EurekAlert! News by Subject: Biology - News by Subject: Biology

Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 29-Jan-2026 07:11 ET (29-Jan-2026 12:11 GMT/UTC)

Hearing angry or happy human voices is linked to changes in dogs’ balance

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a small study, dogs experienced both stabilization and destabilization of their balance upon hearing angry or happy human voices, but angry voices were linked to the biggest destabilizing effects. Nadja Affenzeller and colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on January 28, 2026.

Journal: PLOS One

Microplastics are found in a third of surveyed fish off the coasts of remote Pacific Islands

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A third of fish living in the remote coastal waters of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories are contaminated with microplastics, with especially high rates in Fiji, according to an analysis publishing January 28, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Jasha Dehm at the University of the South Pacific and colleagues.

Journal: PLOS One

New perspectives on how physical instabilities drive embryonic development: A Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life study

Technische Universität Dresden
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Multicellularity is one of the most profound phenomena in biology, and relies on the ability of a single cell to reorganize itself into a complex organism. It underpins the diversity in the animal kingdom, from insects to frogs, to humans. But how do cells establish and maintain their individuality with such precision? A team led by Jan Brugués at the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) at Dresden University of Technology has uncovered fundamental mechanisms that shed light on this question. The findings, now published in the scientific journal Nature, reveal how cells establish physical boundaries through an inherently unstable process, and how different species have evolved distinct strategies to circumvent this process.

Journal: Nature
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Human Frontier Science Program, European Molecular Biology Organization, European Research Council, NIH/National Institutes of Health

Using AI to uncover the secret lives of fungi

Northern Arizona University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by Northern Arizona University doctoral student Beatrice M. Bock used a specialized language model called BioBERT to develop an automated workflow that assesses scientific abstracts using AI and accurately identifies whether a fungus has a single lifestyle or a dual, flexible one. Understanding the flexibility of fungi could play a vital role in predicting how forests and farms will react to climate change.

Journal: Research Ideas and Outcomes

Huayuan biota decodes Earth’s first Phanerozoic mass extinction

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

While paleontologists have uncovered dozens of such Cambrian soft-bodied fossil sites—including China's early Cambrian Chengjiang biota in Yunnan and Canada's middle Cambrian Burgess Shale biota, the most famous examples of their kind—no equivalent top-tier soft-bodied fossil deposit had ever been found from the critical post-Sinsk Event time interval.

That changed over the past five years, however, with the discovery of the Huayuan biota—a world-class soft-bodied fossil deposit dating to shortly after the Sinsk Event. The deposit, located in Huayuan County, Hunan Province, was identified by a research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), whose findings were published in Nature on January 28.

Journal: Nature
Funder: National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China

Corals sleep like us, but their symbiosis does not rest

Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint research center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has revealed that corals also sleep, despite them not having a nervous system, while their microbiome remains awake.

Journal: Cell Host & Microbe

Life-course psychosocial stress and risk of dementia and stroke in middle-aged and older adults

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this cohort study, exposure to adverse experiences throughout life was associated with increased risks of dementia and stroke, with depression mediating these associations. These findings highlight the importance of implementing life-course interventions that address both psychological trauma and mental health to reduce the burden of neurovascular diseases.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

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