http://discovermagazine.com Science, Technology, and The Future http://discovermagazine.com/photos/13-creatures-that-say-no-to-sex http://discovermagazine.com/photos/13-creatures-that-say-no-to-sex <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/photos/13-creatures-that-say-no-to-sex">Click through to view gallery</a> http://discovermagazine.com/photos/13-creatures-that-say-no-to-sex/key_image Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:25:00 -0500 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:25:00 -0500 Photo Gallery http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-spider-assassin-acts-prey-cloaks-wind http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-spider-assassin-acts-prey-cloaks-wind <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-the-wind-cloaked-spider-assassin/spiderassasin.jpg" align="right" alt=""> <p>A good predator must be as cunning as it is strong, especially when its prey can turn the tables and kill it. The assassin bug has learned this well, becoming a master of deception in its hunt for spiders. Last year biologist Anne Wignall from Australia’s Macquarie University discovered that the bug lures food by strumming webs with its legs, mimicking the vibrations of a trapped fly. Now she has found that the insects exploit the weather by stalking spiders in the wind...</p> Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-spider-assassin-acts-prey-cloaks-wind/key_image Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02-how-did-lego-lose-its-mojo http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02-how-did-lego-lose-its-mojo <p class="imgcapright"><img title="Hogwarts LEGO set" src="hogwarts-lego-set.jpg/" alt="Hogwarts LEGO set" kupu-src="http://72.32.204.61/2012/jan-feb/02-how-did-lego-lose-its-mojo/hogwarts-lego-set.jpg/">No matter what you do with it, it'll still look like Hogwarts.</p> <p>Rip open that new LEGO set and your mind races at the possibilities! A simple repertoire of piece types, and yet you can build a ninja boat, a three-wheeled race car, a pineapple pizza, a spotted lion… The possibilities are limited only by your creativity and imagination. “Combine and create!”—that was the implicit war cry for LEGOs.</p> <p>So how, I wonder, did LEGO so severely lose its way? LEGO now fills the niche that model airplanes once did when I was a kid, an activity whose motto would be better described as “Follow the instructions!” The sets kids receive as gifts today are replete with made-to-order piece types special to each set, useful in one particular spot, and often useless elsewhere. And the sets are designed for constructing some <i>particular</i> thing (a <a class="external-link" href="http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Geonosian-Starfighter-7959">Geonosian Starfighter</a>, a <a class="external-link" href="http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Triceratops-Trapper-5885">Triceratops Trapper</a>, etc.), and you—the parent—can look forward to spending hours helping them through the thorough yet thoroughly exhausting pages.</p> <p>LEGO appears to be doing very well for itself, and there’s no shame in helping to revolutionize model-building (and there’s an elegance to snapping together one’s models rather than gluing them together). But one has to wonder whether, at some deep philosophical level, the new LEGOs really are LEGOs at all, as they’re no longer the paragon of creative construction they once were and with which they’re still associated.</p> <p>In fact, as I was bemoaning my kids’ LEGOs with the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/roger-highfield/9019760/Life-is-like-Lego-only-better.html">Guardian's Roger Highfield</a>&nbsp;(and later with&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/the-mathematics-of-lego/">WIRED's Samuel Arbesman</a>), it struck me that <i>I</i> have such data on LEGOs...</p> Mark Changizi http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02-how-did-lego-lose-its-mojo/key_image Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0500 Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0500 Web Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/63 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/63 Last year researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia released the most rigorous estimate yet of how many species live on our planet: 8.7 million, not counting bacteria. Nearly 6.5 million of these species live on land versus 2.2 million in the ocean, according to the analysis. “Humanity has committed itself to saving species from extinction, but until now we have not had a good idea of even how many there are,” says coauthor Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie... Veronique Greenwood http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/63/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/74 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/74 <p>One day last year while boating off the coast of Chile, Jean-Michel Claverie hauled in his dream catch: the world’s largest virus. The scientist and his team at the Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory in France described the find in a paper last October as a “Megavirus.” </p> Valerie Ross http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/74/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/18 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/18 Call it a new twist on the old saw, “you are what you eat.” In September a Chinese team reported that fragments of genetic material known as microRNAs are making their way from vegetables into the human bloodstream. Even more surprising, these bits of plant genome may have health consequences, suggesting that some biomolecules can remain active even after digestion... Sarah Stanley http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/18/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/85 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/85 <p>In 1959 paleontologist Mary Leakey pulled a bone fragment from a gully in Tanzania. The find turned out to be one small piece of<i> Paranthropus boisei</i>, an evolutionary cousin who went extinct some 1.5 million years ago. His strong jaw, flat molars, and bony spine on top of the skull led paleontologists to believe he ate nuts and seeds, earning him the nickname Nutcracker Man...