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Categories: Mathematics: Modeling, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

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Scientists have pinpointed a genetic cause for virgin birth for the first time, and once switched on the ability is passed down through generations of females.

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To study play behaviors in animals, scientists must be able to authentically simulate play-conducive environments in the laboratory. Animals like rats are less inclined to play if they are anxious or restrained, and there is minimal data on the brain activity of rats that are free to play. After getting rats comfortable with a human playmate, tickling them under controlled conditions, then measuring the rats' squeaks and brain activity, a research team reports that a structure in rat brains called the periaqueductal gray is essential for play and laughter.

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Ancient pathogens that escape from melting permafrost have real potential to damage microbial communities and might potentially threaten human health, according to a new study.

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A hot bath is a place to relax. For scientists, it is also where molecules or tiny building blocks meet to form materials. Researchers take it to the next level and use the energy of swimming bacteria to forge materials. A recent study shows us how this works and the potential sustainability benefits that may arise from this innovative approach.

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Bees and wasps have converged on the same architectural solutions to nest-building problems, according to new research.

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A new machine-learning technique can efficiently learn to control a robot, leading to better performance with fewer data.

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What happens inside the carnivorous plant Venus Flytrap when it catches an insect? New technology has led to discoveries about the electrical signalling that causes the trap to snap shut. Bioelectronic technology enables advanced research into how plants react to their surroundings, and to stress.

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A new study in mice suggests replacing traditional protein sources with mealworms in high-fat diets could slow weight gain, improve immune response, reduce inflammation, enhance energy metabolism, and beneficially alter the ratio of good to bad cholesterol.

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Egg 'signatures' will allow drongos to identify cuckoo 'forgeries' almost every time, study finds. African cuckoos may have met their match with the fork-tailed drongo, which scientists predict can detect and reject cuckoo eggs from their nest on almost every occasion, despite them on average looking almost identical to drongo eggs.

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Enzymes play a key role in cellular metabolic processes. To enable the quantitative assessment of these processes, researchers need to know the so-called 'turnover number' (for short: kcat) of the enzymes. A team of bioinformaticians now describes a tool for predicting this parameter for various enzymes using AI methods.

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Caecilians are an illusive type of snakelike amphibian that live in aquatic and subterranean environments. In some species, mothers produce a special type of nutrient-rich skin that juveniles consume, similar to the way in which humans breastfeed their children. A new study shows this behavior passes on microbes to juvenile caecilians, inoculating them to jump-start a healthy microbiome.

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Like us, cells communicate. Well, in their own special way. Using waves as their common language, cells tell one another where and when to move. They talk, they share information, and they work together -- much like interdisciplinary teams. Researchers conducted research on how cells communicate -- and how that matters to future projects, e.g. application to wound healing.

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Sabertooth cats make up a diverse group of long-toothed predators that roamed Africa around 6-7 million years ago, around the time that hominins -- the group that includes modern humans -- began to evolve. By examining one of the largest global Pliocene collections of fossils in Langebaanweg, north of Cape Town in South Africa, researchers present two new sabertooth species and the first family tree of the region's ancient sabertooths. Their results suggest that the distribution of sabertooths throughout ancient Africa might have been different than previously assumed, and the study provides important information about Africa's paleoenvironment.

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Parasitic hairworms manipulate the behavior of their hosts in what's sometimes called 'mind control.' A new study reveals another strange trait shared by different hairworm species: they're missing about 30% of the genes that researchers expected them to have. What's more, the missing genes are responsible for the development of cilia, the hair-like structures present in at least some of the cells of every other animal known.

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A team has combined economic theory with biology to understand how natural systems respond to change. The researchers noticed a similarity between consumers' shopping behavior and the behavior of metabolic systems, which convert food into energy in our bodies. The team focused on predicting how different metabolic systems might respond to environmental change by using an economic tool called the Slutsky equation. Their calculations indicated that very different metabolic systems actually share previously unknown universal properties, and can be understood using tools from other academic fields. Metabolic processes are used in drug development, bioengineering, food production and other industries, so being able to predict how such systems will respond to change can offer many benefits.

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Using Japan's most powerful supercomputer, researchers reproduced cases of clear air turbulence around Tokyo. They simulated the fine vortices responsible for this dangerous phenomenon. The usefulness of the simulation in predicting turbulence was confirmed by comparing simulation data with data from aircraft recordings. This research should improve the forecasting of turbulence.

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Structural engineers are familiar with seventeenth-century scientist Robert Hooke's theory that a hanging chain will mirror the shape of an upstanding rigid arch. However, new research now shows that this common-held belief is incorrect because, regardless of the similarities, the hanging chain and the arch are two incompatible mechanical systems.

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Board games based on numbers, like Monopoly, Othello and Chutes and Ladders, make young children better at math, according to a comprehensive review of research published on the topic over the last 23 years.

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The arrangement of electrons in matter, known as the electronic structure, plays a crucial role in fundamental but also applied research such as drug design and energy storage. However, the lack of a simulation technique that offers both high fidelity and scalability across different time and length scales has long been a roadblock for the progress of these technologies. Researchers have now pioneered a machine learning-based simulation method that supersedes traditional electronic structure simulation techniques. Their Materials Learning Algorithms (MALA) software stack enables access to previously unattainable length scales.

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A solution for temporal asymmetry -- or entropy production -- in thermodynamics has been developed to further our understanding of the behavior of biological systems, machine learning, and AI tools. The researchers worked on the time-irreversible Ising model dynamics caused by asymmetric connections between neurons.