Biology

October 30, 2020

The Secret Life of Plant Roots, and Why This Matters for Climate Change

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The brown, black and white Bengalese finch doesn’t rely on colorful signals when choosing a mate. Consequently, when presented with a color-perception test that their colorful cousins ace, they seem to pay more attention to brightness than hue. Stanbalik

October 28, 2020

Dull-Colored Birds Don’t See The World Like Bright Birds Do

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SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, appears to have evolved silent changes to its RNA code that gave it a biological edge over previous strains. Credit: Felipe Esquivel Reed

October 15, 2020

'Silent' Mutations Gave the Coronavirus an Evolutionary Edge

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October 12, 2020

Why Biology Matters

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October 7, 2020

Check This Out! One Cell Eating Another

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Grooming is a baboon’s way of bonding. A 35-year study of more than 540 wild baboons in Kenya links strong social bonds to better chances of survival. Photo by Susan Alberts, Duke University.

September 21, 2020

Male Baboons With Female Friends Live Longer

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Born to rule and rarely challenged, alpha female baboons have lower levels of stress hormones than their dominant male counterparts or other females. Photo by Matthew Zipple, Duke University.

September 9, 2020

Baboon Matriarchs Enjoy Less Stress

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August 24, 2020

Meet the Team Powering Duke’s COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Efforts

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Starting this week, as part of Duke's strategy, around 2,000 self-administered COVID-19 tests will be completed by a cross-section of Duke undergraduate students on campus. Photo by Jared Lazarus, University Communications

August 19, 2020

Keeping a Close Watch on COVID-19 with Surveillance Tests

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The dawn chorus of birdsong may be a warm-up routine that helps birds meet the physical demands of singing and deliver their best performance later in the day. Photo by Robert Lachlan, Royal Holloway, University of London

August 18, 2020

Songbirds, Like People, Sing Better After Warming Up

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Strategic networking, dolphin-style: young dolphins seek out peers and activities that will help get them where they need to go, finds a new study. Photo by Madison Miketa, PhD, Shark Bay Dolphin Project.

July 23, 2020

Young Dolphins Pick Their Friends Wisely

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This deep-sea dragonfish has ultra-black skin capable of absorbing the bioluminescent light that might blow its cover. Photo by Karen Osborn, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

July 16, 2020

Ultra-Black Skin Allows Some Fish to Lurk Unseen

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David Sherwood studies worms

July 14, 2020

Why Do You Study That? Worms

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Protein molecules move within a stable scaffolding in the sheet-like mesh that surrounds and supports most animal tissues. By A. Kawska.

July 7, 2020

Glowing Worms Provide Live-Action Movies of the Body’s Internal Scaffolding

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Some fish shine lights in their own eyes for better disguise. Image courtesy of Alex Davis and Duke SMIF.

June 11, 2020

Lights in the Eyes for Better Disguise

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Duke students Anmol Warman ’22 and Pranav Warman ’20 have trained a computer to spot the telltale signs of COVID-19 in lung scans and rule out other infections that look similar to the human eye.

May 31, 2020

Duke Students Taught a Computer to Detect COVID-19 in Lung Scans

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