How the color-changing hogfish ‘sees’ with its skin. Duke Today, March 12, 2018. The hogfish can go from white to reddish in milliseconds as it adjusts to shifting conditions in the ocean. Scientists have long suspected that animals with quick-changing colors don’t just rely on their eyes to tune their appearance to their surroundings — they also sense light with their skin. But exactly how remains a mystery. A study reveals that hogfish skin senses light differently from eyes. Picked up by Futurity.
Category Archives: Duke Today
Mantis shrimp size each other up before ceding a fight
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Mantis shrimp size each other up before ceding a fight. Duke Today, Jan. 17, 2018. To a mantis shrimp, walking away from a fight doesn’t mean being a wimp. It means recognizing who they’re up against and knowing when to bail rather than drag out a doomed battle, researchers say. Picked up by Newsweek.
Women survive crises better than men
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Women survive crises better than men. Duke Today, Jan. 9, 2018. Women tend to live longer than men almost everywhere worldwide. Now, three centuries of data show that women don’t just outlive men in normal times: They’re more likely to survive even in the worst of circumstances, such as famines and epidemics. Picked up by Xinhua, The Guardian, United Press International, Futurity, U.S. News & World Report, New York Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
How 3-D printing is changing surgical care at Duke
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How 3-D printing is changing surgical care at Duke. Duke Today, Dec. 21, 2017. Custom-made models help doctors plan and practice surgeries before entering the operating room.
Can we teach computers to make like Mendelssohn?
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Can we teach computers to make like Mendelssohn? Duke Today, Dec. 14, 2017. Duke University researchers are teaching computers to write classical piano music in the mode of great composers like Mendelssohn and Beethoven. The resulting tunes are a pastiche of 19th century style.
Cells bulge to squeeze through barriers
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Cells bulge to squeeze through barriers. Nov. 27, 2017. Duke scientists have discovered a new tool in the cell’s invasion machinery that may help explain cancer’s ability to spread. Time-lapse imaging of the worm C. elegans reveals a fleeting protrusion that wedges into a tiny gap in the protective layer that surrounds the cell, and swells until the breach is wide enough for the cell to squeeze through. The findings could point to new ways to prevent metastasis, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Picked up by Futurity and STAT.
Chimp females who leave home postpone parenthood
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Chimp females who leave home postpone parenthood. Nov. 20, 2017. Female chimps that lack supportive friends and family wait longer to start having babies, Duke University researchers find. An analysis of more than 50 years’ worth of daily records for female chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania indicates that would-be moms who leave home or are orphaned take roughly three years longer to start a family. Picked up by the Daily Mail.
Bonobos help strangers without being asked
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Bonobos help strangers without being asked. Duke Today, Nov. 7, 2017. The impulse to be kind to strangers was long thought to be unique to humans, but research on bonobos suggests our species is not as exceptional in this regard as we like to think. Famously friendly apes from Africa’s Congo Basin, bonobos will go out of their way to help a stranger get food even when there is no immediate payback, researchers show. What’s more, they help spontaneously without having to be asked first. Picked up by Newsweek, Psychology Today, Daily Mail, National Geographic, Reddit, ABC.es and Le Monde.
Mixing it up
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Mixing it up. Duke Today, Nov. 7, 2017. To most people, turbulence is a bumpy plane ride. But to one researcher at Duke University, turbulence is a mathematical riddle.
Vital signs
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Vital signs. Duke Today, Nov. 7, 2017. Where some see noisy spikes and dips on an electrocardiogram, one researcher sees hidden mathematical problems.
Humans don’t use as much brainpower as we like to think
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Humans don’t use as much brainpower as we like to think. Duke Today, Oct. 31, 2017. For years, scientists assumed that humans devote a larger share of calories to their brains than other animals. Although the human brain makes up only 2 percent of body weight, it consumes more than 25 percent of the body’s energy budget. But a comparison of the relative brain costs of 22 species found that other animals have hungry brains too. Picked up by the Daily Mail, IFLScience, Futurity and United Press International.
iPhone app could guide MS research, treatment
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iPhone app could guide MS research, treatment. Duke Today, Oct. 3, 2017. For some diseases, a simple blood test is all that’s needed to gauge severity or confirm a diagnosis. Not so for multiple sclerosis. No single lab test can tell doctors what type of MS a patient has, nor whether it’s responding to treatment. By better tracking patients with help from a new iPhone app, researchers hope to take some of the guesswork out of treating MS and pave the way to more personalized care. Picked up by the News & Observer and the Herald-Sun.
Even preschoolers play fair, but chimps? Not so much.
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Even preschoolers play fair, but chimps? Not so much. Duke Today, Sept. 14, 2017. Chimps don’t care if they’re caught cheating. But preschoolers do, and that’s one of the keys to what makes us human, says Michael Tomasello, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
Why your ancestors would have aced the long jump
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Why your ancestors would have aced the long jump. Duke Today, Sept. 11, 2017. A 52-million-year-old ankle fossil suggests our prehuman ancestors were high-flying acrobats. For years, scientists thought the ancestors of today’s humans, monkeys, lemurs and apes were relatively slow and deliberate animals, using their grasping hands and feet to creep along small twigs and branches. But a new study suggests the first primates were masters at leaping through the trees. Picked up by New Scientist, the Daily Mail, Futurity and NSF 360.
