More adults are being diagnosed with autism than ever before, but we know very little about how the condition affects ageing. Plus, how hovering bees keep their cool and a call for nanoscientists to tackle the reproducibility crisis.
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Researchers studying how bees regulate their body temperatures while they hover hope to understand how the insects might withstand a changing climate. (J.R. Glass et al./Proc. R. Soc. B (CC BY 4.0))
The breeze that bumble bees (Bombus impatiens) generate by flapping their wings stops them from overheating as they hover in place. To hover, bees’ large wing muscles must work overtime, which generates heat. Researchers found that the insects counteract this warmth by creating a downbreeze that can lower their body temperature by around 5 °C, which could explain how they can stay aloft for long periods even on hot days.
Science | 4 min read
Reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper
Researchers in France and the Netherlands are offering funds and resources to nanoscientists to try to replicate a landmark finding that quantum dots can act as biosensors inside living cells. The project, called NanoBubbles, is part of the first large-scale effort in the physical sciences to tackle the reproducibility crisis. The team decided to recruit other researchers after they failed to replicate the results in question themselves. “We are trying to use replication as a tool to solve a controversy or, you know, to get closer to the truth,” says physicist and NanoBubbles co-lead Raphaël Lévy.
Nature | 5 min read
An international team of scientists has retrieved a 228-metre-long sample of ancient rock and mud from the heart of West Antarctica — the longest core ever retrieved from below an ice sheet. Preliminary data, based on the presence of fossilized algae, suggests that the core represents an archive of the past 23 million years. The team hopes to determine how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated during previous periods of global warming, and whether there is a temperature threshold after which its retreat becomes irreversible.
Nature | 4 min read
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