The Haldane Prize is awarded annually by the British Ecological Society for the best paper in Functional Ecology by an early career author. We are pleased to present the shortlisted papers for the 2025 award (published…
Category: Life
AI Autocomplete Covertly Shifts Human Opinions
Summary: AI-powered writing tools do more than just speed up your typing—they may be subtly rewriting your worldviews. A large-scale study reveals that biased autocomplete suggestions can shift a user’s…
The Amazon molly — a sex-skipping fish — hacks evolution
The Amazon molly is an evolutionary enigma: an all-female fish that reproduces by cloning itself. Because it doesn’t mix its DNA with a mate’s, Darwinian logic holds that harmful mutations…
Submerged bumblebee queens breathe underwater
The bedraggled bumblebee queen seemed lifeless. Yet she was somehow alive — still breathing after being underwater for roughly a week in the lab. Did she manage to hold her breath for…
AI Models Predict New Vision Mechanisms in Real Brains
Summary: For decades, neuroscience textbooks have taught that the first stage of visual processing relies on two types of cells specialized in detecting “edges”—sharp transitions between light and dark. However,…
Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms
Thunderstorms may bring more than rain and gloom. The same forces that cause thunder and lightning also make treetops sparkle in ultraviolet light, like a Christmas tree topper invisible to…
‘You only need to put a few knicks in the brain’: FDA is bizarrely demanding fake brain surgery to assess Huntington’s disease therapy
Katie Jackson desperately wants a new treatment for Huntington’s disease. Her husband died from the devastating brain disorder. And because the disease runs in families, her three children have a…
How Invasive Moths Use Magnetic and Visual Cues to Migrate
Summary: Billions of moths navigate the night sky every year, moving across entire continents with uncanny precision. A new study has uncovered how one of the world’s most invasive pests—the…
