A new study in Engineering details the development of a wearable stethoscope with a Lung–Sound–Monitoring–Patch (LSMP). It can monitor lung sounds in real-time, detect wheezing automatically using an AI algorithm, and has shown promising results in different patient groups, offering a new way for respiratory disease monitoring.

For the first time, a study led by University of Oxford researchers has ‘listened in’ to the fascinating courtship displays of Fiddler crabs using geophones. The findings, published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology, provide new insights into how the animals communicate effectively on the noisy seashore.

In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned "Silent Spring," alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds – the bald eagle in particular – that spurred people to action.

Six decades later, Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers are taking the measure of another global environmental pollutant by drawing parallels to the crisis Carson identified. This time, the pollutant is mercury, and the sentinels are penguins living in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

“With mercury, there’s an analogy to DDT,” said John Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and co-author of a study published in Science of the Total Environment examining mercury levels in the flightless, aquatic birds.

Comprehensive reference genomes have now been assembled for six ape species: siamang (a Southeast Asian gibbon), Sumatran orangutan, Bornean orangutan, gorilla, bonobo and chimpanzee. Areas of their genomes previously inaccessible because of structural complexity have now mostly been resolved.  The resource is already lending itself to comparative studies that offer new insights into human and ape evolution, and into what underlies the functional differences among these species.