Males rule in most of the animal world. But when it comes to conventional gender roles, lemurs -- distant primate cousins of ours -- buck the trend. Lemur girls behave more like boys, thanks to a little testosterone.

Swedish clinicians recently reported the first live birth after uterus transplantation, which was followed by two more uneventful births and another pregnancy that is near term.

In a new Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica commentary, one of the leaders behind these successes, Professor Mats Brannström, provides insights into how the Swedish uterus transplant project was initiated and its long research journey that spans over more than a decade. The first clinical uterus transplantation trial, which enrolled nine women, was initiated in early 2013 and is currently ongoing.

The preliminary results of the trial offer hope for women who lack a uterus--either from birth or due to a hysterectomy--or whose uterus is not functional.

Toxins known as perfluoroalkyl substances have become virtually ubiquitous throughout the environment, and various national and international voluntary phase-outs and restrictions on these compounds have been implemented over the last 10 to 15 years.

Investigators who examined trends in the accumulation of these toxins in the eggs of four species of aquatic birds from the Pacific coast of Canada from the early 1990s to 2011 report that the concentrations of some of these compounds are decreasing in line with manufacturing phase-outs, while others continue to increase in the oceanic environment.

Concentrations of different perfluoroalkyl substances also varied between offshore and coastal species of birds.

Male Callosobruchus chinensis seed beetles have spines on their genitalia, which increase their fertilization success but injure a female’s reproductive tract—especially a female of a related species called Callosobruchus maculatus.

New research indicates that such harmful male genitalia can diminish the reproductive success of competing species and may play an important role in interspecies competition, with considerable demographic and evolutionary consequences.

“Harmful male genitalia and consequent fitness loss in heterospecific females may be one of the mechanisms by which closely related species pairs are often prevented from local coexistence,” said Dr. Daisuke Kyogok, lead author of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology study.

Liquid metal electronics like antennas are intriguing because the shape and length of the conducting paths that form an antenna determine its critical properties such as operating frequency and radiation pattern. Using a liquid metal, such as eutectic gallium and indium, allows for modification of antenna properties more dramatically than is possible with a fixed conductor. 

But a significant and unfortunate drawback slowing the advance of such devices is that they tend to require external pumps that can't be easily integrated into electronic systems, so North Carolina State University researchers set out to create a reconfigurable liquid metal antenna controlled by voltage only.

Objections to automated driving seem a little silly, since millions of lives are lost in car accidents and human error is estimated to cause more than 90% of them.

It may just be fear of the unknown, the same precautionary principle that makes people worry about having a Twitter login or be concerned about vaccines or GMOs.

Regardless of the reasons for concern, it is a giant error to assume that data and reason will win out, as science has learned painfully about energy, medicine, food and pollution. Trust may instead be established in less direct ways and a recent paper argues that a virtual driver programmed to resemble the human driver could increase the level of trust and acceptance in smart cars.