Cave Fish Adolescence Means Sprouting Taste Buds in Weird Places
In eastern Mexico’s underground caverns and streams, a blind fish undergoes a peculiar adolescence: as it approaches maturity, taste buds begin to sprout under its chin and on top of…
Earthquakes May Forge Large Gold Nuggets
Solid gold bars stacked in bank vaults, plating on the summer’s Olympic medals, or even your own pieces of gold jewelry could owe their existence to earthquakes. The stress and…
Enlisting Microbes to Break Down ‘Forever Chemicals’
Scientists had previously demonstrated that a microbe called Acidimicrobium sp. strain A6 could break down carbon-fluorine bonds and completely degrade two of the most ubiquitous perfluoroalkyls. This microbe grows slowly,…
Birds Practice Singing in Their Sleep
Scientists had previously observed sleeping birds making movements that resembled lip-syncing. In earlier work, Mindlin and his colleagues implanted electrodes in two Zebra Finches; for a recent study in Chaos, they did the…
There Is Little Evidence That Mass Transit Poses a Risk of Coronavirus Outbreaks
“many have blamed subways and buses for coronavirus outbreaks, but a growing body of research suggests otherwise.” The piece noted that epidemiologists use the term “cluster” to describe major coronavirus…