Opening the lid on criminal sentencing software
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Opening the lid on criminal sentencing software. July 19, 2017. Many states make decisions about sentencing, bail, probation and parole based on secret computer algorithms, but how they work is a mystery. Duke’s Cynthia Rudin says it doesn’t have to be that way. Picked up by Boing Boing.
Helping robots learn to see in 3-D
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Helping robots learn to see in 3-D. July 14, 2017. While it’s relatively straightforward for robots to “see” objects with cameras and other sensors, interpreting what they see, from a single glimpse, is difficult. New technology enables robots to spot a new object and recognize what it is, whether it is right side up or upside down, without examining it from multiple angles. It can also fill in the blind spots in its field of vision and “imagine” any parts that are hidden from view. Picked up by NPR affiliate WFDD radio.
Live-in grandparents helped human ancestors get a safer night’s sleep
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Live-in grandparents helped human ancestors get a safer night’s sleep. Duke Today, July 12, 2017. A sound night’s sleep grows more elusive as people get older. But what some call insomnia may actually be an age-old survival mechanism, researchers report. A study of modern hunter-gatherers in Tanzania finds that, for people who live in groups, differences in sleep patterns commonly associated with age help ensure that at least one person is awake at all times. Picked up by The New York Times, CBS News, New Scientist, Discover Magazine, Science, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Cosmos, The Guardian, BBC News, Mental Floss, Popular Science, Toronto Star, Reader’s Digest, USA Today and The Telegraph.
Science on the trail
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Science on the trail. Duke Research Blog, June 28, 2017. High schoolers head to the backcountry to learn the secret of slug slime and other discoveries of science and self in a new girls camp.
New tools safeguard Census data about where you live and work
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New tools safeguard Census data about where you live and work. Duke Today, May 18, 2017. New methods enable people to learn as much as possible from Census data for policy-making and funding decisions, while guaranteeing that no one can trace the data back to your household or business. Census-related statistics are used to allocate billions of dollars annually for things like disaster relief, roads and schools. Researchers have developed algorithms that guarantee your information stays private without compromising research about your community.
Researchers identify genes that help trout find their way home
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Researchers identify genes that help trout find their way home. Duke Today, April 26, 2017. In the spring when water temperatures start to rise, rainbow trout that have spent several years at sea traveling hundreds of miles from home manage, without maps or GPS, to find their way back to the rivers and streams where they were born for spawning. Researchers have identified genes that enable the fish to perform this extraordinary homing feat with help from Earth’s magnetic field. Picked up by the Daily Mail, Nature, The Herald-Sun, IFLScience and the News & Observer.
Building a virtual ark for lemurs
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Building a virtual ark for lemurs. Duke Today, April 11, 2017. X-ray scanning immortalizes endangered primates in the digital afterlife, in 3-D.
Creative people have better-connected brains
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Creative people have better-connected brains. Duke Today, Feb. 20, 2017. Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the “right-brain” myth — a new study suggests it’s how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart. People who score high on common tests of creativity have significantly more white matter connections between their right and left hemispheres, finds a new analysis. Picked up by the Daily Mail and Psychology Today.
People far from urban lights, bright screens still skimp on sleep
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People far from urban lights, bright screens still skimp on sleep. Duke Today, Feb. 16, 2017. Screen time before bed can mess with your sleep. But people without TV and laptops skimp on sleep too, researchers say. A Duke University study of people living without electricity or artificial light in a remote farming village in Madagascar finds they get shorter, poorer sleep than people in the U.S. or Europe. But they seem to make up for lost shuteye with a more regular sleep routine, the researchers report. Picked up by Huffington Post.
Model shows female beauty isn’t just sex appeal
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Model shows female beauty isn’t just sex appeal. Duke Today, Jan. 30, 2017. Female beauty may have less to do with attracting the opposite sex than previously thought, at least in animals. Results of a mathematical modeling study suggest that romantic attention, by itself, is not enough to give attractive females an evolutionary edge over their plainer counterparts — even when their good looks help them snag superior mates. For females, the benefits of beauty likely go beyond their success in the mating market, the model shows. Picked up by the Daily Mail, Time Warner Cable News and North Carolina NPR affiliate SciWorks Radio.
Why baboon males resort to domestic violence
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Why baboon males resort to domestic violence. Duke Today, Jan. 18, 2017. Some baboon males vying for a chance to father their own offspring expedite matters in a gruesome way — they kill infants sired by other males and attack pregnant females, causing them to miscarry, researchers report. Infanticide has been documented in other animals including baboons, lions and dolphins, but rarely feticide. The perpetrators are more prone to commit domestic violence when forced to move into a group with few fertile females, the study finds. Picked up by The Times (South Africa), Cosmos Magazine, Smithsonian and Seeker of the Discovery Channel.