ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Octopuses can solve complex puzzles and show a preference for different individuals, but whether they, and other animals and invertebrates, have emotions is being hotly debated and could shake up humans' moral decision-making, says an expert in animal minds. Most countries don't recognize invertebrates, such as octopuses, crabs, lobsters and crayfish, as sentient beings that can feel pain, but the United Kingdom is considering amendments to its animal welfare legislation that would recognize this.

Five grams of plastic particles on average enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person per week. This is roughly equivalent to the weight of a credit card. Whether ingested micro- and nanoplastics pose a health risk is being investigated in numerous studies but is largely unknown to date. A research team has now summarized the current state of scientific knowledge.

Allied male bottlenose dolphins maintain weaker yet vital social relationships with whistle exchanges, researchers have found.

Drinking coffee -- particularly two to three cups a day -- is not only associated with a lower risk of heart disease and dangerous heart rhythms but also with living longer, according to recent studies. These trends held true for both people with and without cardiovascular disease. Researchers said the analyses -- the largest to look at coffee's potential role in heart disease and death -- provide reassurance that coffee isn't tied to new or worsening heart disease and may actually be heart protective.

Public health experts have long been concerned by the emergence of so-called 'superbugs' -- existing bacterial, viral, or fungal pathogens that have evolved to evade the antibiotics, antivirals and antifungals developed to kill them. The scope and severity of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the urgent need for a co-ordinated global response are the subjects of a new paper, co-authored by 25 scholars.

Scientists who helped to pioneer the use of enzymes to eat plastic have taken an important next step in developing nature-based solutions to the global plastics crisis. They have characterized an enzyme that has the remarkable capacity to help break down terephthalate (TPA), one of the chemical building blocks of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, which is used to make single-use drinks bottles, clothing and carpets.