Featured news
21 Oct 2024
Male stalk-eyed flies with longer eyestalks are more attractive to females and more intimidating to males — but males with a genetic variant that causes shorter eyestalks are fiercer fighters.
Featured news
15 Oct 2024
Induced resistance, where plants’ immune systems are activated in a controlled way that prepares them to fight pests and disease, could help build a sustainable and resilient agricultural system
Environment
26 Sep 2024
Dramatic new images of orcas in the Humboldt Current system hunting and eating dusky dolphins could help scientists learn more about all southern hemisphere orcas.
Life sciences
24 Sep 2024
Scientists explore how dynamic environmental control in indoor farms could help us feed a growing population with nutritious, high-quality, locally grown fruit and veg
Featured news
22 May 2024
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.
Featured news
29 Feb 2024
Archaeologists analyze the carbon isotope values of hazelnuts from ancient sites to see what the local woods were like.
Featured news
20 Feb 2024
Using movement behavior models, scientists tracked leatherback sea turtles to new foraging locations off the US east coast
Featured news
23 Jan 2024
A study of ant communities shows that using diverse plant sources for bioenergy is crucial to protect ecosystems while making more eco-friendly fuel
Life sciences
28 Nov 2023
Newts of the genus Taricha produce tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin. Now, new research has found that females have consistently higher levels of toxins than males.
Featured news
17 Nov 2023
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Seth Phillips Termites are a crucial source of nutrients for chimpanzees, who fish for them with tools, but they’re not always accessible. Now, researchers copying chimpanzee tools and techniques have shown that chimpanzees living in western Tanzania can only reliably fish for termites in the early wet season, when other foods are abundant. These chimpanzees fish for termites because they can, not because they need to. The results raise the possibility that chimpanzees could even be predicting termite availability before they go fishing. The discovery that chimpanzees use tools to fish for termites revolutionized our understanding of their abilities — but we still don’t have crucial context to help us understand termite fishing and chimpanzee minds. Are chimpanzees fishing for a seasonal treat or trying their luck? Researchers based at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and University College London (UCL) investigated the relationship between termite availability and chimpanzee fishing. They found that termites are most available early in the wet season. Although other foods are abundant at that time, chimpanzees choose to termite fish then. “I believe these results set up an interesting hypothesis about wild chimpanzee foraging cognition,” said […]
Featured news
11 Oct 2023
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: US Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Southwest Region, public domain Can clever predators manipulate prey into taking bigger risks, making them easier to hunt? Scientists have found that, by carrying out attacks which force Pacific dunlins into exhausting evasive maneuvers, peregrine falcons increase the likelihood of successfully hunting those dunlins later. The prey birds are tired out or forced to forage at more dangerous times. Predators must eat to survive — and to survive, prey must avoid being eaten. One theory, the Wolf-Mangel model, suggests predators could use false attacks to tire prey out or force them to take bigger risks, but this has been hard to show in practice. Now, scientists observing peregrine falcons have found evidence that they deliberately exhaust their prey to improve later hunting success. “Although predators are imagined as clever in novels and movies, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, empirical biologists are generally not inclined to give much credence to such ideas,” said Dr Ronald Ydenberg of Simon Fraser University, lead author of the study in Frontiers in Ethology. “I have often been puzzled when watching raptors by aspects of their behavior, such as prominent perching […]
Climate action
13 Jul 2023
By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Methane production in the livestock sector greatly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Animals with four-chambered stomachs produce methane while digesting, however, their manure also emits the gas when decomposing. Recently, natural methane inhibitors have been discussed as a solution. Researchers in Sweden have now examined how supplementing cow feces – rather than cow feed – with such an inhibitor influences methane emission from manure. They found that if a tropical alga was added to dairy cows’ feces, significantly less methane was emitted. Approximately a third of all anthropogenic methane is emitted by ruminant livestock. These animals get nutrients through fermenting food in four-chambered stomachs found in cows, sheep, and goats. They produce methane in two ways: through belching and from the decomposition of their manure under certain conditions. Now, researchers in Sweden have examined if adding the tropical alga Asparagopsis taxiformis (AT), also known as red sea plume, to cow feces impacts greenhouse gas emissions from the manure of dairy cows. They have published their results in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. “We showed that adding AT to the feces of dairy cows significantly reduced methane production from the feces by 44% […]
Featured news
06 Jul 2023
By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Jasper Nance/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) When a creature’s stress levels decrease because of the presence of a companion, it is known as social buffering. In highly social animals, such as mammals and birds, this phenomenon is well studied. Now, researchers have examined social buffering in rattlesnakes and found that the presence of a second snake significantly reduced rattlesnakes’ change in heart rates after they experienced disturbance. It is the first evidence of social buffering in reptiles. When animals suffer from acute or chronic stress, they produce more hormones causing shifts in the nervous system, immune response, and behavior. Some animals, if they are in the presence of a conspecific, can modulate their response to buffer stress. This is known as social buffering. There is some research suggesting that snakes can exhibit complex social behavior. Nevertheless, social buffering in reptiles, as well as in other asocial organisms and solitary foragers, hasn’t been studied extensively. Now, researchers in the US have examined if rattlesnakes inhabiting Southern California use social buffering to alleviate acute stress. “We showed that when two snakes were together and experienced a stressful situation, they could buffer each other’s stress response, much […]
Featured news
08 Jun 2023
by Inês Hipólito/Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: shutterstock.com Inês Hipólito is a highly accomplished researcher, recognized for her work in esteemed journals and contributions as a co-editor. She has received research awards including the prestigious Talent Grant from the University of Amsterdam in 2021. After her PhD, she held positions at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Currently, she is a permanent lecturer of the philosophy of AI at Macquarie University, focusing on cognitive development and the interplay between augmented cognition (AI) and the sociocultural environment. Inês co-leads a consortium project on ‘Exploring and Designing Urban Density. Neurourbanism as a Novel Approach in Global Health,’ funded by the Berlin University Alliance. She also serves as an ethicist of AI at Verses. Beyond her research, she co-founded and serves as vice-president of the International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind. Inês is the host of the thought-provoking podcast ‘The PhilospHER’s Way’ and has actively contributed to the Women in Philosophy Committee and the Committee in Diversity and Inclusivity at the Australasian Association of Philosophy from 2017 to 2020. As part of our Frontier Scientist series, Hipólito caught up with Frontiers to tell us […]
Featured news
30 May 2023
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Scientists have discovered that the recoil created by the flexible arch of human feet helps position our legs in the optimal posture for moving forward in bipedal walking. Understanding how our joints help modern humans walk upright could help us track the evolution of bipedalism and improve care for patients with foot problems. A new study has shown that humans may have evolved a spring-like arch to help us walk on two feet. Researchers studying the evolution of bipedal walking have long assumed that the raised arch of the foot helps us walk by acting as a lever which propels the body forward. But a global team of scientists have now found that the recoil of the flexible arch repositions the ankle upright for more effective walking. The effects in running are greater, which suggests that the ability to run efficiently could have been a selective pressure for a flexible arch that made walking more efficient too. This discovery could even help doctors improve treatments for present-day patients’ foot problems. “We thought originally that the spring-like arch helped to lift the body into the next step,” said Dr Lauren Welte, first author […]
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