</p> Rebecca Coffey http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/85/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/49 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/49 On December 2, 2010, NASA called a press conference to trumpet a discovery that the agency said would “impact the search for extraterrestrial life.” A team of scientists led by microbiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon took the stage and described a new bacterium, discovered in a salty lake, that incorporates the normally toxic element arsenic into its DNA. Finding a living thing whose fundamental chemistry is unlike that of any other known organism hinted at different kinds of biology that could take hold on faraway worlds. It was almost like finding alien life on Earth... Michael Rosenwald http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/49/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/68 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/68 Archaeologists have long believed that modern humans stayed close to Africa until around 60,000 years ago, when they began venturing across the rim of the Indian Ocean. That theory took a big hit last January when archaeologists reported the discovery of stone tools in a rock shelter 
located in the present-day United Arab Emirates. The find suggest bands of humans reached southern Arabia as early as 125,000 years ago... Mary Beth Griggs http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/68/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/91 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/91 <p>In August Oxford University paleontologist Martin Brasier announced that he had found the remains of one of the earliest life-forms on Earth, fossilized 3.4-billion-year-old bacteria. The claim brought additional intrigue to the ongoing contention between Brasier and UCLA’s Bill Schopf, who in 1993 said he had discovered organisms 3.46 billion years old. Brasier publicly questioned Schopf’s find in 2002, and the two have been feuding ever since...</p> Mary Beth Griggs http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/91/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/80 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/80 When our ancestors mated with Neanderthals and Denisovans, a recently discovered archaic human group, they picked up some of their genes. Now researchers say that DNA inherited from these extinct hominids may have fortified the modern immune system. A team at Stanford University focused on human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class 1 genes, which play a vital role in rallying the immune system to fight off bacteria and viruses. Because diseases can be endemic to specific regions of the world, these genes exist in thousands of versions, known as alleles... Linda Marsa http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/80/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/30 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/30 For a century and a half, the 150-million-year-old feathered creature called Archaeopteryx has reigned as the earliest known bird and as a symbol of the link between ancient dinosaurs and living fowl. This July Chinese paleontologists reported on a new fossil that may oust the icon from its long-held position... Jocelyn Rice http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/30/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/77 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/77 <p>“That’s got to be a hair,” University of Alberta paleobiologist Alex Wolfe thought when he saw a thin strand in a piece of 80-million-year-old amber. But a look through a microscope revealed the sheen and ringed appearance found only in true feathers. Wolfe and colleagues then combed through 150,000 pieces of amber from the fossil-rich rocks of Alberta, Canada. In all, they turned up 11 stunning feather samples from the Late Cretaceous, even capturing pigmentation and 3D structure...