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Featured news

30 Aug 2022

Beetles rely on unique ‘back pockets’ to keep bacterial symbionts safe during metamorphosis

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Lagria villosa adult. Image credit: RS Janke Researchers show that beetles in the genus Lagria have evolved unique ‘back pockets’ on their larvae and pupae to house bacterial symbionts, which protect the immature life stages against fungi. But in adult females, the symbionts exclusively occur in the accessory glands, next to the oviduct, from where they are deposited onto eggs. When the adult beetles emerge, friction shuffles the symbionts out of the pockets and backwards to the genital area. They then colonize the accessory glands by an unknown mechanism. Beetles of the genus Lagria need a little help from their bacterial friends throughout their immature life stages. But keeping them in the same spot throughout life isn’t feasible. This is because beetles are holometabolous insects, which undergo an overall bodily reorganization (metamorphosis) as pupae. Here, scientists show for the first time that the beetles have evolved an ingenious solution to this problem: female pupae keep their symbiotic bacteria in specialized pockets on their back. When they emerge as adults, they shuffle the bacteria out of these pockets, backwards and then on into their genital area. These results are published in Frontiers in Physiology. ► Read […]

Featured news

29 Aug 2022

41% of teenagers can’t tell the difference between true and fake online health messages

By Suzanna Burgelman, science writer Image: Shutterstock.com A new study has found that teenagers have a hard time discerning between fake and true health messages. Only 48% of the participants trusted accurate health messages (without editorial elements) more than fake ones. Meanwhile, 41% considered fake and true neutral messages equally trustworthy and 11% considered true neutral health messages less trustworthy than fake health messages. The results highlight a need for better training of teenagers to navigate a world where fake health news is so widespread. Health mis- and disinformation are a serious public health concern, with an increased spread of fake health news on social media platforms in the last few years. Previous research has shown that online health messages are mostly incomplete and inaccurate and have potentially harmful health information. Fake health news can lead to poor health choices, risk-taking behavior, and loss of trust in health authorities. “There has been an explosion of misinformation in the area of health during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said principal investigator Dr Radomír Masaryk, of Comenius University. Most research on message credibility has focused on adults. Masaryk and his colleagues have now investigated whether teenagers are equipped to tackle the high volume of […]

Featured news

23 Aug 2022

Skipping breakfast at home may increase chance of kids and teens developing psychosocial health problems

By K.E.D Coan, science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Eating breakfast at home is linked with fewer behavioral problems in young people, reports a new nationwide study from Spain. Previous research has supported the importance of children and teens eating a healthy breakfast, but this is the first study to show that eating at home can have a positive effect as well. Young people who eat healthy breakfasts at home have better psychosocial health, shows a recent study in Frontiers in Nutrition. While previous research has reported the important role of a nutritious breakfast, this is the first study to look at the reported effects of whether kids eat breakfast, as well as where and what they eat. These results provide valuable insights and recommendations for parents and their children. “Our results suggest that it is not only important to eat breakfast, but it’s also important where young people eat breakfast and what they eat,” said first author Dr José Francisco López-Gil of the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Cuenca, Spain. “Skipping breakfast or eating breakfast away from home is associated with increased likelihood of psychosocial behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Similarly, consumption of certain foods/drinks are associated with higher (eg, […]

Featured news

17 Aug 2022

Modern pesticides damage the brain of bees so they can’t move in a straight line

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Researchers show for the first time that honeybee foragers exposed to the pesticides sulfoxaflor and imidacloprid have an impaired optomotor response, which makes them poor at keeping themselves on a straight trajectory while moving. This impairment is accompanied by damage to brain cells and dysregulation of detoxification genes. These results add to the growing evidence that modern pesticides are highly damaging to beneficial insects like bees. The challenge to let people walk back and forth in a straight line isn’t just used by police to test if drivers are intoxicated: it’s also used by neurologists to diagnose neurological disorders like ataxia, where parts of the brain that coordinate movement are impaired. Now, researchers use an insect version of this challenge to show for the first time that modern pesticides damage the nervous system of honeybees so that it becomes hard for them to walk in a straight line. The results are published in Frontiers in Insect Science. “Here we show that commonly used insecticides like sulfoxaflor and the neonicotinoid imidacloprid can profoundly impair the visually guided behavior of honeybees. Our results are reason for concern because the ability of bees to respond […]

