Humans evolved to be the water-saving ape. Duke Today, March 5, 2021. An ancient shift in our body’s ability to conserve water may have enabled early humans to venture farther from lakes and streams in search of food. So say the authors of a study that, for the first time, measures precisely how much water humans lose and replace each day compared with our primate cousins. Picked up by Inverse, MSN, UPI and Cosmos.
Time-lapse reveals the hidden dance of roots
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Time-lapse reveals the hidden dance of roots. Duke Today, Feb. 19, 2021. One of the first orders of business for any plant seed is to put out its first root. Time-lapse footage and soft-bodied robots reveal how roots search hard soil for the path of least resistance. Picked up by MSN and Yahoo! Canada News, News18.
Lemurs show there’s no single formula for lasting love
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Lemurs show there’s no single formula for lasting love. Duke Today, Feb. 12, 2021. Brain imaging reveals that not all monogamous mammals are “wired for love” in the same way. Picked up by Psychology Today, IFLScience, UPI and BBC Science Focus Magazine.
Malaria threw human evolution into overdrive on this African archipelago
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Malaria threw human evolution into overdrive on this African archipelago. Duke Today, Jan. 28, 2021. In the last 500 years, the people of Cabo Verde have evolved at a breakneck pace — thanks to a genetic variant, inherited from their African ancestors, that protects against the ravages of malaria. Picked up by Futurity.
Conjuring Coltrane
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Conjuring Coltrane. Duke Today, January 6, 2021. Duke researchers have been trying to reverse-engineer vintage saxophone sound, using X-ray imaging and 3D printing.
Pesticide-Proof
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Pesticide-Proof. Duke Today, November 20, 2020.Meet a new hire who has spent almost 30 years trying to outmaneuver insect pests.
Meet Duke’s newest plant disease expert
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Meet Duke’s newest plant disease expert. Duke Today, November 18, 2020.
Sheng-Yang He has spent his career unraveling the complex relationships between plants and the microbes that make them sick.
Former Vice Provost James Siedow, plant biochemist, dies at 73
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Former Vice Provost James Siedow, plant biochemist, dies at 73. Duke Today, November 17, 2020.
Silent mutations may have given the coronavirus an evolutionary edge
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Silent mutations may have given the coronavirus an evolutionary edge. Duke Today, October 16, 2020. RNA folding may help explain how the coronavirus became so hard to stop after it spilled over from wildlife to humans. Picked up by Forbes and Triangle Business Journal.
How malaria parasites withstand a fever’s heat
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How malaria parasites withstand a fever’s heat. Duke Today, October 5, 2020. The parasites that cause 200 million cases of malaria each year can withstand feverish temperatures that make their human hosts miserable. Now, a Duke University-led team is beginning to understand how they do it. The work could lead to new ways to fight tough-to-kill strains, researchers say.
New drug candidate found for hand, foot and mouth disease
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New drug candidate found for hand, foot and mouth disease. Duke Today, Sept. 22, 2020. Targeting RNA with small molecules could pave the way for new antivirals for hard-to-treat diseases. Picked up by UPI, Futurity and Triangle Business Journal.
Male baboons with female friends live longer
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Male baboons with female friends live longer. Duke Today, Sept. 21, 2020. Opposite-sex friendships can have non-romantic benefits. And not just for people, but for our primate cousins, too. Picked up by The New York Times, The Independent, Washington Post, IFLScience, Treehugger, CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, Futurity, the Weather Channel and Cosmos.
Your cells look young for their age, compared to a chimp’s
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Your cells look young for their age, compared to a chimp’s. Duke Today, Sept. 21, 2020. Why do humans live so much longer on average than our closest primate relatives, despite being 99% identical genetically? Research suggests the epigenetic aging clock ticks slower for humans than for chimpanzees. Picked up by ZME Science.
Baboon matriarchs enjoy less stress
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Baboon matriarchs enjoy less stress. Duke Today, Sept. 9, 2020. Inheriting a top spot can make for a more carefree life — and apparently not just for humans, but for baboons too.
Songbirds, like people, sing better after warming up
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Songbirds, like people, sing better after warming up. Duke Today, August 18, 2020. Researchers say there may be a good reason why birds are most vocal at first light. By singing early and often, birds perform better during the day. Picked up by CNN, the Daily Mail, The Times and The Telegraph.
Tracking tiny moving targets
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Tracking tiny moving targets. Duke Research blog, July 28, 2020. Kevin Welsher has developed a technique that turns a microscope into a ‘flight tracker’ for molecules, making it possible to follow the paths of viruses and other particles thousands of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Young dolphins pick their friends wisely
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Young dolphins pick their friends wisely. July 23, 2020. Young dolphins seek out peers and activities that will set them up for success in adulthood.
Ultra-black skin allows some fish to lurk unseen
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Ultra-black skin allows some fish to lurk unseen. Duke Today, July 16, 2020. Scientists report that at least 16 species of deep-sea fish have evolved ultra-black skin that absorbs more than 99.5% of the light that hits them, making them nearly impossible to pick out from the shadows. Picked by The New York Times, WIRED, Newsweek, Science News, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, Ars Technica, Popular Science, Gizmodo, CNN and Reuters.
Imaging a living scaffold
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Imaging a living scaffold. Duke Today, July 7, 2020. Light-up proteins in the sheet-like matrix that encases tissues offer new toolkit for studying everything from kidney disease to aging.
From the lab, the first cartilage-mimicking gel that’s strong enough for knees
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From the lab, the first cartilage-mimicking gel that’s strong enough for knees. Duke Today, June 26, 2020. Cartilage provides a combination of cushiony-yet-strong that hydrogels haven’t been able to match, until now. Picked up by Futurity and New Atlas.
Artificial intelligence makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper
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Artificial intelligence makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper. Duke Today, June 12, 2020. Researchers have developed an AI tool that can turn blurry faces into eerily convincing computer-generated portraits, in finer detail than ever before. Picked up by Newsweek, Inverse, ZME Science, the Independent, and the Daily Mail.
Lights in the eyes for better disguise
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Lights in the eyes for better disguise. Duke Today, June 11, 2020. This hatchetfish hides from predators swimming in the shadowy depths below using a clever disguise. Glowing spots on its belly make it nearly invisible against the sunlit waters above. But the fish’s eyes point upward — How does it adjust its underside lights to blend in with the faint light filtering down from above if it can’t see its belly?
These students taught a computer to detect COVID-19 in lung scans
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These students taught a computer to detect COVID-19 in lung scans. Duke Today, May 31, 2020. A lot of illnesses can look like COVID-19 in a CT scan. Duke students built an AI tool to spot telltale signs of the virus and flag cases that swab tests miss.
Meet the Duke dean whose obsession with ‘Star Trek’ landed him a gig as their next science consultant
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Meet the Duke dean whose obsession with ‘Star Trek’ landed him a gig as their next science consultant. May 18, 2020. A Q&A with Dean of Natural Sciences Mohamed Noor about his new role.
How a male fly knows when to make a move on a mate
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How a male fly knows when to make a move on a mate. Duke Today, May 22, 2020. Male fruit flies dial their scent sensitivity up or down to court when conditions are right for mating — research that could point to new ways to treat sensory processing disorders in humans.