Issues

Summary: The scientific method, with its strict emphasis on hypothesis testing, can sometimes feel limiting when asking open questions (‘how? why?’). Can ‘big data’ offer a solution?

Summary: The respiratory system of American alligators is well equipped to effectively eliminate CO₂ during intense physical activity, maintaining stable arterial P_CO2 levels without any signs of limitations in pulmonary CO₂ diffusion.

Summary: Load path analysis of a mammalian mandible allows precise mapping of force transfer routes through the cortical bone. This novel application of an engineering method offers biomechanical insight into skeletal form–function relationships.

Summary: Interspecific variation in jumping ability among callitrichine monkeys depends on both anatomical and behavioral adaptations to enhance performance.

Highlighted Article: Birds are able to regulate body mass while maintaining dietary intake and reducing overall activity.

Highlighted Article: Presentation of evidence against the hypothesis that functional hypoxia triggers molting in Drosophila. However, in hypoxia, prothoracic HIF signaling plays a beneficial role in speeding development.

Summary: Understanding fine-scale energetics in relation to the flight mechanics of soaring birds requires an evaluation of costs that come from both dynamic movements and rotation.

Summary: Phototaxis in Hydra vulgaris is satiety dependent, driven by specific changes in behavior.

Summary: Day-time light suppresses locomotor activity of Highveld mole-rats in a dose-dependent manner, confirming that this species has a higher threshold for light responsiveness compared with aboveground rodents.

Summary: Selective pressures might shape males and females differently, with implications for the functional relevance of sexual dimorphism.

Summary: Analysis of digastric muscle function during mastication provides some support for a link between spindle abundance and muscle function: muscles that absorb a relatively large amount of negative work have a low spindle abundance.

Summary: Smaller vespertilionid bats enter torpor at higher ambient temperature and reach lower minimum torpid metabolic rate compared with their larger counterparts, favoring torpor expression by larger bats in colder sites and by smaller bats in warmer sites.

Highlighted Article: Stable isotope analysis of essential amino acid routing with increased activity and diet restriction in green anole lizards shows increased allocation to liver and spleen, rather than muscle, likely for metabolic fuel and blood cell turnover.

Editor's choice: Longitudinal flight muscles are attached to the movable vertical mesophragm, providing sucking force in the air sacs behind for unidirectional ventilation.

Summary: The release of neuropeptide from modulatory projection neurons plays a crucial role in maintaining neuron and circuit function at elevated temperatures across crustacean species.

Summary: Honey bee workers show reduced fat synthesis capacity as they age and leave the nest to forage. Young bees deprived of protein have low, forager-like fat synthesis capacity.