Neuroscientists identify key role of language gene
Mutation that arose long ago may be key to humans’ unique ability to produce and understand speech.
Did Neanderthals eat their vegetables?
MIT study provides first direct evidence of plants in the Neanderthal diet.
From contemporary syntax to human language’s deep origins
New paper amplifies hypothesis that human language builds on birdsong and speech forms of other primates.
Yeast studies suggest alternative cancer approach
Biophysicist Jeff Gore and collaborators urge applying lessons from yeast colony collapse to tumor growth.
Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity
One species, a few drops of seawater, hundreds of coexisting subpopulations.
For the good of the colony
Research shows the success of a bacterial community depends on its shape.
Huge and widespread volcanic eruptions triggered the end-Triassic extinction
Some 200 million years ago, an increase in atmospheric CO2 caused acidification of the oceans and global warming that killed off 76 percent of marine and terrestrial species on Earth.
How human language could have evolved from birdsong
Linguistics and biology researchers propose a new theory on the deep roots of human speech.
Evolution: It’s all in how you splice it
MIT biologists find that alternative splicing of RNA rewires signaling in different tissues and may often contribute to species differences.
When the first stars blinked on
The very first stars may have turned on when the universe was 750 million years old.
GRAIL reveals a battered lunar history
Twin spacecraft create a highly detailed gravity map of the moon, finding an interior pulverized by early impacts.
It pays to cooperate
Yeast cells that share food have a survival edge over their freeloading neighbors — particularly when there is bacterial competition.
