Frontiers | Science News

Science News post list

1,554 news posts in Research news

Life sciences

16 Jun 2025

“Chicken is her favorite dish. If one clucks, she comes”: how anacondas, chickens, and locals may be able to coexist in the Amazon

Dr Beatriz Cosendey is the author of a recently published Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science article. In it, she and co-authors investigated the role of the anaconda as a mythical creature in Brazil’s Lower Amazon region, locals’ perception of the snake, and how better coops for chickens could play a vital role in the peaceful co-existence of people and snakes.

Life sciences

13 Jun 2025

Swarm intelligence directs longhorn crazy ants to clear the road ahead for sisters carrying bulky food

Scientists studied the obstacle-clearing behavior of longhorn crazy ants, where a subset of workers temporarily specializes in removing tiny objects blocking the path between the nest and large food items. Experiments revealed that serial clearing behavior can be triggered by a single pheromone mark, which happened to be deposited near an obstacle by a forager recruited to a large food item. Clearing mostly occurs in the context of collective transport, which typically stalls in front of obstacles. The authors concluded that obstacle-clearing is a form of ‘swarm intelligence’ which emerges at the colony level, and which does not require understanding by individual ants.

Health

06 Jun 2025

Statins may reduce risk of death by 39% for patients with life-threatening sepsis

It has been suggested that statins could boost the chances of survival of patients with sepsis because of their multipronged effects on inflammation. Here, researchers from China used the MIMIC-IV database to perform a retrospective cohort study on two large, matched groups: critically ill patients with sepsis in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who received standard of care with or without statins. The 28-day all-cause mortality was 39% lower in relative terms [an absolute reduction from 23.4% to 14.3%] in the statin group, suggesting a protective effect. Previous randomized controlled trials that didn’t find any such benefit might have been too small or have had other weaknesses. The present results need to be confirmed in a large, well-designed randomized clinical trial.

Environment

05 Jun 2025

Survival of the greenest: why world’s oldest organizations are surpassing young upstarts in environmental sustainability

In a new article published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, Daria Haner, Dr Yilei Wang, Dr Deniz Ones, Dr Stephan Dilchert, Dr Yagizhan Yazar, and Karn Kaura unveil surprising new findings: the world’s most sustainable businesses are the world’s most long-lived businesses, too. In this guest editorial, they explain their results, discuss the potential underlying reasons for their findings, and underline the importance of sustainability to the future of business.

Life sciences

21 May 2025

Biodiversity in Antarctic soils may be greatly underestimated after surprising discovery

Researchers used high-throughput DNA sequencing to measure biodiversity along a transect – a succession from recently exposed to mature soil – in front of a glacier in Antarctica. To capture a detailed ecological ‘time sequence’ they distinguished between intracellular and extracellular DNA from living versus dead or locally extinct species. They found an abundance of previously unsuspected interactions between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, eg, algae with heterotrophic bacteria and fungi with actinobacteria. The results imply that novel mutualistic interactions play an essential role in shaping this system, and that biodiversity in Antarctica may be much greater than previously thought.

Environment

19 May 2025

‘Every single species is a unique product of evolution, like a work of art’: how Dr Kit Prendergast champions bees and biodiversity

Macrophotography and bee hotels introduced Dr Kit Prendergast to the world of native bees. Inspired, she began her PhD on protecting native bee biodiversity in urbanised habitats, and investigating the role of the introduced European honey bee on indigenous bee biodiversity and pollination networks. Since completing her PhD, she has worked in diverse roles as an ecological consultant, working to conduct native bee research for not-for-profits, environmental consultancies, Landcare groups, and local and state government, as well as with research institutions. She was awarded a Federal Government Grant to lead a project using bee hotels to help with the recovery of native cavity-nesting bees after the 2019/2020 bushfires. She is also a prolific science communicator, and has won a number of awards for her articles and scientific outreach.