Even buried in the ocean floor, fish may not stand a chance against a hungry bottlenose dolphin. Dolphins have keen vision, an exceptional sense of hearing—and they can sense electric fields emitted by their prey, according to new research.

Researchers at Nuremberg Zoo and University of Rostock, Germany teamed up to find out just how sensitive these marine mammals are to electric fields. The results may explain how dolphins detect hidden fish at close range and even provide clues as to why the animals sometimes strand themselves on beaches.

Read the whole story at my Animal Minds blog: Bottlenose Dolphins Sense Electricity.

The lack of female representation in preclinical biomedical research has resulted in gaps in our medical knowledge, with important consequences for women’s health. In the past decade, efforts to remedy this historic exclusion have increased, but opportunities remain to make basic biomedical research more equitable, reproducible, and applicable to all people.

Read my latest article for IEEE Pulse: Considering Sex in Biomedical Research.

Striated caracaras, members of the falcon family native to the south Atlantic, are known for their curiosity and playfulness. How do these “feathered monkeys” stack up against tool-using parrots on tests of problem-solving?

Read more at my Animal Minds blog: Meet the Falcons That Act Like Parrots.

Over the last 30 years, it has become clear that genetics drives a substantial proportion of risk for Parkinson’s disease. Research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to shape our mechanistic understanding of Parkinson’s and contribute to emerging therapeutics that might slow or stop the progression of this disease.

Read the fact sheet from the American Society of Human Genetics: Understanding the Genetics of Parkinson's Disease.

What does it take to survive an ice age? Woolly mammoths may be extinct today, but they thrived and spread around the world during the late Pleistocene era. To see what genetic adaptations separated woolly mammoths from their modern-day elephant relatives, researchers analyzed the genomes of 23 woolly mammoths, including one of the oldest specimens ever discovered.

Read the article at the Science Journal for Kids: What made woolly mammoths ice age icons?