To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of the BES community. In each post, they discuss…
Category: Life
Crickets and flies face off in a quiet evolutionary battle
Hawaii’s male crickets can’t hide from their buzzing boogeymen for long. In just a handful of years, cricket-killing parasitic flies have evolved hearing that’s more sensitive to their prey’s new,…
A Journey into Symbiotic Mysteries – Functional Ecologists
In our new post Kenji Suetsugu, professor at Kobe University (Japan), presents his work ‘Mycorrhizal specialization toward each distinct Oliveonia fungus in two closely photosynthetic Dactylostalix orchids’. He talks about…
Maternal Diet Influences ADHD and Autism Risk
Summary: A large study analyzing over 60,000 mother-child pairs found that a Western diet during pregnancy—high in fat, sugar, and processed foods—was associated with a significantly increased risk of ADHD…
Brain Changes From Early-Life Stress May Be Reversible
Summary: A new study reveals how prenatal infections followed by early-life stress—known as “two-hit stress”—can lead to brain dysfunction and psychiatric-like behaviors. Researchers found that affected mice showed abnormal cerebellar…
Study Links Spite to Conspiracy Theory Beliefs
Summary: A new study finds that spite—driven by feelings of uncertainty, threat, or disadvantage—plays a key role in conspiracy theory belief. Researchers analyzed data from 1,000 participants and found that…
It’s axiomatic among environmentalists that plastic packaging is a sustainability disaster. Hard science and life-cycle analysis say that’s not true
Plastic packaging can have substantially smaller environmental impacts—including 70% lower greenhouse gas emissions—compared to other packaging materials, according to a new study. The findings suggest that although there are major…
Multilingualism Starts Early: Study Challenges View on Language Learning
Summary: A new study of 121 infants in Accra, Ghana, reveals that babies regularly hear between two and six languages from multiple caregivers. Unlike the Western model of learning one…
Short-Term Junk Food Diet Reduces Brain’s Insulin Sensitivity
Summary: A new study reveals that consuming high-calorie, highly processed foods for just five days can reduce the brain’s sensitivity to insulin, a key factor in obesity and type 2…
Ignoring Your Better Judgment Increases Regret and Self-Blame
Summary: A new study reveals that people feel more culpable when they follow bad advice than when they make poor decisions independently. Researchers found that going against one’s better judgment…