</p> Jennifer Barone http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/77/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/51 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/51 Archaeologists revealed last year that a cave with a spectacular view of the Indian Ocean is home to the world’s oldest known art studio. While digging in a thin sand layer in South Africa’s Blombos cave, an international team discovered two tool kits used by Stone Age artists 100,000 years ago. The kits included a pair of abalone shells holding paint made from a red dirt known as ocher. Near the prehistoric paint palettes, the archaeologists found stone tools that had been tailored to prepare the ocher mixture, as well as shaped pieces of bone that may have been used to apply the pigment... Eric Powell http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/51/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/43 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/43 Breeding two highly endangered animals or subspecies through conventional mating is a difficult and often futile undertaking. For instance, the last birth of an endangered northern white rhinoceros was in 2000. As a radical alternative, biologist Jeanne Loring at the Scripps Research Institute is attempting to transform frozen skin cells from threatened species into eggs and sperm. In theory, new embryos then could be created by combining converted egg or sperm cells with natural ones, or by combining eggs with sperm cells derived from different donor animals... Elizabeth Svoboda http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/43/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/35 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/35 When exactly did the dinosaurs depart? Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/35/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/24 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/24 Trillions of bacteria live inside your bowels, outnumbering your own cells 10 to 1. These microbial communities contain thousands of species that vary from person to person. But according to a new study, they divide into just three basic groups, dubbed enterotypes. Everyone has one of four blood types; apparently we have one of three gut-microbe types, too... Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/24/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/61 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/61 It’s not quite a fountain of youth, but it’s an intriguing step in that direction: Darren Baker from the Mayo Clinic and colleagues have developed a cellular spring cleaning that delays the health problems of old age in mice. By selectively killing senescent cells—ones that no longer grow or divide—Baker impeded the onset of cataracts, weakening of muscles, and body fat loss. He even reversed some of these problems in elderly mice. The animals did not live longer, but they gained more healthy months. Senescent cells have been linked to aging before, but the Mayo experiment demonstrates that they have specific harmful properties. “Our work indicates that a small number of these cells can have a big impact,” says physiologist James Kirkland, one of the study’s leaders. If the same principle applies to humans, it may be possible to increase a person’s “healthspan” by targeting senescent cells or the chemicals they secrete. The research could have other benefits. Senescence helps contain cells so badly damaged that they could turn into cancers. Many tumors develop from senescent cells that somehow escape this quarantine; wiping out all the cellular retirees could nip cancers in the bud... Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/61/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/67 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/67 <p>For the first time, a major scientific problem has been solved by people playing a computer game. The players deciphered the three-dimensional structure of a protein that allows M-PMV, a close relative of the AIDS virus, to infect cells...</p> Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/67/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/48 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/48 DEET, the most widely used commercial insect repellent, offers powerful protection from vectorborne illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever (see left). But it is toxic in high concentrations, expensive, and short-lived. Soon there may be a better option. In May Vanderbilt University biologist Laurence Zwiebel announced that a compound called VUAA1 is not only 100,000 times as strong as DEET but also potentially cheaper and less harmful to humans... Caroline Spivack http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/48/key_image Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:10:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/photos/08-scrapes-granaries-bowers-avian-architecture http://discovermagazine.com/photos/08-scrapes-granaries-bowers-avian-architecture <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/photos/08-scrapes-granaries-bowers-avian-architecture">Click through to view gallery</a> http://discovermagazine.com/photos/08-scrapes-granaries-bowers-avian-architecture/key_image Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:45:00 -0500 Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:45:00 -0500 Photo Gallery http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-the-bug-with-built-in-sidekicks http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-the-bug-with-built-in-sidekicks <p><img alt="citrus mealybug" src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-the-bug-with-built-in-sidekicks/mealy1.jpg"></p> <p>Crack open the cells of a plant-infesting pest called the citrus mealybug and you will find small bacteria called <i>Tremblaya princeps</i>. Break open those and you’ll find even smaller microbes called<i> Moranella endobia</i>. The mealybug uses its two partners to supplement its monotonous diet of plant sap. The trio is bound to one another, and none of them can survive alone...