Macaques give birth more easily than women: no maternal mortality at birth

An international research team led by the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna has used long-term demographic data from Japanese macaques – a monkey species within the family of Old World monkeys – to show that, unlike humans, there is no maternal mortality in these primates linked to childbirth.

NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers observed Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, one of the most active and intriguing objects in the outer solar system. The high degree of detail captured by the telescope led to the discovery of new, previously unknown jets of gas, which is helping inform theories about how centaurs and planets are formed.

Play it Forward: Lasting Effects of Pretend Play in Early Childhood

As the school year revs up, a renowned child developmental psychologist highlights the robust benefits of pretend play on cognitive, social, and emotional development in children and cautions how “learning through play” has changed with the demands of contemporary society. Given natural selection’s shaping of childhood for the acquisition and refinement of species-adapted social-cognitive skills – much through pretend play – he says it’s unfortunate that modern culture is ignoring the evolved wisdom of how best to educate young children.

$1.8M NIH Grant to FAU Engineering Fuels Quest to Decode Human Evolution

FAU has received a five-year NIH grant to further research on designing and applying statistical methods to identify regions of the genome affected by natural selection, which is an important evolutionary force that enables humans to adapt to new environments and fight disease-causing pathogens.

‘Baby Talk:’ Decoding How Children’s Vocal and Cognitive Cues Sway Adults

In infancy, caregivers rely on facial expressions and vocal cues to understand a baby’s needs and emotions, as babies do not use language. A new study shows that while facial expressions are important, they are less effective than vocal and cognitive signals. Adults are more focused on a child’s voice when assessing emotional states and helplessness, but use cognitive content, such as reasoning abilities, to gauge intelligence. When a child’s vocal immaturity conflicts with advanced cognitive abilities, caregivers prioritize vocal cues for emotional needs and cognitive cues for intelligence, highlighting how different cues influence judgments in early childhood.

Digital boundary spanning in the evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems: A dynamic capabilities perspective

Abstract This study examines the digitalization of entrepreneurial ecosystems and its implications for its conceptual boundaries. In particular, it explores opportunities to catalyze the early evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems stemming from digitalization. Surprisingly, the role of digitalization has not been…

First case of Down syndrome in Neandertals documented in new study

A new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York, documents the first case of Down syndrome in Neandertals and reveals that they were capable of providing altruistic care and support for a vulnerable member of their social group.

Different Microorganisms Have a Taste for Different Flavors of Ammonia

Ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOMs) use ammonia as an energy source while converting it to nitrite and play a pivotal role in the global nitrogen cycle. This study explored whether different AOM species preferred to use urea over ammonia. It found that some AOMs preferred urea while others used ammonia and urea simultaneously.

These jacks-of-all-trades are masters, too: Yeast study helps answer age-old biology question

The results, published April 26 in the journal Science, suggest that internal — not external — factors are the primary drivers of variation in the types of carbon yeasts can eat, and the researchers found no evidence that metabolic versatility, or the ability to eat different foods, comes with any trade-offs. In other words, some yeasts are jacks-of-all-trades and masters of each.

These Robots Helped Understand How Insects Evolved Two Distinct Strategies of Flight

Robots built by engineers at the University of California San Diego helped achieve a major breakthrough in understanding how insect flight evolved, described in the Oct. 4, 2023 issue of the journal Nature. The study is a result of a six-year long collaboration between roboticists at UC San Diego and biophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

How Insects Evolved to Ultrafast Flight (And Back)

This asynchronous beating comes from how the flight muscles interact with the physics of the insect’s springy exoskeleton. This decoupling of neural commands and muscle contractions is common in only four distinct insect groups. For years, scientists assumed these four groups evolved these ultrafast wingbeats separately, but research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) shows that they evolved from a single common ancestor. This discovery demonstrates evolution has repeatedly turned on and off this particular mode of flight. The researchers developed physics models and robotics to test how these transitions could occur.

Hormone alters electric fish’s signal-canceling trick

New research shows that the hormone testosterone — which naturally triggers male electric fish to elongate the electric pulses they send out during the breeding season — also alters a system in the fish’s brain that enables the fish to ignore its own electric signals.

Butterfly beginnings

Biologists from Washington University in St. Louis collaborated with a large number of butterfly and plant specialists to reconstruct the origin and global spread of butterflies. Working with researchers from dozens of countries, Michael Landis and Mariana P. Braga in Arts & Sciences helped create the world’s largest butterfly tree of life, assembled with DNA from more than 2,000 species representing all butterfly families.

Second gene implicated in malaria parasite resistance evolution to chloroquine

How malaria parasites evolved to evade a major antimalarial drug has long been thought to involve only one key gene. Now, thanks to a combination of field and lab studies, an international research team has shown a second key gene is also involved in malaria’s resistance to the drug chloroquine.

ProSocial World: How the principles of evolution can create lasting global change

Knowing how cultural evolution happens also means we can harness it for the larger good, creating a more just and sustainable world, according to a new article from a research team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

New Fossil Analysis Reveals Dinosaur with Record-Holding 15-Meter-Long Neck

An international scientific team led by Stony Brook University paleontologist Andrew J. Moore, PhD, has revealed that a Late Jurassic Chinese sauropod known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum sported a 15-meter-long neck. The details will be published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology and provide fresh insights on the evolution of the iconic sauropod body.

Hummingbirds use torpor in varying ways to survive cold temps

Hummingbirds have the fastest metabolism of any animal. The tropical hummingbirds that live in the Andes Mountains in South America must expend considerable energy to maintain their high body temperatures in cold environments. One tool that they use to survive cold nights is called torpor, a hibernation-like state that allows them to ramp down energy consumption to well below what they normally use during the day.

Plague trackers: Researchers cover thousands of years in a quest to understand the elusive origins of the Black Death

Seeking to better understand more about the origins and movement of bubonic plague, in ancient and contemporary times, researchers at McMaster University, University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne, have completed a painstaking granular examination of hundreds of modern and ancient genome sequences, creating the largest analysis of its kind.

Ancient Iowan superpredator got big by front-loading its growth in its youth

The Field Museum in Chicago is home to the best, most-complete fossils of a prehistoric superpredator– but one that lived hundreds of millions of years before SUE the T. rex. Whatcheeria was a six-foot-long lake-dwelling creature with a salamander-like body and a long, narrow head; its fossils were discovered in a limestone quarry near the town of What Cheer, Iowa.