The Latest Breaking News from PLoS Biology

The NIH Plan To Strengthen 'Replication and Reproducibility' Will Not Check Anything

The world’s largest research funder asked its grantees whether it should audit them. Guess what they said.

Reason · 5h ago

The Mirror Test: Which Animals Pass, Which Fail, and What It Reveals About Animal Intelligence and Consciousness

What the Mirror Test Actually IsGordon Gallup Jr. put a chimpanzee in front of a mirror in 1970 and watched it do something no researcher had documented before: the chimp used the reflection to inspect parts of its own body it could not otherwise see, the inside of its mouth,…

Times Life · Sep 27

Bumblebee Social Learning: How Insects Solved a Puzzle and Taught Other Bees Without Any Instruction

What the experiment actually testedA bumblebee given a two-step puzzle box, one that required rotating a red tab before a second disc could be pushed aside to reach a sugar reward, had no prior experience with either step. Given enough time alone, most bees failed. Bees that watched a trained…

Times Life · Aug 16

This strange bacteria aligns to Earth's magnetic field and needs friends to survive

A unique type of bacteria appears to have social groups — left alone, they'd die.

Space · May 2, 2025

New drug target to prevent Ebola found

Scientists have found a new way in which Ebola reproduces in the human body, how it interacts with a human protein called ubiquitin and have thus identified a potential target for drugs to prevent the viral disease. The deadly virus affects people mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. "We used a combination…

The Times of India · Mar 18, 2024

Watch the world through different animals' eyes in this stunning high-tech footage

Cameras recorded footage in red, blue, green and UV channels simultaneously, with openly available software processing the raw footage and converting it into different kinds of "animal vision," showing us how bees, birds, mice and dogs might see the world.

LiveScience · Jan 23, 2024

Research shows sniffing women's tears lessens aggressive behaviour in men

According to new research published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, tears from women contain molecules that reduce violence in men. Read further on Dynamite News:

Dynamite News · Dec 23, 2023

Crafty Chimps Use Hilltops For Reconnaissance In Rival Territory

Chimpanzees Display Strategic Military Tactics in New Research

Zenger · Nov 2, 2023

Listen to Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall,' as decoded from human brain waves

Researchers reconstructed recognizable snippets of the classic Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall" using listeners' recorded brain activity.

LiveScience · Aug 16, 2023

Non-native English speaking scientists work much harder just to keep up, global research reveals

These days it’s necessary to have at least a basic level of English proficiency in most research contexts. But at the same time, our collective emphasis on English places a significant burden on scientists who speak a different first language.

The Conversation · Jul 18, 2023