Whales are largely protected from direct catch, but many populations numbers still remain far below what they once were. A study published in the journal Current Biology on June 3 suggests that, in addition to smaller population sizes, those whales that survive are struggling. As evidence, they find that right whales living in the North Atlantic today are significantly shorter than those born 30 to 40 years ago.
For fans of: Lil Peep, Elliott Smith
There is very little information about ekkstacy available online, beyond the fact that he s an 18-year-old from Vancouver. Despite the secrecy, the word is already out about his haunting music, which is doing big streaming numbers by mixing whispered acoustic ballads with SoundCloud emo rap. His standout singles combine his ghostly voice with catchy instrumentation, as on the new wave bounce of i walk this earth all by myself or the 1979 -esque alt-rock of i want to be by your side.
Alex Hudson
An international consortium reports the largest-ever global metagenomic study of urban microbiomes, spanning the air and the surfaces of multiple cities. The project, which sequenced and analyzed samples collected from public transit systems and hospitals in 60 cities around the world, features comprehensive analysis and annotation for all the microbial species identified including thousands of viruses and bacteria and two archaea not found in reference databases. The study appears May 26 in the journal Cell.
It s well known that reptiles depend on temperature cues while in the egg to determine a hatchling s sex. Now, researchers writing in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution on May 26 say that embryos of many different animal species also rely on acoustic signals in important ways. They call this phenomenon acoustic developmental programming.