurate down to the individual cellThe Human Cell Atlas is a mammoth global project to create a detailed map of all cell types and functions in the human body, from early development to old age. While not yet complete, it’s already revolutionizing how scientists can probe the human body with significant implications for future healthcare — from diagnosing diseases, to developing drugs, to ushering in a new era of personalized medical treatments. 

Early people in North America had mammoth appetitesThe people of the Clovis culture, who lived across Ice Age North America 13,000 years ago, left behind many tools and artifacts that suggest they were skilled hunters. And now chemical analysis of the incredibly rare find of bones of a Clovis child has given us the first direct evidence of what they were eating. The research, co-led by James Chatters of McMaster University, revealed they were “super-carnivores” whose diet mostly consisted of mammoth meat, with elk and bison/camel showing up as well. By specializing in hunting megafauna, this would have helped the Clovis people rapidly spread throughout North America. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.Now we know the specific molecule that makes the Corpse flower smell like deathCorpse flowers are major botanical attractions because of their unique shape, their rare flowering and their incredible stench. Now researchers have identified the molecule that is the secret behind the stink. Alveena Zulfiqar, a research associate at the University of Minnesota, was a key part of the team led by G. Eric Schaller, a professor of biology at Dartmouth College. They published their research in the journal PNAS Nexus.The dinosaurs that became birds had distinctive drumsticksThe lineage of dinosaurs that ultimately evolved into birds didn’t just have unique adaptations for wings and feathers. They also evolved unique drumsticks, specifically fibula bones that are detached at the ankle, which gave their knee joints unusual mobility, allowing them to twist by more than 100 degrees. Biomechanist Armita Manafzadeh, from Yale University, says it’s certainly possible that this change in their mobility might have been key to their survival. Their research was published in Nature. A plant can spit out its seeds fast enough to take out an eyeIn the blink of an eye the squirting cucumber can eject its seeds faster than a greyhound can run, up to twelve meters from the plant. High speed video has enabled researchers to capture the process, which the plant manages without muscles or tendons. Derek Moulton, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Oxford, was part of the team that published their research in the journal PNAS.Hacking photosynthesis: How we can improve the chemistry that’s the foundation of lifeThe plants that make up the base of the Earth’s food chain, use the sun’s energy — along with carbon dioxide and water — to build their tissues. But the chemical process they use, photosynthesis, is extremely inefficient. To feed our growing population, scientists are working on ways to improve this very foundational chemical reaction by increasing its efficiency.One team developed a computer simulation of the entire photosynthetic process to systematically search for and test ways to enhance the process. Plant biologist Steve Long, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says if they combined all the individual gains they’ve discovered, he estimates they could improve efficiency by up to double. One of their latest studies is currently in the preprint bioRxiv. Another approach scientists are investigating involves replacing photosynthesis with more efficient chemical reaction to produce acetate as fuel for the plants’ growth. This reaction could be powered by solar energy or any other form of electricity. Robert Jinkerson, a chemical engineer from the University of California in Riverside, said they’re still developing this technology for plants, but they’ve shown that in single-celled photosynthetic algae that they can improve photosynthetic efficiency by at least four-fold. Their research is published in Joule. 

What the dinosaurs left behind tells the story of their rise to dominanceBones aren’t the only thing we can use to understand the dinosaurs. A new study of a rich trove of fossilized feces and vomit is telling the story of how dinosaurs diversified and came to dominate the planet starting 230 million years ago. Paleontologist Martin Qvarnström from Uppsala University in Sweden said it appears that the secret to dinosaurs’ success is in their ability to adapt to their changing environment. Their research is published in the journal Nature. A new kind of ‘walking’ shorts could help with mobilityScientists have incorporated artificial tendons and electric motors into shorts to provide support and assistance to the hip flexor muscles that are critical for walking. In both young and old people the shorts improved performance and so could make a difference for those whose mobility has been compromised. Enrica Tricomi, a visiting researcher at the Technical University of Munich, co-developed this prototype. The study was published in the journal Nature.Shining a bright light on a new way to discourage shark attacksSharks attacks on humans are often a result of mistaken identity, when they mistake a swimming human or a surfboard for a seal or sea lion. Researchers have found that a bright patterns of LED lights can break up the visual pattern of a swimmer so that they look less like a shark’s usual prey. Dr. Lucille Chapuis was part of the team that tested various patterns of lights in Seal Island, South Africa. Their research was published in Current Biology.Different species of humans walked side-by-side in Africa millions of years agoPreserved footprints near a lakeshore in Kenya show that two species of early humans, Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei, shared the same watering hole 1.5 million years ago. This is the first direct evidence of two species of hominids sharing the same space at the same time.Dr. Kevin Hatala, professor of Biology at Chatham University, and his team’s findings are in the journal Science. We no longer know how to make humans live longer – only betterHuman lifespan lengthened amazingly in the 20th century, thanks to reductions in infant mortality, improvements in public health, and successes against infectious disease. But according to a new study by S. Jay Olshansky, those gains have started to flatline in recent years. By looking at the countries with the longest lifespans, Olshansky and his colleagues found that we have traded childhood diseases for age-related diseases like cancers and Alzheimer's, and so we shouldn’t expect to make many more gains in human lifespan using our current methods. Instead, he says, we should focus on improving the quality of the extra years we’ve gained so far. His work was published in the journal Nature Aging.We also speak with William Mair, a Professor of Molecular Metabolism at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is part of a new field of study called Geroscience, which looks at slowing down the process of aging as a whole. In his lab he has been able to extend the lifespan of simpler creatures like nematode worms and mice, and says while we have no proof we can extend a human’s maximum lifespan at this time, that doesn’t mean it won’t be possible in the future.