A new global study into heartworm points to a new evolutionary paradigm, where ancient canid hosts such as wolves and dingoes played a pivotal role in shaping the global distribution of heartworms over tens of thousands of years.

A decade-long study led by Penguin Watch¹, at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, has uncovered a record shift in the breeding season of Antarctic penguins, likely in response to climate change. These changes threaten to disrupt penguins’ access to food and increase interspecies competition. The results have been published today (20 January - World Penguin Awareness Day) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

In 1982, cartoonist Gary Larson published a now-iconic Far Side comic entitled Cow Tools. In it, a cow stands proudly beside a jumble of bizarre, useless objects that are “tools” in name only. The joke hinged on a simple assumption: cows are not intelligent enough to make or use tools. Now, this assumption is being challenged by a real cow named Veronika, according to a new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 19. This study is the first to describe tool use in a pet cow, suggesting that the cognitive abilities of cattle have been underestimated.  

An international team of scientists, led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), has discovered a new way that could speed up the healing of chronic wounds infected by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Published in Science Advances, the study done with collaborators at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, shows how a common bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), actively prevents wound healing. The team also demonstrated how neutralising this biological process can allow skin cells to recover and close wounds.

Histamine is widely known for its role in allergic reactions but also functions as a key neurotransmitter in the brain, where its activity is tightly regulated by the histamine H₃ receptor (H₃R). In a recent study, researchers from Japan investigated the intricacies of how specific amino acid mutations alter H₃R signaling. Their findings reveal a close link between spontaneous receptor activation and structural destabilization, offering key insights for designing drugs for various brain disorders.