ScienceDaily: Top Science News

Flies have discriminating taste. Like a gourmet perusing a menu, they spend much of their time seeking sweet nutritious calories and avoiding bitter, potentially toxic food. But what happens in their brains when they make these food choices? Researchers discovered an interesting way to find out. They tricked them.

Neuroscientists have demonstrated in new research that dopamine plays a key role in how songbirds learn complex new sounds.

A new study disputes the prevailing hypothesis on why Mercury has a big core relative to its mantle. For decades, scientists argued that hit-and-run collisions blew away much of Mercury's rocky mantle and left the big, dense, metal core inside. But new research reveals that collisions are not to blame -- instead, the density, mass and iron content of a rocky planet's core is influenced by its distance from the sun's magnetic field.

In COVID-19 patients whose symptoms were mild, researchers found that they were more likely than sicker patients to have signs of prior infection by similar, less virulent coronaviruses.

Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the environment are 'the rational policy response.'

Our brains have sensory cells, which process the faces that we see, and memory cells dedicated to storing data from person encounters. But until now, a hybrid neuron capable of linking vision to memory -- and explaining how we recall familiar faces -- remained elusive.

Last August, sea ice north of Greenland showed its vulnerability to the long-term effects of climate change. The region, part of what's known as the 'Last Ice Area' that could serve as a refuge for ice-dependent species, may be ice-free in summertime sooner than expected.

Our universe is expanding, but our two main ways to measure how fast this expansion is happening have resulted in different answers. An astronomer gives an overview of the most recent observations. New conclusion: the latest observations are beginning to close the gap. That is, there may not be a conflict after all, and our standard model of the universe does not need to be significantly modified.