science news 22.8.2019

Today's selection of science news. Links are normally to press releases on EurekAlert (at the bottom end I may also add a couple of newspaper stories). I include quotes from the summary (using quotation marks) in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about. My own thoughts appear without quotation marks, if I have any.


evolution

20-million-year-old skull suggests complex brain evolution in monkeys, apes


ecology

Environmental DNA proves the expansion of invasive crayfish habitats


light and life

Separate polarization and brightness channels give crabs the edge over predators



This is the fiddler crab Afruca tangeri.
Credit: Kate Feller, University of Minnesota


humans

Nordic Bronze Age attracted wide variety of migrants to Denmark

Earliest evidence of artificial cranial deformation in Croatia during 5th-6th century