How Ants Tell Friends From Foes
A study in Current Biology reveals that clonal raider ants can reshape their nestmate‑recognition system throughout adulthood by repeated exposure to foreign colony odors. Young ants placed in a foreign colony adopt the host’s chemical profile and cease aggression, yet they retain an innate bias toward their original genotype. The learned tolerance is fragile—aggression returns after a week of isolation, but occasional contact sustains acceptance. These results provide a behavioral platform for probing the neural mechanisms of social odor learning in insects.
Why Does Stress Push People to Habits Like Drinking?
A Texas A&M study identified a direct neural pathway linking stress centers in the central amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis to the dorsal striatum, where CRF activates cholinergic interneurons that promote behavioral flexibility. The researchers showed that...
There’s a Link Between Heart Health and Hip Fracture
A new study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas links cardiovascular risk to a markedly higher chance of hip and other major bone fractures in postmenopausal women. Using the American Heart Association's PREVENT score, researchers found women in...
New Paint Changes Color to Reveal Impacts
Tufts University researchers have created a silk‑based paint that permanently shifts from blue to red when struck, quantifying impact force between 100 and 770 newtons. The coating embeds color‑changing polydiacetylene particles within a silk fibroin shell, allowing it to be...
App Turns Phones Into At-Home Ultrasound Devices
A new app called DopFone transforms a smartphone’s speaker into a fetal Doppler radar, letting pregnant women listen to their baby’s heartbeat at home. Developed by Georgia Tech researchers, the prototype was tested on 23 patients and achieved a ±4.9...
TV Ads Don’t Work Nearly as Well as Believed
Traditional TV ads still dominate ad spend, with $139 billion allocated versus $33 billion for streaming, yet new research from the University of Notre Dame shows they are only about half as effective as previously believed, overstating impact by roughly 55% for...
The Stuff that Makes up Earth Came From the Inner Solar System
Planetary scientists Paolo Sossi and Dan Bower of ETH Zurich have shown that virtually all of Earth’s building material originated from the inner solar system, with less than 2% – possibly none – coming from beyond Jupiter. By applying a...
Babies Born to Lower-Income Families Face Worse Birth Outcomes
A new study of 380,000 U.S. births from 2012‑2022 links family income directly to newborn health. Mothers below 200% of the federal poverty line experienced higher rates of preterm delivery and low birthweight, with the low‑birthweight gap widening sharply over...
Your Neighborhood May Be Aging You at the Cellular Level
A study in *Social Science and Medicine* links neighborhood socioeconomic opportunity to cellular aging. Researchers analyzed blood samples from 1,215 U.S. adults in the MIDUS cohort and matched them to the Childhood Opportunity Index. Residents of low‑opportunity census tracts exhibited...
New Nasal Flu Vaccine Shows Promise in Mice
Researchers at Georgia State University have engineered an intranasal influenza vaccine that uses cell‑derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) to display inverted hemagglutinin (HA) proteins. The upside‑down HA exposes the conserved stalk region while masking the variable head, prompting cross‑protective immunity. In...
Listen: Could AI Predict Extreme Weather Events?
In a Big Brains podcast, University of Chicago associate professor Pedram Hassanzadeh explains how new AI models trained on decades of atmospheric data could forecast extreme weather weeks in advance. Traditional models struggle with heat waves, hurricanes and floods, but...
Why You’re Wired to Love Sugar
Experts explain why humans are hardwired to love sugar and warn of health risks from overconsumption. The brain’s reliance on glucose drives cravings, especially for sugar‑fat combos found in Easter candy. Added sugar intake above 10% of calories is linked...
‘Dumb’ Robot Swarm Works with No Electronics at All
Georgia Tech researchers have demonstrated a robotic swarm that functions without any electronics, relying solely on mechanical design and vibration to coordinate movement. Each particle’s geometry dictates how it latches, stores tension, and releases, creating emergent collective behavior. The team...
New Sensor Could Allow MRIs to See Molecular-Level Changes
University of California, Santa Barbara researchers have engineered a genetically encoded, protein‑based sensor that lets magnetic resonance imaging capture molecular‑level activity inside cells. The modular system, called MAPPER, couples aquaporin water channels with interchangeable protein domains to generate MRI‑detectable signals...
Key Neurons Can Jumpstart Leg Movement After Spinal Injury
Researchers identified a rare subset of graft‑derived interneurons that can reconnect broken spinal circuits and trigger leg muscle activity in animal models of spinal cord injury. When these neurons were experimentally activated, 20‑30% of the subjects showed measurable leg movements,...
