&quot

Bacterial colonies would rather perform "evolutionary suicide" than put up with cheater strains that leech off the colony without giving anything back. That's the finding made by a team of researchers who modeled how a colony responds to freeloading bacteria that consume more than their fair share.  Bacteria often work together as a colony to survive, producing resources that are used by other bacteria.For example, bacteria often secrete enzymes that break down food sources into nutrients, which benefits neighboring…

Birds' brains are a bit of a mystery. Despite the small size of their noggins, parrots and corvids show remarkable intelligence, solving some puzzles as well as primates. Previous studies have shown the brains of songbirds and parrots contain very large numbers of neurons in their forebrains, sometimes even more than monkeys.  But while the idea that cognitive performance is linked to an animal's total number of neurons seems intuitive, it lacks sufficient evidence.A recent comparison of apes, corvids, and pigeons found…

Mysterious large pieces of wreckage were discovered across Southeast Asia over the weekend, and evidence is growing that they came from a Chinese rocket booster that fell to Earth uncontrolled.  The booster of China's 25-ton Long March 5B rocket pushed a new segment of the country's space station into orbit in late July.Then, instead of pushing itself into the Pacific Ocean – a standard practice called controlled reentry – the booster entered Earth's orbit and slowly lost altitude over the course of a week, ensuring that…

Thousands of years ago, across the Eastern Mediterranean, multiple Bronze Age civilizations took a distinct turn for the worse at around the same time.The Old Kingdom of Egypt and the Akkadian Empire both collapsed, and there was a widespread societal crisis across the Ancient Near East and the Aegean, manifesting as declining populations, destruction, reduced trade, and significant cultural changes.  As usual, fingers have been pointed at climate change and shifting allegiances. But scientists have just found a new…

A bizarre seafloor creature covered with luminous orange, spaghetti-like tentacles recently made its internet debut in newly released video footage.The unusual pom-pom-shaped creature is actually a type of segmented marine worm known as a polychaete, and it belongs to an appropriately named group: spaghetti worms.   Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) captured footage of the pasta-mimicking worm in 2012 using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), while they were exploring the Gulf of…

Over the course of a year, a man's voice grew progressively more hoarse and his speech became shrill and grating, but he didn't know why.Upon examining the man, doctors discovered the reason: Fungus was growing in his throat.  According to the report of the man's case, published Thursday (4 August) in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, the man appeared otherwise healthy when he went to a clinic in Pennsylvania that treats conditions of the head and neck.The man, in his 60s, reported that he'd…

When babies in the African countries of Guinea Bissau and Uganda were given the tuberculosis vaccine, something remarkable happened.Instead of the vaccine only protecting against the target bacteria – Myocbacterium tuberculosis – the tuberculosis vaccine offered broad protection against a range of unrelated infections, including respiratory infections and serious complications such as sepsis.  Australian researchers have now pinpointed the biological mechanism behind the off-target effects of the tuberculosis vaccine.The…

Back in 2014, an object crashed into the ocean just off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Data collected at the time indicated that the meteorite just might be an interstellar object, and if that's true, then it's only the third such object known (after 'Oumuamua and Borisov), and the first known to exist on Earth.  Launching an undersea expedition to find it would be a long shot, but the scientific payoff could be enormous.Dubbed CNEOS 2014-01-08, the candidate interstellar object is believed to have measured about a…

Humans are filling the world with trash, but not all of our waste is visible to the human eye.While plastic litter on the beach is easy to spot, microplastics and 'forever chemicals' have leached far and wide without our barely noticing.  Both forms of pollution are now so ubiquitous in the environment, they are falling with the rain. But while the potential threat of microplastics is a regular point of discussion, some researchers argue the spread of other persistent synthetic compounds is comparatively overlooked.A…

Since being plunged into a global pandemic, we're probably far more aware of being surrounded by microdroplets of water. In humid air or expelled by a cough, sneeze or talking, these droplets can carry tiny particles with them, from pollution to viruses like the flu.  Back in 2019, the basic chemistry of these motes of environmental water delivered a surprise: Researchers found ordinary, otherwise benign water droplets could somehow spontaneously form small but significant quantities of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).Yes, the…