The exchange of chemical signals between organisms is considered the oldest form of communication.

Acting as messenger molecules, pheromones regulate social interactions between conspecifics, for example, the sexual attraction between males and females. Fish rely on pheromones to trigger social responses and to coordinate reproductive behavior in males and females.

Astrophysicists have detected the formation of radioactive cobalt during a supernova explosion, lending credence to a corresponding theory of supernova explosions. 

The article's main author, Yevgeny Churazov (Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences), and  co-authors, including Sergei Sazonov of the Space Research Institute and MIPT, reported the results of their analysis of data collected with the INTEGRAL gamma-ray orbital telescope, which they used to detect the radioactive isotope cobalt-56(56Co).

The rise of the Tibetan plateau, the largest topographic anomaly above sea level on Earth, is important for both its profound effect on climate and its reflection of continental dynamics.

For a new study, Katharine Huntington and colleagues employed a cutting-edge geochemical tool - "clumped" isotope thermometry - using modern and fossil snail shells to investigate the uplift history of the Zhada basin in southwestern Tibet. 

Using the Borexino instrument, located deep beneath Italy's Apennine Mountains and one of the most sensitive neutrino detectors on the planet, an international team of physicists has directly detected neutrinos created by the "keystone" proton-proton (pp) fusion process going on at the sun's core. 

The pp reaction is the first step of a reaction sequence responsible for about 99 percent of the Sun's power. Solar neutrinos are produced in nuclear processes and radioactive decays of different elements during fusion reactions at the Sun's core. These particles stream out of the star at nearly the speed of light, as many as 420 billion hitting every square inch of the Earth's surface per second. 

Why wild animals genetically changed into domesticated forms has long been a mystery, covered by the blanket artificial selection reasoning.

A new paper in Science says that many genes controlling the development of the brain and the nervous system were particularly important for rabbit domestication. 

Until the last few decades, the frontal lobes of the brain were shrouded in mystery and erroneously thought of as nonessential for normal function—hence the frequent use of lobotomies in the early 20th century to treat psychiatric disorders. A review in Neuron highlights studies of patients with brain damage that reveal how distinct areas of the frontal lobes are critical for a person's ability to learn, multitask, control their emotions, socialize, and make real-life decisions.