A recently discovered fly, Endaphis fugitiva, may be the first known parasitic insect that is able to escape a host that is under attack from predators. When researchers injured the fly’s host — called the banana aphid — or let brown lacewings attack the aphids, the fly larvae broke out of the aphid’s body (see video).
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Charles Darwin may have had his biggest impact on biology, but he began his scientific career as a geologist. So it’s appropriate that earlier this year, retired geologist John Ramsay, who had long studied the famed biologist’s life, accepted a commission to compose a Darwin-themed string quartet.
Performed by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, Ramsay’s composition premiered in Cambridge, U.K., during the Darwin Festival on 7 July 2009. The Darwin Quartet gave its second performance late last month during the triennial Cambridge Music Festival. The two festivals jointly commissioned the piece, and Ramsay hopes the Fitzwilliam Quartet will record the composition next year.
Read the rest of this story at Science Magazine’s Origins blog: [html]
They may seem a little unsettling but the staring eyes of this female avatar were designed to grab your gaze and hold it, and also to obligingly follow where you look. By performing these actions with people placed inside a brain scanner, she has helped to demonstrate that guiding the gazes of others activates different brain areas than following.
An ambitious effort to develop Spanish universities into campuses that are among Europe’s best has stoked some long-standing regional rivalries.
On 26 November, the government announced which universities would benefit from the inaugural round of an annual programme called the Campus of International Excellence, administered jointly by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Education. The €150-million (US$226-million) scheme is designed to steer resources, in the form of government seed money and loans, to the strategic infrastructure projects with the most potential to aid teaching and research.
Read the entire news story on Nature.com [html] or here [pdf]