Featured news

16 Aug 2022

A virtual trip to the museum can improve the health of seniors stuck at home

By Peter Rejceck, science writer Image credit: SeventyFour / Shutterstock.com Social isolation can have devastating health effects, especially for elderly people. A number of studies have shown that art is not only good for the soul, but can also improve both physical and mental well-being. Researchers in Canada investigated whether these art-based benefits could be delivered digitally through virtual museum tours. They found that indeed older adults who attended weekly guided tours online felt less frail – offering a public health model to promote healthy aging. Scientists have long known that social isolation is associated with a number of health problems, including increased risks for stroke and heart disease, as well as mental decline and even premature death. The risks are especially acute for older adults, who are more likely to be socially isolated and lonely. The coronavirus pandemic only exacerbated the problem due to the need for social distancing, particularly to protect the health of the world’s elderly population. But the same digital technologies that helped workers connect remotely could help older adults become more physically, mentally and socially healthy when combined with interactive art-based activities. That’s the conclusion from a new study published in the journal Frontiers in […]

Featured news

15 Aug 2022

Humans have totally altered small mammal communities in just a few centuries

By Suzanna Burgelman, science writer Image: Paul Abrahams/Shutterstock.com Researchers have found that small mammal communities today are fundamentally different from even a few centuries ago, during North America’s pre-colonial past. They identified small mammal remains from the Anthropocene and archaeological Holocene along a geographical area with varying degrees of human impact and examined diversity across these sites and time periods. Optimistically, the researchers also found that even small, protected spaces can conserve native small mammal communities, highlighting their important role in urban conservation projects. Characterized by rapid climate change, pollution, and landscape alteration, the Anthropocene is an unofficial unit of geological time and is defined as the most recent period in Earth’s history (from the 1950s to present) when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s ecosystems and climate. This impact is increasingly modifying natural ecosystems and threatening biodiversity, for example by quickly expanding urbanization. Researchers at Stanford University have now discovered that modern small mammal communities from the Anthropocene are less diverse and are differently structured then even a few centuries ago, during the Holocene (around 500 years ago), showing the extent of the impacts of human activities on our ecosystems. The results were published […]

Featured news

11 Aug 2022

Researchers challenge claim of historic human brain ‘shrinking’ and 3 other papers you don’t want to miss

By Colm Gorey and Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writers Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Researchers challenge idea that human brains shrank 3,000 years ago Last year, an article published to Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution made headlines across the world after it claimed human brains shrank in size approximately 3,000 years ago. This, according to the authors, may have driven by the externalization of knowledge in human societies, thus needing less energy to store a lot of information as individuals. As a result, we developed smaller brains. However, in a recent article, also published to Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, another team of researchers challenged this notion, questioning several of the original paper’s key hypotheses. Speaking to his university, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, anthropologist Brian Vilmoare said that “human brain size has not changed in 30,000 years, and probably not in 300,000 years”. In fact, he added, “based on this dataset, we can identify no reduction in brain size in modern […]

Featured news

09 Aug 2022

Traces of 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill still detectable in 2020

By K.E.D. Coan, science writer Image: Breck P. Kent/Shutterstock.com Small amounts of highly weathered oil residues from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster were still present in the surroundings ten years later, shows a new report. Crude oil is a complex mixture with many components that undergo chemical reactions in the environment. These transformed chemicals, as well as longer persisting oil products, can impact local ecosystems and a better understanding of the fates of these molecules can help future clean-up efforts. The oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 was largely transformed by the end of that summer, reports a new study in Frontiers in Marine Science. But some small quantities of chemical residues still persisted in the environment even ten years later. This latest study follows the varied fates of the leaked petroleum components, providing important insights for future spills and clean-up efforts. “The better we understand the chemicals and their chemical reactive properties as well as their physical properties, the better we will be able to mitigate oil spills and understand and detect environmental damages from oil spills,” said first author Prof Edward Overton of Louisiana State University. “Our paper describes the most abundant chemicals that make […]

