Sciences, Life

A tiny treeshrew brain saps just as much of the body’s energy as a human brain, researchers report. Shown in red are the blood vessels that deliver glucose to fuel cellular activities. Image by Arianna Harrington, Duke University.

October 31, 2017

Humans Don't Use as Much Brainpower as We Like to Think

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Mangamaso and Velona were born at Parc Ivoloina, a nonprofit nature center in eastern Madagascar. The Duke Lemur Center and Parc Ivoloina, managed by the Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group, have been partners since 1987. Photo by David Haring.

August 24, 2017

Duke Receives Two Critically Endangered Lemurs From Madagascar

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A Hadza man sleeps on the ground on an impala skin in northern Tanzania. Photo by David Samson, University of Toronto Mississauga

July 11, 2017

Live-In Grandparents Helped Human Ancestors Get a Safer Night’s Sleep

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A meerkat wipes his scent on a shrub in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, like a chemical “keep out” notice. Meerkats identify group members and potential mates with help from odor-producing bacteria that lurk in their hindquarters. Photo by Lydia Greene.

June 12, 2017

Microbes Give Meerkat Gangs Their Signature Scents

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Scientists have identified genes that enable rainbow trout to use Earth’s magnetic field to find their way back to the streams where they were born. Photo by Eric Engbretson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

April 26, 2017

Researchers Identify Genes That Help Trout Find Their Way Home

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Former Duke graduate student Gabe Yapuncich and assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology Doug Boyer are making 3-D X-ray scans of dozens of lemurs and other rare and endangered primates. Photos by Megan Mendenhall; design by Jon Fuller.

April 10, 2017

Building a Virtual Ark for Lemurs

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First spotted in the U.S. in the early 1980s, a sexually confused fruit fly called Drosophila subobscura may have contributed to a collapse in native fruit flies through misdirected mating attempts. Photo by Malcolm Storey, www.bioimages.org.uk.

March 15, 2017

Mating Mix-Up With Wrong Fly Lowers Libido for Mr. Right

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Researchers say “jumping genes” may set the stage for brain cell death in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Photo by Duke Photo.

March 8, 2017

Jumping Genes Suspected in Alzheimer's

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Looking at bright screens before bed can make it hard to fall asleep. Photo by Andrés Nieto Porras.

February 16, 2017

People Far From Urban Lights, Bright Screens Still Skimp on Sleep

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Female striped plateau lizards from Arizona develop orange patches on their throats when they are ready to mate. Males prefer females with darker spots, a signal that they have higher-quality eggs. Photo credit: Stacey Weiss, University of Puget Sound

January 30, 2017

Model Shows Female Beauty Isn’t Just Sex Appeal

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Some baboon males are prone to commit domestic violence when forced to move into a group with few fertile females, researchers find. Photo by Catherine Markham, Stony Brook University.

January 18, 2017

Why Baboon Males Resort to Domestic Violence

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Flirt, a young female chimpanzee, left her brothers and other relatives behind when she reached puberty to reproduce in a new group. A study finds that chimps can tell genetically similar mates from more distant ones, even among unfamiliar partners.

January 11, 2017

Genetic Opposites Attract When Chimpanzees Choose a Mate

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The green glowing center of this Arabidopsis root contains a protein that helps transform immature precursor cells into some of the specialized cells that make up the plant’s root tip. Photo by Erin Sparks, Duke University.

December 6, 2016

Transforming Plant Cells from Generalists to Specialists

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A study in rhesus monkeys shows the link between status and health has deep biological roots. Photo by Lauren Brent, University of Exeter

November 24, 2016

Upward Mobility Boosts Immunity in Monkeys

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Despite big gains in life expectancy males still lag behind females, and not just in humans but across the primate family tree. Photo by Hapal/Flickr/CC

November 21, 2016

As Life Expectancy Grows, Men Still Lagging

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C. elegans worms whose mothers didn’t get enough to eat during pregnancy cope better with famine. Photo by Richard Pell, Carnegie Mellon.

October 27, 2016

Underfed Worms Program Their Babies to Cope With Famine

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