Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Published October 24, 2018 17:01 EDT (Brief from Royal Society) The effects of drought-breaking rainfall driven by El Ninõ/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ricochets along a chain of interactions between marine and terrestrial food webs, leading to enhanced predation of a rare nocturnal seabird by a population of barn owls […]
Modern and ancient arthropods share shell-crushing abilities
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Published October 24, 2018 17:01 EDT (Brief from Royal Society) This first analysis of the feeding biomechanics of modern and extinct shell-crushing arthropods shows remarkable similarities between the feeding structures of the modern American horseshoe crab and the 508-million-year-old Sidneyia inexpectans from British Columbia’s Burgess Shale. This biomechanical […]
Glass sponge persistence under climate change
PLOS One Published October 24, 2018 14:00 EDT (News release from PLOS) The unique glass sponge Vazella pourtalesi off Nova Scotia, is distributed in an area that experiences strong historical variability in temperature and salinity. The persistence of this species in the face of this climatic variability possibly indicates how it will response to future climate […]
Navigating the moral rules of the road for a future of driverless cars
Nature Published October 24, 2018 13:00 EDT (News release from Nature Research Press) Results from a worldwide online survey reveal global moral preferences for how driverless cars should decide who to spare in unavoidable accidents. Many shared preferences exist, including sparing the largest number of lives, prioritizing the young, and valuing humans over animals, while ethics […]
How Salmonella tricks the human immune system
Cell Reports Published October 23, 2018 11:00 EDT (News release from McMaster University) By comparing two Salmonella strains – one that causes disease in humans and the other in reptiles – researchers discovered another method bacteria use to evade the human immune system and promote infection. Although the two bacteria share most of their genes, researchers found […]
SMCC Heads Up | October 23, 2018
Moral machines | El Niño–owl predation | Salmonella tricks | SMCC Heads Up – Embargoed and recently published research with a Canadian focus, curated by SMCC for science journalists. Read more>
Climate change may worsen bumblebee decline
Nature Scientific Reports Published October 18, 2018 09:00 EDT (News release from Nature Research Press) Researchers used previous patterns of bumblebee range changes and bumblebee queen dispersal rates to model potential changes in their ranges under different future climate scenarios. All results suggest that bumblebee species will significantly decline further across much of North America, with […]
Urban rats eat more protein
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Published October 17, 2018 17:01 EDT (Brief from the Royal Society) Rats are one of the most successful and prolific pests in human society, yet rat behaviour in cities remains poorly understood. Analysis of diets of 19th-century rats from Toronto show that rats in cities have significantly different […]
Wing veins help butterflies’ hearing
Biology Letters published October 17, 2018 17:01 EDT (Brief from the Royal Society) A distinguishing feature of a diverse group of butterflies called the Satyrini is a conspicuous swelling on their forewings. Using the Common Wood-Nymph as a representative Satyrini, researchers reveal that these butterflies have ears on their forewings that are sensitive to low-frequency sounds. The […]
Long-term data probe tree swallow declines
The Condor: Ornithological Applications: two papers Published October 17, 2018 09:00 EDT (News release from the American Ornithological Society) Long-term Canadian data reveal how demographic factors contribute to declining populations of tree swallows, which hunt insects while flying. In Ontario, drops in overwinter survival and the rate at which chicks successfully left the nest drove the […]
Le cannabis sous l’angle de la science et des effets sur la santé
LE CANNABIS SERA LÉGAL AU CANADA À COMPTER DU 17 OCTOBRE 2018. À la suite de ce changement, les adultes pourront cultiver (dans la plupart des provinces), acheter et posséder de petites quantités de cannabis à usage récréatif et les partager avec d’autres adultes. Le gouvernement fédéral a fixé à 18 ans l’âge minimal pour […]
BACKGROUNDER: Health Effects And Science Of Cannabis
As of today, possession of cannabis is legal in Canada for the first time since 1923. But there remain major gaps and a lack of consensus around what we actually know in several key areas. The science is far from settled when it comes to cannabis use and its implications for personal health and public […]
Smell and spatial memory share brain hardware
Nature Communications Published October 16, 2018 11:00 EDT (News release from Nature Research Press) Of 57 volunteers, participants who did well in a test to identify odours performed better when they were asked to navigate between landmarks in a virtual town. Brain imaging revealed that increased thickness of the left medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and volume […]
New reservoir computer advances AI
Journal of Applied Physics Published October 16, 2018 11:00 EDT (News release from American Institute of Physics) Researchers have constructed the first reservoir computing device using a microelectromechanical system (MEMS). The device is a virtual neural network that physically mimics the human brain, allowing the network to perform the highly complex calculations required by emerging artificial […]
SMCC Heads Up | October 16, 2018
Cannabis research | Butterfly ears | New tech for AI | SMCC Heads Up – Embargoed and recently published research with a Canadian focus, curated by SMCC for science journalists. Read more>
Smallest diplodocid dinosaur skull provides clues about sauropod life
Scientific Reports Published October 11, 2018 09:00 EDT (News release from Nature Research Press) The smallest skull yet discovered of a long-necked dinosaur ― with a total cranial length of approximately 24 centimetres ― suggests young sauropods may have had different diets, shown different physical features, and lived in separate groups from their parents. Compared to […]
