Exhaustion Loophole: How Sleep Deprivation Compromises Justice

Summary: The U.S. criminal justice system has long accounted for intellectual disabilities and intoxication when weighing the validity of statements, but a new research synthesis suggests it is ignoring a…

Brain’s Parenting Hub Redirects Care Toward Peers

Summary: Why do we feel compelled to help a stranger in distress? According to a new study, the answer lies in our ancient “parenting machinery.” Researchers discovered that the same…

Healing Without the Hallucinations: The Next Generation of Psilocybin Therapy

Summary: While psilocybin is hailed as a breakthrough for depression and anxiety, many patients remain wary of the intense “trips” associated with the drug. Now, researchers have engineered modified versions…

Understanding the evolution of individuality—Fruit flies may have an answer

As a Ph.D. student, I wanted to understand the evolution of individual differences in fruit fly behavior – the building blocks of personality. My experiments involved measuring how my tiny…

Teen Aggression Speeds Up Aging

Summary: Adolescence is often a time of social friction, but a new longitudinal study reveals that these early behavioral patterns have deep physical consequences. Following 121 individuals from age 13…

A koala population’s rapid rebound may let it escape inbreeding’s perils

A rapid koala rebound in southeastern Australia is also boosting their genetic variation, showing one way out of an extinction death spiral. After nearly disappearing from the region over a…

Chickpeas can grow in moon dirt and make seeds

Homegrown chickpeas could be on the menu for future astronauts. With help from compost and symbiotic fungi, chickpea plants grow and produce seeds in simulated lunar dirt, researchers report March…

Cocaine Addiction is a Biological Rewiring, Not a Choice

Summary: Relapse isn’t a failure of willpower—it’s a biological “rewiring” of the brain. A new study reveals how chronic cocaine use hijacks the connection between the brain’s reward center and…

Psychedelics Remodel Myelin to Heal PTSD

Summary: For years, scientists have focused on how psychedelics “rewire” neurons. But a groundbreaking study has found a “missing link” in long-term PTSD recovery: myelin remodeling. Researchers discovered that psilocybin…

Rosemary Glos | Trapped, Poked, and Poisoned: Evidence for Defence Synergisms in a Desert Plant  – Functional Ecologists

In this ‘Behind the Paper’ blog post, Rosemary Glos (she/her, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mi, USA) discusses her research article ‘Separate and Synergistic Anti-Herbivore Effects of Non-Glandular Trichomes and…