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Soldiering through nightly suspended animation, a (nearly) all-sugar diet, backwards flight and long migrations, the birds’ tiny physiques prove mighty
After turning up hundreds of genes with hard-to-predict effects, some scientists are now probing the grander developmental processes that shape face geometry
From building up defenses in the nose to slowing down a virus’s ability to make copies of itself, scientists are rolling out a raft of creative approaches to fighting infection
Suddenly, biologists have hundreds of complete genome sequences of our feathered friends. That wealth of data is revolutionizing understanding of bird biology and evolution.
The larvae of many marine creatures drift in the plankton, then settle to the seafloor and transform into adults. Bacteria often help the critters pick where to settle — and that may be just a snippet of a far more extensive conversation.
Because of their height, giraffes require scarily high blood pressures — yet they escape the massive health problems that plague people with hypertension. Can clinicians learn from these animals?
It all starts with a community teeming with yeasts and bacteria — but what’s really happening? Scientists peer into those jars on the kitchen counter to find out.
FIVE BIG QUESTIONS: Research has yielded a parts list of the genes and cell types involved in development. Now it’s time for the computationally intensive task of figuring out how they interact to form a living being.
For women, a short-term fling may involve a quest for good genes or just a good time. It’s a puzzle for the researchers looking at how people choose mates.
Ultrasound isn’t just for images. Sonogenetics and other promising technologies let researchers use focused sound waves to control genes and entire cells deep in the tissues of living animals, without surgery.
Can we use the tools of psychology to understand how colonies of social insects make decisions?
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