Summary: Swiping through online videos to alleviate boredom may actually make people more bored and less satisfied with the content, according to new research. The study found that switching between…
Category: Life
Pitch Perfect: Singing Earworms Reveals Surprising Trait
Summary: Researchers discovered that nearly 45% of people sing earworms in perfect pitch, suggesting a hidden “perfect pitch” ability in the general population. Even without formal musical training, participants accurately…
Muscle Proteins Trigger Desire for Exercise
Summary: A new study reveals that certain muscle proteins activated during exercise can increase the desire to stay active, shedding light on a muscle-brain signaling pathway. The research suggests that…
This spiky fossil shows what early mollusks looked like
An animal that could be mistaken for a spiky fruit is giving scientists a peek into what mollusks looked like around 500 million years ago. Fossils of an ancient invertebrate…
Why Are We Drawn to Events Focused on Death and Disaster?
Summary: Researchers have developed a new framework to understand why people are fascinated by events centered around themes of death, disaster, and suffering. These “dark events” include everything from historical…
Mosquito massacre: Can we safely tackle malaria with a CRISPR gene drive?
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing quickly decimated two caged populations of malaria-bearing mosquitoes (Anopheles gambiae) in a recent study, introducing a new way to solve an age-old problem. But the paper describing…
Above- and belowground strategies of tropical montane tree species are coordinated and driven by small-scale nitrogen availability – Functional Ecologists
In our last post Kerstin Pierick, postdoc at the University of Göttingen, discusses her last PhD thesis chapter ‘Above- and belowground strategies of tropical montane tree species are coordinated and…
How the Brain Learns to Make Inferences
Summary: Researchers have uncovered how the brain processes inferential reasoning by recording neuron activity in individuals as they learned through trial and error. The study revealed that specific brain regions,…
Scientists want to send endangered species to the moon
As more and more species near extinction, scientists have been collecting samples from animals, plants and other creatures and storing them in biorepositories across the globe (SN: 5/8/19). But climate…
A futurist says our species evolves in 3 phases: With 1 down, here’s what may come next
Jeffrey Charles Hardy introduces a three-tiered model of human evolution—the “First, Suspended, and Second Human Evolution.” Standing back and viewing the human trajectory from its pre-historic origin to today and…
