Fields of expertise
Guppies seek company when food beckons
Wild guppies spend twice as much time near conspecifics when food becomes available unexpectedly and briefly. By seeking company more often, they appear to increase their chances of finding food.
A two-cylinder engine in nature? How bees keep pumping venom with a detached stinger
When a bee stings, the sting tears free from its abdomen. Yet even after detaching, it continues to bore deeper into the skin and pump venom. How the sting manages this independently had long been a mystery. Australian biologists have used high-speed cameras to reveal what lies within this stinging organ: a biological micropump with a double piston provides a constant supply of venom, even after the sting has come free (PNAS, 12 October).
Gut microbiome influences fever after vaccination
People with large numbers of flagellin-producing gut bacteria appear to respond more strongly to an mRNA vaccine.
Peanut vs. Duke: DNA-labels predict that small dogs outlive their larger cousins
Small dogs generally live longer than large dogs. American research shows that this difference in ageing rate is also reflected in the epigenetic profile of dogs.
Elevation differences help plants cope with salinity
Bare hollows in a Dutch coastal grassland capture salt, allowing plants on vegetated mounds to grow better and remain green for longer.
Bird communities in a Polish primeval forest recover within 35 years of storm damage
Storm-created gaps in Białowieża initially harboured a different bird community from closed forest. Three and a half decades later, those differences have all but...
From ‘Loki cucumber’ to sea pen: 57 underwater species new to science
An international research team has identified 57 underwater species from an ocean canyon off the coast of Argentina as new to science. Bionieuws has compiled the most remarkable finds.
Optogenetics wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year goes to three researchers who together laid the foundations for optogenetics: Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel.
Bats originated in Europe after all
A new phylogenetic tree based on the genomes of 103 bat species and data from 44 fossils points to Europe as the cradle of bats. Echolocation, too, appears to have arisen early in their evolution.
The molecular strings of the zombie ant
That zombie-ant fungi make their hosts climb and bite fast is hardly disputed any longer. What is harder to demonstrate is how they manage it. Recent molecular work has, for the first time, established a direct link between a secreted fungal protein and changes in olfactory perception and social behaviour in ants.