Urban living could pose risks to great tits, at least in terms of their DNA. City life comes with a host of factors that can, for better or worse, affect a bird over its life span. To see how urbanization might influence early development in great tits (Parus major), biologists at Lund University in Sweden […]

BOSTON — A deadly infection that has now spread to three states is puzzling disease investigators. The illness is caused by Elizabethkingia anophelis, a bacterium commonly found in soil and water and that, until now, has rarely caused problems. Public health authorities in Wisconsin first reported the outbreak to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control […]

Particle physics fans are just going to have to wait. Rumors swirling on the internet are casting doubt on hints of a new particle reported by scientists at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva. But researchers say it’s still too soon to know whether the particle exists or not. “Currently the data are still […]

The world’s current game plan to combat climate change will miss the mark. Crunching the numbers on 187 nations’ climate action proposals announced in advance of the December 2015 Paris Agreement, researchers estimate that the efforts will limit global warming to 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. That’s far above the goal agreed […]

More clues about where to search for a possible ninth planet lurking in the fringes of our solar system are emerging from the Kuiper belt, the icy debris field beyond Neptune. And new calculations suggest that the putative planet might be brighter — and a bit easier to find — than once thought. Evidence for […]

In some populations of birds, males may wonder why they can’t find a mate. It’s not that they’re unattractive or can’t sing the right song. It’s that females are in short supply. This phenomenon is a common one in birds, particularly in threatened species and among populations that are small or fragmented. And scientists weren’t […]

The cradle of agricultural civilization was culturally diverse. Two societies lived side-by-side 10,000 years ago in the rich Near Eastern valleys of the Fertile Crescent, where humans first learned to farm, a new study finds. Over time, one group expanded west, carrying agriculture into Europe. The other spread east, taking their traditions into South Asia, […]

A long course of antibiotics reduced the levels of a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of mice, possibly by changing the species of bacteria in the gut. The results, described July 21 in Scientific Reports, suggest that gut bacteria may be linked in some way to Alzheimer’s. The finding is preliminary, cautions neurobiologist […]

Whiffs of ancient air trapped in rock salt for hundreds of millions of years are shaking up the history of oxygen and life on Earth. By carefully crushing rock salt, researchers have measured the chemical makeup of air pockets embedded inside the rock. This new technique reveals that oxygen made up 10.9 percent of Earth’s […]

Under duress, nerve cells get a little help from their friends. Brain cells called astrocytes send their own energy-producing mitochondria to struggling nerve cells. Those gifts may help the neurons rebound after injuries such as strokes, scientists propose in the July 28 Nature. It was known that astrocytes — star-shaped glial cells that, among other […]