Bits of Bennu have building blocks of life

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission took six years to travel to the asteroid Bennu and return samples to Earth. Now, the first results from the analysis of these rocks are being released. Researchers found evidence of salty water, as well as the elements necessary for life, such as amino acids and the building blocks for RNA and DNA. We spoke with Kim Tait, senior curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and co-author of one of the recent studies, published in the journal Nature.

Unlocking the secret of Polar bear de-icing

Polar bears spend so much time going in and out of the water that they are considered marine mammals. So when they do this in the frozen Arctic, why are they not covered in ice? A new study reveals the secret turns out to lie in the unique oils they produce that covers their white fur. Julian Carolan, a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin, worked with scientists in Norway, Denmark and the U.K. on this paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Truffle-hunting dog finds fabulous new fungus

A chance discovery has turned out to reveal a new species of North American truffle. These fungi can be desirable and valuable delicacies. An American truffle hunter, Lois Martin, and her  trained dog Monza found a distinctive truffle in a city park that turned out to be a fungus new to science. Although native to North America, it was more similar to European truffles than any found in the Americas. Dr. Greg Bonito at Michigan State University named this new truffle Tuber canirevelatum,  meaning the ‘dog-found’ truffle in honour of Monza and other dogs who look for truffles. The work was published in the journal Mycologia.  

Voiding your bowels can improve cognitive performance

To maximize your cognitive function, it might be a good idea to make sure you have a poo first. That’s according to a recent study in the journal Sports Medicine and Health Science. In it, scientists found that 9 out of 13 individuals improved how well they did in a mentally taxing cognitive test if they defecated first, whereas all 13 of them improved in their performance when they took a mild laxative the night before. Chia-Hua Kuo, a professor of sports medicine and nutrition at the University of Taipei, said they also saw an increase in oxygen consumption in the test subjects’ subnavel regions as they were doing the test, suggesting a previously unsuspected link between the rectum and the brain. 

Saving species on Earth, preserving them on the moon

The world is in a biodiversity crisis. We’re losing species at an unprecedented rate, thanks to climate change, habitat loss, overexploitation and more. We look at some of the more out-of-the-box solutions that are currently in the works – from creating an internet of animals to monitor biodiversity, to saving samples of Earth’s biological resources on the moon.

We spoke with:

Martin Wikelski, the director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, honorary professor of ornithology at the University of Konstanz, and the scientific head of the ICARUS project.

Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and senior author of a recent paper published in the journal Bioscience proposing a passive biorepository on the moon.