Featured news

05 Aug 2022

Worrying finding in California’s multi-billion-dollar climate initiative reveals problem with using forests to offset CO2 emissions

By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer Image: Zack Frank/Shutterstock.com Researchers have found that California’s forest carbon buffer pool, designed to ensure the durability of the state’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program, is severely undercapitalized. The results show that, within the offset program’s first 10 years, estimated carbon losses from wildfires have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. This means that the buffer pool is unable to guarantee that credited forest carbon remains out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years. The results, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, illustrate that the program, one of the world’s largest, is likely not meeting its set requirements. Carbon offset programs have become popular action plans to combat the climate crisis. California’s carbon offset program was established to utilize the ability of trees to absorb and store carbon and applies to around 75% of statewide emissions allowances. The program allows forest owners to earn ‘carbon credits’ for preserving trees. Polluters buy credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they’d otherwise be allowed to under state law. Each credit represents one ton of CO2. This exchange is supposed to […]

Featured news

03 Aug 2022

‘I got front row seats to the astronomy event of my lifetime, and it didn’t disappoint’

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers science communications manager/Dr Susan Mullally, STScI Image: Dr Susan Mullally, STScI The successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope earlier this year captivated the world’s attention, promising a revolutionary view deep inside our mysterious universe. One of those involved in the hugely important project was Dr Susan Mullally of the Space Telescope Science Institute who now speaks to Frontiers about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Last month, a new chapter in humanity’s understanding of the cosmos began when the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) were released to the world. Surpassing the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST will directly observe a part of space and time never seen before and will gaze into the epoch when the very first stars and galaxies formed, more than 13.5bn years ago. Dr Susan Mullally of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) was among those with backstage access to this latest piece of space history, and is currently the deputy project scientist for JWST working to ensure the scientific productivity of the mission. Previously, she worked in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) as the lead for archiving the data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet […]

Featured news

02 Aug 2022

Yoda-like tarsiers push virtuoso singing to their physiological limits

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Pair of Gursky’s spectral tarsiers, Tarsius spectrumgurskyae. Image credit: Arie de Gier / Shutterstock.com Researchers show that the notes within duets between female and male Gursky’s spectral tarsiers on Sulawesi are taxing for the singers, presumably due to physiological constraints. An individual’s ‘virtuosity’ in singing these demanding notes could thus signal fitness to conspecifics, similarly to the costly tail of peacocks. Opera arias are typically rich in coloratura, for example fast, high notes that stretch over a wide frequency range. Coloratura aren’t just beautiful to listen to: they are also designed to allow the best singers to show off their virtuosity. Now, researchers from Sam Ratulangi University in Indonesia and Cornell University in the US show that pairs of Gursky’s spectral tarsier sing duets that have evolved to similarly show off virtuosity – at least, for those individuals that manage to pull off their species’ version of coloratura: rapidly repeated broadband notes emitted in coordination to form a duet between adult males and females. The results are published today in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. The researchers show that not all tarsiers can sing these duets equally well. Some Gursky’s spectral tarsiers achieve a […]

Featured news

28 Jul 2022

Carbon removal using ‘blue carbon’ habitats ‘uncertain and unreliable’

By Cat Bartman / Media Centre, University of East Anglia Eelgrass beds are a form of Blue Carbon Restoring coastal vegetation – so called ‘blue carbon’ habitats – may not be the nature-based climate solution it is claimed to be, according to a new study. In their analysis researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the OACIS initiative of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, challenge the widely held view that restoring areas such as mangroves, saltmarsh, and seagrass can remove large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.  The findings of their review, published today in the journal Frontiers in Climate, identify seven reasons why carbon accounting for coastal ecosystems is not only extremely challenging but risky. These include the high variability in carbon burial rates, vulnerability to future climate change, and fluxes of methane and nitrous oxide. The authors, who also looked at information on restoration costs, warn that extra measurements can reduce these risks, but would mean much higher costs. However, they stress that blue carbon habitats should still be protected and, where possible, restored, as they have benefits for climate adaptation, coastal protection, […]