</p> <p><i>Image: Citrus mealybug via iStockphoto</i></p> Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-the-bug-with-built-in-sidekicks/key_image Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:45:00 -0500 Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:45:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-when-good-tweets-go-bad http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-when-good-tweets-go-bad <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-when-good-tweets-go-bad/finches.jpg" align="right" alt="">Songbirds may follow strict grammatical rules when they communicate. <p>Language seems to set humans apart from other animals (see page 66), but scientists cannot just hand monkeys and birds an interspecies SAT to determine which linguistic abilities are singularly those of <i>Homo sapiens</i> and which we share with other animals. In August neuroscientists Kentaro Abe and Dai Watanabe of Kyoto University announced that they had devised the next-best thing, a systematic test of birds’ grammatical prowess. The results suggest that Bengalese finches have strict rules of syntax: The order of their chirps matters. “It’s the first experiment to show that any animal has perceived the especially complex patterns that supposedly make human language unique,” says Timothy Gentner, who studies animal cognition and communication at the University of California, San Diego, and was not involved in the study...</p> Jennifer Barone http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-when-good-tweets-go-bad/key_image Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:20:00 -0500 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/11-of-mice-and-men-and-medicines http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/11-of-mice-and-men-and-medicines <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/11-of-mice-and-men-and-medicines/mouse.jpg" align="right" alt="A lab mouse"> <p>You won’t find more mentally ill mice per square mile anywhere than in Bar Harbor, Maine. Mice who seem anxious or depressed, autistic or schizophrenic—they congregate here. Mice who model learning disabilities or anorexia; mice who hop around as though your hyperactive nephew had contracted into a tiny fur ball; they are here too. Name an affliction of the human mind, and you can probably find its avatar on this sprucy, secluded island.</p> <p>The imbalanced mice are kept under the strictest security, in locked wards at the Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical facility internationally renowned for its specially bred deranged rodents. Every day trucks carry away boxes and boxes of them for distribution to psychiatric researchers across the nation.</p> <p>There are no visiting hours, because strangers fluster the mice and might carry in contagious diseases. The animals are attended only by highly qualified caregivers, people like neuroscientist Elissa Chesler. Sitting in her airy Jackson Lab office, accessible to germy and perturbing strangers, Chesler clicks open a series of photographs from a type of mouse personality test on her computer screen. The first picture shows a mouse sleeping on a nestlet, a stiff, square bed of compressed cotton. Mice typically gnaw vigorously at the cotton, shredding it to make soft igloos for sleeping and staying warm. The second image shows a mouse that has propped his nestlet against a wall, forming a makeshift lean-to. “When I see this guy, I’m thinking anxiety,” says Chesler, whose research delves into the genetics of stress. “This design isn’t trapping a lot of heat, but he’s secure under there.”</p> <p>She smiles as she clicks open the last photo. “And here we have the ‘I can’t deal with it’ mouse,” she says. The image shows a mouse asleep, with his rigid nestlet balanced on his back. Personality, Chesler maintains, can be read from these nestlet styles more clearly than from a test of forced swimming or bar pressing...</p> <p><b><i>The full text of this article is available only to DISCOVER subscribers. Click through to the article to subscribe, log in, or buy a digital version of this issue.</i></b></p> Hannah Holmes http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/11-of-mice-and-men-and-medicines/key_image Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:50:00 -0400 Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:50:00 -0400 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-forrest-gump-of-mice-minus-adages http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-forrest-gump-of-mice-minus-adages <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-forrest-gump-of-mice-minus-adages/runners.jpg" align="right" alt=""> <p>On November 6, streets in all five boroughs of the Big Apple will be cordoned off and shoelaces will be tightened in preparation for the 42nd annual New York City Marathon. The 26.2-mile course is a grueling test of endurance, but perhaps not for long. Physiologist Tejvir Khurana at the University of Pennsylvania has discovered a gene in mice that allows them to run about three and a half miles on an exercise wheel—more than the equivalent of a mouse marathon—without fatigue. Nor do the mice require external motivation. They appear to run just to run.</p> <p>The exact mechanism at play is unknown, but Khurana has found dramatic changes in the rodents’ musculature. Endurance athletes rely on slow-twitch muscles, fibrous bundles that guzzle oxygen and fatigue slowly. Sprinters, however, derive their power from fast-twitch fibers that produce intense bursts of energy. These fibers use little oxygen but tire quickly...</p> Katie Palmer http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-forrest-gump-of-mice-minus-adages/key_image Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:35:00 -0400 Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:35:00 -0400 Print Article