Why once-promising cancer drugs failed. Duke Today, Jan. 28, 2019. New findings in worms may help explain the failure, nearly two decades ago, of a class of once-promising cancer drugs and point to better ways to halt cancer’s spread.
Living like a caveman won’t make you thin
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Living like a caveman won’t make you thin. But it might make you healthy. Duke Today, January 17, 2019. Duke professor studies how our species’ past shapes human health today.
Fates intertwined
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Fates intertwined. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. January 9, 2019. To most people, life-forms like this orange lichen are little more than curious decorations on rocks and trees, often overlooked. But to one Duke biologist, they represent one of the world’s oldest quid pro quos: a symbiosis between two kingdoms whose evolutionary fates are tightly intertwined.
Baboon sexes differ in how social status gets ‘under the skin’
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Baboon sexes differ in how social status gets ‘under the skin.’ Duke Today, December 17, 2018. In humans and many other animals, the lower an individual’s social status, the worse their health. But new research in wild baboons suggests that the nature of the status-health relationship depends on whether an individual has to fight for status, or it’s given to them.
Team attempts a real-life version of CSI ‘zoom and enhance’
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Team attempts a real-life version of CSI ‘zoom and enhance.’ Duke Today, December 5, 2018. The idea of an “enhance” button has been a staple of Hollywood crime dramas for years. Now one Duke team has brought it closer to reality.
Add this to your Durham bucket list: see the stars from Duke Forest
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Add this to your Durham bucket list: see the stars from Duke Forest. Duke Today, November 28, 2018. The Duke Teaching Observatory is open about two Fridays a month for free public stargazing. Everyone welcome. No registration required, weather permitting.
Bard or bot?
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Bard or bot? Duke Today, November 15, 2018. Could a computer write sonnets convincing enough to fool people into thinking they were written by human poets? These students created an algorithm to find out.
Home advantage
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Home advantage. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. November 7, 2018. These yellow monkeyflowers grow within a few feet of their wildflower cousins without spreading into each other’s turf.
Anatomy Lessons
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Anatomy Lessons. Duke Today, October 17, 2018. Hung criminals. Grave robbers. The dawn of human anatomy was a grisly, sordid time.
Kooky, spooky Dukies
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Kooky, spooky Dukies. October 17, 2018. When a teenage girl brings a boy home for the first time, a simple dinner party can turn into a night from hell — especially when her family’s idea of hospitality is to visit their moat and show off their torture devices.
Feeding the microbes within
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Feeding the microbes within. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. Sept. 27, 2018. To digest his leafy diet, this lemur gets a little help from the trillions of bacteria that inhabit his gut.
How fruits got their eye-catching colors
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How fruits got their eye-catching colors. Duke Today, Sept. 24, 2018. New evidence supports the idea that plants owe their rainbow of fruit colors to the different animals that eat them. Researchers first had to get past the fact that most animals don’t see colors quite the way humans do. Picked up by The Daily Mail, The New York Times, CBC News, NPR, Science Magazine, Science News and Discover Magazine.
Making sense of Syria’s murky death toll
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Making sense of Syria’s murky death toll. Duke Today, Sept. 17, 2018. As the Syrian Civil War drags on, many monitoring groups say they are starting to lose count of the bodies. Meet one researcher who is trying to keep Syria’s death toll from getting lost.
What Star Trek can teach us about genetics and evolution
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What Star Trek can teach us about genetics and evolution. Duke Today, Sept. 13, 2018. Why do Vulcans look so much like us? Could ‘mutations’ induced by breaking the “Warp 10” speed barrier rapidly transform a person into a bizarre man-salamander? And how well does the romance between the different alien races in the Star Trek universe match what scientists know about how one species splits into two, and what keeps them distinct? Duke biologist and die-hard Trek fan Mohamed Noor explores the answers to these and other questions in his new book, “Live Long and Evolve,” a fact-filled guide to some of the real-world scientific principles underlying Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi franchise.
Waterproof roots
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Waterproof roots. 1,100 Words on Duke Research. September 10, 2018. The glowing yellow rectangles in this Arabidopsis root mark a layer of tightly packed cells that form the root’s inner skin, controlling the flow of water and nutrients into the plant from the soil. In a new study, Duke PhD Colleen Drapek of the Benfey lab identified two interacting genes that can “reprogram” other types of root cells to produce similar waterproofing in outer regions of the Arabidopsis root where they are not normally found. The findings could help researchers understand how such protective barriers in developing plant roots come to be, and eventually improve crop productivity in drought-prone or nutrient-poor soils.
