Females select the 'right' sperm to fertilize their eggs when faced with the risk of being fertilized by wrong sperm from a different species and researchers recently set out to investigate salmon and trout, which fertilize externally in river water, because the two species occasionally hybridize in the wild.

Since hybrid offspring become reproductive dead-ends, females of both species are under selection to avoid hybrid fertilizations, and instead promote external fertilization by their own species' sperm.

Monitoring slow earthquakes may provide the basis for reliable prediction in areas where slow quakes trigger normal earthquakes.

Geoscientists looked at the mechanisms behind slow earthquakes and found that 60 seconds before slow stick slip began in their laboratory samples, a precursor signal appeared. 

Normal stick slip earthquakes typically move at a rate of three to 33 feet per second, but slow earthquakes, while they still stick and slip for movement, move at rates of about 0.004 inches per second taking months or more to rupture. However, slow earthquakes often occur near traditional earthquake zones and may precipitate potentially devastating earthquakes.

A 160 million-year-old fossil of an extinct rodent-like creature from China has been identified as Rugosodon eurasiaticus and is helping to explain how multituberculates, the most evolutionarily successful and long-lived mammalian lineage in the fossil record, achieved their dominance.

Rugosodon eurasiaticus is currently the oldest ancestor in the multituberculate family tree. The nearly complete skeleton provides critical insights into the traits that helped such multituberculates thrive in their day. For example, the fossil reveals teeth that were adapted to gnawing plants and animals alike, as well as ankle joints that were highly adept at rotation.

Researchers writing in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology suggest that incubating retinal cells with vegetable oils induces biochemical and biophysical changes in the cell membrane, which may have a beneficial effect in preventing or slowing the development of retinopathy.

Dysfunction of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells is found in retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness of elderly people in developed countries. 

Astronomers have discovered a pulsar at the center of our Milky Way and this magnetar -  a pulsar with extremely high magnetic fields of the order of 100 million (10⁸) Tesla, about 1,000 times stronger than the magnetic fields of ordinary neutron stars - and its extremely strong magnetic field enabled researchers to investigate the direct vicinity of the black hole at the heart of the galaxy. 

They measured the strength of the magnetic field around this central source and were able to show that the latter is fed by magnetic fields. These control the inflow of mass into the black hole, also explaining the x-ray emissions of this gravity trap.

'Family annihilators', where the male parent murders the family, are most prevalent in August.

That doesn't mean much, it is too rare a crime to have a lot of data and when there are 12 months in the year, one month is going to be first, but the first ever study of British ‘family annihilators’ uses that and similar facts over three decades of cases to create four new types of 'annihilator'.