Life sciences
07 Aug 2024
Sea lion camera crews help researchers explore previously unmapped ocean habitats
Scientists equipped Australian sea lions with cameras and used the video data to identify unknown ocean habitats in southern Australia
457 news posts in Life sciences
Life sciences
02 Aug 2024
'Screaming Woman' mummy may have died in agony 3,500 years ago
Researchers from Egypt used state-of-the-art techniques to ‘virtually dissect’ a female mummy from the New Kingdom, named the ‘Screaming Woman’ for her remarkable expression. They showed that she had been embalmed with costly imported frankincense and juniper. There was no obvious cause of death, but the mummy’s wide open mouth may be due to cadaveric spasm, which is typically associated with dying in considerable pain and under strong emotions.
Life sciences
08 Jul 2024
What happens when the ocean’s biggest predators start hunting each other? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss
At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.
Life sciences
05 Jul 2024
Desert-loving fungi and lichens pose deadly threat to 5,000-year-old rock art
Researchers sampled microflora from the rocks bearing unique, millennia-old petroglyphs in the Negev desert. The diversity and abundance of species found on these rocks was low, suggesting that few can survive the harsh conditions. Most identified species from the petroglyphs were specialized microcolonial fungi and lichens, known to damage rock art through mechanical and chemical means. The authors cautioned that these natural deterioration processes can’t be stopped, making it necessary to monitor and document this important cultural heritage.
Life sciences
03 Jul 2024
Scientists pinpoint strategies that could stop cats from scratching your furniture
Cats scratching on furniture can frustrate owners, but this normal feline behavior could be managed by adapting play sessions and offering scratch posts in the right spots, researchers found
Life sciences
19 Jun 2024
Ultrasound beam triggers ‘nanodroplets' to deliver drugs at exactly the right spot
Conventional drug delivery is inefficient and imprecise. Through a series of preclinical experiments, researchers from the University of Utah have optimized a novel, targeted method of delivery through nanodroplet carriers, which are triggered to release their drug at exactly the desired spot by a focused beam of ultrasound. Their results showed that nanodroplets with a core of perfluorooctylbromide are stable, efficient in delivery, and well tolerated. Clinical experiments are likely to follow.
Life sciences
14 Jun 2024
Meet a scientist who's helping to create a 'shared vision' for future rewilding
As part of our Frontier Scientist series, we spoke to Dr Sally Hawkins, a specialist in wildlife restoration, about her career and research.
Life sciences
12 Jun 2024
Scientists engineer human antibodies that could neutralize black widow toxin
Researchers develop fully human antibodies that can neutralize the alpha-latrotoxin of the European black widow, potentially reducing the need for antibodies derived from horses to treat disease caused by spider bites
Life sciences
11 Jun 2024
How older people explore new spaces could suggest cognitive decline and dementia
Aging people commonly show a decline in navigation ability, and this has generally been attributed to worsening spatial memory. But now, researchers from the US have shown for the first time that this decline is partly driven by changes in typical exploration behavior by middle age. In a maze learning task, middle-aged people were less efficient explorers than young people. This discovery could have applications in the clinical diagnosis and therapy of cognitive decline and dementia.
Life sciences
31 May 2024
Clues to mysterious disappearance of North America’s large mammals 50,000 years ago found within ancient bone collagen
Dr Mariya Antonosyan, Dr Torben Rick, and Prof Nicole Boivin are co-authors of a new Frontiers in Mammal Science article in which they used new methods to identify fossil bone fragments housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The insights they gained could help scientists better understand the causes and consequences of large mammal extinction.
Life sciences
29 May 2024
‘Extraordinary’ 4,000-year-old Egyptian skull may show signs of attempts to treat cancer
Cutmarks on a 4,000-year-old skull could be indications that the ancient Egyptians tried to operate on excessive tissue growth or learn more about cancerous disorders after a patient’s death
Life sciences
22 May 2024
Babies in the womb exposed to two languages hear speech differently when born
Researchers have shown for the first time that newborns of monolingual mothers respond differently to playback of a carefully selected sound stimulus than newborns of bilingual mothers. The findings suggest that bilingual newborns are sensitive to a wider range of acoustic variation of speech, at the cost of being less selectively tuned in to any single language. These results underscore the importance of prenatal exposure for learning about speech.
Life sciences
02 May 2024
Why do male chicks play more than females? Study finds answers in distant ancestor
Researchers observed the frequency of play by aged chicks between six and 53 days old. Males engaged more frequently in social and object play than females, but there was no difference in the frequency of locomotor play. The researchers concluded that these patterns can be explained by the strong sexual dimorphism of adult junglefowl, the ancestors of domestic chickens. This means that male chicks benefit more from practicing skills related to physical ability and social tactics.
Life sciences
19 Apr 2024
Baby sharks prefer being closer to shore, show scientists
Scientists have shown for the first time that juvenile great white sharks gather in waters up to 10 meters deep with a temperature between 6 and 22 °C – a very different habitat from that of adults. These preferences may optimize their growth and minimize the risk of predation. These results can inform conservation efforts and help to avoid negative shark encounters.
Life sciences
27 Mar 2024
Scientists discover how caterpillars can stop their bleeding in seconds
Materials scientists have now shown how the blood-like hemolymph of tobacco hornworm caterpillars forms clots to stop bleeding. They show that outside the body, hemolymph can instantaneously change from water-like behavior to become ‘viscoelastic’ like saliva, that is, combining viscosity with elasticity. This discovery could have medical applications, if drugs can be designed that induce a similar change in human blood, to make it clot faster.