It’s easy to stereotype mice: They really can all look alike. In fact, even armed with genetic knowledge about their DNA, it can be hard for biologists to tell apart different species. They’re just so similar. Well, not every bit of them is. A group at biologists recently found a new way to tell apart their murine specimens — by looking at mouse sperm. Their findings appear in the Journal of Mammalogy, and could mean not just improved games of Guess Who in the lab, but also sh ...read more

Black Hole Fountains Where once were donuts, now there may be fountains. Not literally, unfortunately, but new astronomical observations are rewriting scientists' conceptions of what the area around a black hole looks like, and the new evidence seems to lean heavily away from the morning delicacy. Scientists estimate that most galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center, pulling in everything around them with tremendous gravitational forces. Up until now, astronomers believed&n ...read more

I mentioned to a friend, a gay man nearing 60, that World AIDS Day, which has been observed on Dec. 1 since 1988, was almost upon us. He had no idea that World AIDS Day still exists. This lack of knowledge is a testament to the great accomplishments that have occurred since World AIDS Day was created 30 years ago. It is also due to an accident in the timing of his birth that my friend escaped the devastation wreaked by AIDS among gay men in the U.S., before there was antiretroviral therap ...read more

Future of Spaceflight The upcoming year is shaping up to be a big one for private spaceflight. A number of big players in the race to get paying passengers to space seem poised to actually make that happen, and companies like Boeing and SpaceX have announced a number of ambitious goals. It looks like they might be beat by the Brit, though. Last week, billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson claimed that his company Virgin Galactic will send astronauts into space by Christmas of this year. ...read more

How did the manta ray get its horns? That’s something biologists at San Francisco State University have been trying to figure out. While not actual horns, the two fleshy growths are the reason why the manta are called “devil rays.” A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution shows that these hornlike lumps, known as “cephalic lobes,” are actually the foremost part of the manta ray’s fin and not separate appendages, as pre ...read more

Detecting Gravitational Waves Scientists have announced the detection of four new gravitational waves, bringing the total to 11. First captured by the LIGO detectors in 2015, the new observations of ripples in the fabric of space-time are quickly adding up and helping researchers to better understand powerful and distant cosmic phenomena like black holes and neutron stars. Scientists, using LIGO and the European-based Virgo gravitational wave detectors, have detected gravitational waves ...read more

(Inside Science) -- While fruit flies may bother people who have week-old bananas at home, the humble insects have for decades benefited scientists studying how organisms live and grow. The tiny flies are more like humans than you might initially think -- about 60 percent of fly genes match with a similar human gene -- and they breed quickly in the lab. Beginning in 1933, the Nobel committee has so far awarded six prizes in physiology or medicine for fly research, including the 2017 Prize fo ...read more

Plastic is in just about everything these days, including living, breathing creatures, from sea critters to people. Environmental waste and litter breaks down into tiny, microscopic particles. Those particles can then seep into water supplies and subsequently work their way into just about anything. That includes plastics in the seafood we eat. Now, a new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology has found that it takes just six hours for billions of nanoplastic particles  ...read more

Giant tortoises have exceptionally long lifespans and often live well past 100 years old. Now, a new study unveils genetic clues to the animals’ longevity, including gene changes that may protect giant tortoises from cancer, bolster the immune system and help regulate metabolism. The findings add to how these processes contribute to aging. “We found interesting [genetic] variants potentially affecting six [aging] hallmarks in giant tortoises, opening new lines for aging research,&rd ...read more

K2 might have run out of fuel a few months ago, but astronomers are still using its data to uncover a slew of new worlds. Using stats from ESA’s Gaia mission and K2, an extension of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, two recent studies have confirmed the existence of 104 new exoplanets. Their characteristics stretch far and wide, including multi-planet systems, terrestrial compositions and planets that orbit dangerously close to their host stars. These newfound bodies can be used to und ...read more