OK, it’s been a while since we did this feature, but it’s back now – and it’s here to stay. This is where we take a look back at the past week, discussing the most interesting studies and the researchers behind them.

Bees have false memories too

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Featured Researcher: Lars Chittka
Affiliation: Chittka Lab, Queen Mary University of London
Research Interests: His work is focused around the intersection between sensory physiology and learning psychology on the one hand, and evolutionary ecology on the other. Why do animals have the sensory systems they do? How do they use them in their natural foraging environment? These are the questions he wants to answer.

Rats Remember Who’s Nice to Them—and Return the Favor

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Featured Researcher: Michael Taborsky
Affiliation: Bern University
Research Interests: His major research focus is the adaptive function of behaviour, with emphasis on cooperation and conflict, sociality and sexual reproduction

Ancient and Modern cities grow by the same universal patterns

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Featured Researcher: Scott Ortman
Affiliation: University of Colorado Boulder
Research Interests: Professor Ortman’s research includes an emphasis on archaeology and language and the compilation and analysis of regional archaeological datasets. He is currently focusing on the role of culture in economic development in the Northern Rio Grande.

Ocean oscillation patterns explain global warming ‘hiatus’

Byron Steinman (left) and Michael Mann (right).

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Featured Researchers: Byron Steinman; Michael Mann.
Affiliation: University of Minnesota Duluth; Penn State University
Research Interests: Byron Steinman’s research interests are isotope geochemistry of lake water and sediment for application to paleoclimatology, as well as numerical modeling of lakes and ancient pollution and land use in lake / catchment systems. Michael E. Mann has shown that downscaling of climate model projections can inform malaria risk at finer scales than the original model resolutions. He is a professor of meteorology and also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

Science shows why coffee spills but beer doesn’t

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Featured Researcher: Alban Sauret
Affiliation: SVI laboratory
Research Interests: His current research addresses various problems related to fluid mechanics, granular materials, suspensions and soft matter. It generally involves a combination of experiments, analytical modelling and numerical simulations.

Marijuana is much safer than tobacco and alcohol, study concludes

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Featured Researcher: Dirk W. Lachenmeier
Affiliation: CVUA Karlsruhe, TU Dresden
Research Interests: Multi-facetted interdisciplinary research interests span from analytical food science and toxicology to epidemiology and risk assessment. Social science interests include regulatory and policy research. Major work in the field of quantitative comparative risk assessment of foods, cosmetics, medicinal products, drugs and alcoholic beverages.

Ocean Acidification Threatens to Destroy Shellfish Populations

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Featured Researcher: Julia Ekstrom
Affiliation: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Her research focused on how to make climate science more useful for decision-makers in adaptation of managing air and water quality in California. She is a social scientist with expertise in studying the transitions governments and societies are taking to create a more sustainable world.

Carnivorous plant lacks junk DNA

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Featured Researcher: Victor Albert
Affiliation: University of Buffalo
Research Interests: Victor Albert’s research employs genomic, developmental, and genetic approaches to understanding problems in plant evolutionary biology.

Decisions are reached in the brain by the same method used to crack the Nazi Enigma code

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Featured Researcher: Michael Shadlen
Affiliation: Columbia University
Research Interests: According to his website, his main research interest is “Decisions as a Window on Cognition – The Neural Building Blocks of Thought”

22,000 year old skull fragment may represent extinct lineage of modern humans

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Featured Researcher: Christian Tryon
Affiliation: Harvard University
Research Interests: He is a Paleolithic archaeologist interested in the behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens and the role archaeology can play in understanding the evolutionary success of our species. His primary research area is eastern Africa