Deadly molecules in motion
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Deadly molecules in motion. 1,100 Words on Duke Research, August 22, 2018. To some, this may look like a disco ball. But to one research team, it represents the elusive dance of a shape-shifting protein, SpA , which helps the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus evade its host’s defenses.
What happens when data scientists crunch through three centuries of Robinson Crusoe?
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What happens when data scientists crunch through three centuries of Robinson Crusoe? Duke Research blog, Sept. 6, 2018. Reading 1,400-plus editions of “Robinson Crusoe” in one summer is impossible. So one team of students tried to train computers to do it for them.
Mapping trees can help count endangered lemurs
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Mapping trees can help count endangered lemurs. Duke Today, August 30, 2018. Putting a figure on the number of endangered lemurs left in the wild isn’t easy, but Duke University researchers say one clue might help: the plants they rely on for food. Bamboo lemur populations in their native Madagascar may have shrunk by half over the last two decades; red-fronted brown lemurs by as much as 85 percent. But numbers for other lemur species may not be as low as feared, new models suggest.
Fossils rewrite story of lemur origins
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Fossils rewrite story of lemur origins. Duke Today, August 21, 2018. Research reveals that a 20-million-year-old African fossil, long thought to be a bat, actually represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree. The reassessment challenges a long-held view that lemurs descended from ancestors that colonized Madagascar in a single wave roughly 60 million years ago, and were the first mammals to get there. Instead, the researchers say two separate lemur lineages may have arrived independently, and much later than previously thought. Picked up by ZME Science, Cosmos Magazine, BBC News, Science News and Gizmodo.
Can’t decide what clubs to join outside of class? There’s a web app for that
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Can’t decide what clubs to join outside of class? There’s a web app for that. Duke Research Blog, August 21, 2018. E-advisor helps students figure out the right activities for their interests.
Birds categorize colors just like humans do
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Birds categorize colors just like humans do. Duke Today, August 1, 2018. For a reddish-beaked bird called the zebra finch, sexiness is color-coded. Males have beaks that range from light orange to dark red. But to females, a male’s colored bill may simply be hot, or not, findings suggest. Due to a phenomenon called categorical perception, zebra finches partition the range of hues from red to orange into two discrete categories, much like humans do, researchers report in the journal Nature. Picked up by Forbes, Discover Magazine, BBC News and ZME Science.
Mapping mountaintop coal mining’s yearly spread in Appalachia
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Mapping mountaintop coal mining’s yearly spread in Appalachia. Duke Today, July 25, 2018. A new mapping tool shows, in more detail than ever before, the land laid bare by mountaintop coal mining in central Appalachia each year, going back more than three decades. The tool uses satellite imagery to identify and map the annual extent of mining activity across portions of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The researchers say the updated maps will make it easier to assess and mitigate mining’s environmental and health impacts. Picked up by Smithsonian Magazine, Gizmodo, UPI, West Virginia Public Broadcasting and NPR affiliate WOUB.
Lemurs can smell weakness in each other
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Lemurs can smell weakness in each other. Duke Today, June 28, 2018. Some people watch the competition carefully for the slightest signs of weakness. Lemurs, on the other hand, just give them a sniff. These primates from Madagascar can tell that a fellow lemur is weaker just by the natural scents they leave behind, finds a study on ring-tailed lemurs led by Duke University researchers. The study reveals that getting hurt dampens a lemur’s natural aroma, and that males act more aggressively toward scents that smell “off.” Picked up by National Geographic.
Nanomaterials could mean more algae outbreaks for wetlands, waterways
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Nanomaterials could mean more algae outbreaks for wetlands, waterways. Duke Today, June 25, 2018. The last 10 years have seen a surge in the use of tiny substances called nanomaterials in agrochemicals like pesticides and fungicides. The idea is to provide more disease protection and better yields for crops, while decreasing the amount of toxins sprayed on agricultural fields. But when combined with nutrient runoff from fertilized cropland and manure-filled pastures, these “nanopesticides” could also mean more toxic algae outbreaks for nearby streams, lakes and wetlands, researchers report.
When cozying up with would-be predators, cleaner shrimp follow a dependable script
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When cozying up with would-be predators, cleaner shrimp follow a dependable script. Duke Today, June 20, 2018. It’s a mystery how cleaner shrimp partner with would-be fish predators — sometimes even climbing in their mouths — without getting eaten. A new study reveals how the shrimp convinces fish not to eat them, and the fish conveys that it’s a friend and not a foe. Picked up by National Geographic.