science news 10.4.2020

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 in italics in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about. My own thoughts appear without italics if I have any.


evolution

Ancient teeth from Peru hint now-extinct monkeys crossed Atlantic from Africa
Four fossilized monkey teeth discovered deep in the Peruvian Amazon provide new evidence that more than one group of ancient primates journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. The teeth are from a newly discovered species belonging to an extinct family of African primates known as parapithecids. Fossils discovered at the same site in Peru had earlier offered the first proof that South American monkeys evolved from African primates.


ecology

Black rhinos eavesdrop on the alarm calls of hitchhiking oxpeckers to avoid humans
The kind of story where I read the headline and know it must be in Current Biology (the next one below as well).



This image shows a red-billed oxpecker (called Askari wa kifaru or the rhino's guard) alarm calling on the ear and head of a black rhino in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa
Credit: Jed Bird


How do mantis shrimp find their way home?
New research in Current Biology indicates mantis shrimp use path integration to find their way back to their burrows after leaving to seek food or mates. That means they can track their distance and direction from their starting point. A series of creative experiments revealed that to do that, they rely on a hierarchy of cues from the sun, polarized light patterns, and their internal senses.


conservation

Canada lynx disappearing from Washington state


nanoworld

Research sheds light on how silver ions kill bacteria


humans

Archaeology: Ancient string discovery sheds light on Neanderthal life
The discovery of the oldest known direct evidence of fiber technology -- using natural fibers to create yarn -- is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The finding furthers our understanding of the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals during the Middle Palaeolithic period (30,000-300,000 years ago).

Aha! + Aaaah: Creative insight triggers a neural reward signal


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From the news media:


How New Zealand kept Covid-19 under control. Other very exemplary stories I've read came from Iceland (where the chief epidemiologist raised the alarm after several ski tourists returning from Ischgl tested positive - it took Austria all of 2 weeks to close the place down, as returning visitors continued to spread the virus across Europe) and from Faroe Islands. Just one island-based country that failed spectacularly on this account.