Researchers use the Drosophila fly as a model for Mosaic Variegated Aneuploidy (MVA) syndrome.

Errors in chromosome division impair the viability of neural stem cells.

Restoring mitochondrial function makes it possible to restore brain size.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers reconstructed clutches of oviraptors, bird-like but flightless dinosaurs that lived between 70 and 66 million years ago, to simulate heat transfer and infer hatching patterns in their clutches. They found that these dinosaurs didn’t hatch their eggs in the same way modern birds do. In addition to sitting on them, they likely used the sun as a co-incubator. The team pointed out that this method – although less efficient than the brooding of modern birds – wasn’t necessarily better or worse, but may have been a unique adaptation to the environment these dinosaurs lived in and could represent a step between semi-buried and fully-exposed styles of incubation.

Bull sharks form social relationships with specific “friends”, new research reveals.

After creating tiny biological “robots” or biobots, scientists have taken the quest to reimagine life forms a step further, adding nerve cells and observing how they self-organize and alter biobot behavior. The resulting neurobots take on new shapes and show unique behaviors. The researcher seek to understand the rules of self-organization for the nervous system, and ultimately how to work with those rules to guide neurons to new structures in the lab or restore existing tissues in the body.