Steven Elmlinger from Princeton University has studied human infants and zebra finches to understand how immature babbling transitions into adultlike speech. He and his colleagues found that human caregiver responses to sequential vocalizations significantly increased the rate at which infants learned to produce those sequences. Elmlinger repeated this experiment with zebra finches, with the same finding. He will present this work as part of the 190th ASA Meeting.

Tree shade is one of the fastest ways to make heat more bearable. It cuts direct sunlight, protects people walking or working outdoors, and remains essential for Heat Action Plans. A new study, published in Nature Communications by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), adds a sharper planning question: if greening is so important, why does the same strategy cool some urban areas more reliably than others?

Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and Helmholtz Munich have developed RegVelo, a new AI framework that predicts how cells acquire their identities and identifies the genetic regulators guiding those changes. Published in Cell, the study used zebrafish neural crest development to show RegVelo can uncover early drivers of cell fate, including regulators of pigment cell formation, and then support those predictions experimentally. The researchers also applied the framework across multiple biological systems, suggesting its value extends beyond neural crest cells as a broadly useful tool for studying how cells change over time. The team says the new model could pave the way for future cell therapy treatments.