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Two brain circuits coordinate fruit flies' wing and leg movements to threaten rivals

3 days 17 hours ago
Limbs evolved as a means of locomotion. From the primitive rotating flagella of bacteria to the wings of flies and even our own legs, animals use these appendages to travel to find food or mates or escape predators. But in countless species across the animal kingdom, limbs are repurposed to create elaborate social displays: Birds of paradise fan out their wings and hop around in courtship dances, while crabs wave their claws to communicate to potential mating partners. As humans, we use our limbs to dance, gesture while talking, wield tools and conduct a remarkable diversity of behaviors. How does the brain control and coordinate its body parts for such distinct purposes?

Researchers find that some weeds get supercharged by an indirect hit of herbicide

3 days 17 hours ago
A brush with low doses of the herbicide dicamba spurs oxalis, a weed commonly known as wood sorrel, to produce more flowers, University of Michigan researchers have discovered. The finding suggests that farmers and homeowners are inadvertently making weeds growing around the perimeter of their fields or lawns stronger, the researchers say. The study results are published in the journal New Phytologist.

Better together? Coral fusion could throw bleached reefs a lifeline

3 days 17 hours ago
When corals are stressed by pollution, high water temperatures or other environmental changes, they can lose the microscopic algae living inside them and on which they depend for food. As a result, they turn white, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching. They will not die straight away, but it will be game over if the stress continues long enough for them to starve.

Lion tracks from the ice age: How two ways of seeing brought ancient animals to life

3 days 18 hours ago
The coastline near the southern tip of Africa looked vastly different between about 400,000 years ago and 70,000 years ago, compared with today. At times it lay as much as 100km (62 miles) south of its present location, exposing the vast Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, which contained an extensive habitat for large mammals. At other times the sea level was briefly as much as 13 meters (43 feet) higher than today's mean level.

New DNA sequencing methods detect rare mutations acquired as bodies grow and age

3 days 18 hours ago
Somatic mutations, the DNA changes that occur as our bodies grow and age, not only hold an important key to cancer but are emerging as the seeds of a wide range of common, noncancerous diseases. The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, a National Institutes of Health Common Fund initiative to catalog all the normal processes of somatic mutation, has published its first comprehensive benchmarking study in the journal Cell.

How COVID reshaped college grading

3 days 18 hours ago
Twenty-three Indiana University undergraduates are co-authors on a new study examining how the pandemic reshaped college grading, the result of a semester-long research seminar that took them from a classroom question to a published paper in a national academic journal.

Study reveals how young adults' work lives affect their parents' mental health

3 days 18 hours ago
Earlier this fall, researchers Sara Kalucza (Department of Sociology) and Anna Baranowska-Rataj (Center for Demographic and Aging Research, CEDAR) at Umeå University published a research article showing a connection between young people's school-to-work transitions and parental health. The research used data from CEDAR's demographic database.

In plants, sense of time is connected with sense of danger

3 days 18 hours ago
Salty soil is a growing threat to crops worldwide. Hotter, drier weather has increased evaporation rates, drawing moisture from the soil and leaving behind concentrated mineral salts. At the same time, water shortages are forcing farmers to irrigate using water from lower-quality, saline or recycled sources. Scientists estimate that around half of the world's irrigated farmland is now affected by salinity to some degree.

Global ice-cliff survey tests disputed theory behind projections of accelerated sea level rise

3 days 19 hours ago
A new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provides the most comprehensive observational analysis yet of the towering ice cliffs that fringe Earth's ice sheets, giving scientists new evidence to evaluate a long-debated process that could influence future sea level rise. Improving these projections is increasingly important as rising seas threaten coastal communities and infrastructure worldwide.

We're surprisingly close to conserving 30% of the world's land

3 days 19 hours ago
In an effort to conserve the world's plants and animals, governments have pledged to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030. Official figures suggest that attempts to reach this target on land have stalled, but a new study led by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom shows 27% of land may already be conserved for biodiversity if you also count areas that aren't globally recognized but still support wildlife.

India's cobras share genetic ties across the mainland, while Sri Lankan cobras form a distinct genetic lineage

3 days 19 hours ago
The spectacled cobra (Naja naja) is one of India's "big four" snakes responsible for most serious snakebite cases. It is currently considered one species, which lives across much of South Asia, with regional differences in color, hood markings and venom. However, it's still unclear which regional cobra populations represent separate evolutionary groups. A new study published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution has helped parse out which groups have different lineages, and when and where they may have diverged from their ancestors.
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