Norm-like vocal #behavior in a nonhuman primate

Human interlocutors have strong expectations that guide when, how, and what is communicated, but the evolutionary origins of such normative expectations remain poorly understood. Vocal accommodation in marmosets, where individuals modify their calls to match partners, offers a potential model. Within an interactive closed-loop playback paradigm, marmosets experienced partner calls that either converged toward or diverged away from their own call structure. Marmosets responded affiliatively to convergence, whereas diverging calls elicited protest vocalizations. Importantly, the protests stopped when the calls converged again. Effects were partner-specific, indicating that marmosets expect bond partners, but not strangers, to converge during a conversation. Furthermore, individuals modified their calls to restore similarity to dissimilar partner playbacks. These findings identify marmoset vocal accommodation as a socially regulated behavior with normative properties.

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Understanding Sex‐Specific #behavioral States of Bobcats in Response to Highway Proximity in South Texas

Ecology and Evolution, Volume 16, Issue 8, August 2026.

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Sperm whale foraging combines persistent search with flexible prey-capture tactics

Predators searching patchy environments must coordinate movements across scales, yet this behavioural hierarchy is not yet technically possible to observe in the deep ocean. Here we show that sperm-whale foraging is organized across two nested levels: directionally persistent search paths and flexible prey-capture tactics. We combine acoustic recordings with reconstructed three-dimensional trajectories from 34 sensor-tag deployments on 20 individual whales in both the eastern Caribbean and the mid-Atlantic. Complete foraging paths exhibit heavy-tailed step lengths and superdiffusive displacement, consistent with Levy-like search. Within these paths, echolocation buzzes resolve into two recurrent acoustic-kinematic tactics. Type A involves brief ramp-ups, slower and more oscillatory movement, and longer post-buzz pauses. Type B involves prolonged ramp-ups, faster and vertically persistent movement, greater roll, slightly straighter approaches, and an energy-model estimate approximately seven times higher. Every sampled whale used both tactics and switched between them within dives, showing that the contrast is not driven by specialization among individuals. An Azorean deployment with prey-field echograms links the tactics to local prey conditions, while independent Dominica deployments recover their core kinematic contrast. Together, these results reveal a foraging hierarchy in which flexible capture actions unfold within persistent, deliberate large-scale search.

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Why science must reinforce its social contract

Nature, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02444-1Questions of public trust can be addressed only through better communication and research that meets society’s interests.

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Dietary DNA in municipal wastewater reveals signatures of wealth, immigration, and coastal proximity

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 31, August 2026. SignificancePoor diet is a leading driver of chronic disease worldwide, yet current dietary surveillance methods are costly, slow, and prone to bias. We introduce FoodSeq-FLOW (Food Landscape Observation in Wastewater), a DNA sequencing platform that ...

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Effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation With and Without Positive Mood Induction on Worry and Transdiagnostic Cognitive–Emotional Processes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Publication date: Available online 4 August 2026 Source: Physiology & Behavior Author(s): Fateme Shahsavari, Farzad Nasiri, Mehdi Zemestani

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Queen bees offload pesticide burden to eggs when social buffering is overwhelmed

Encerrado-Manriquez et al. show that honey bee hive sociality influences pesticide deposition across hive matrices, with worker bees buffering the colony and the queen affecting colony-wide distribution patterns. Under chronic exposure, these social defenses become overwhelmed, but queens may survive by offloading contaminants to their offspring.

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Enhancing the longevity of lithium-manganese-rich layered oxides by promoting oxygen redox reversibility

Nature Communications, Published online: 04 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-76366-xLithium-manganese-rich layered oxides deliver high energy from earth-abundant manganese, but irreversible oxygen redox and gas evolution limit their use. Here, authors design a voltage window that fully restores oxygen redox, enabling stable cycling in 40 Ah commercial-scale cells.

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Investigation of the interfacial bond #behavior of steel pipe pile and bottom-sealing concrete under realistic cofferdam construction conditions

Scientific Reports, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-63933-xInvestigation of the interfacial bond behavior of steel pipe pile and bottom-sealing concrete under realistic cofferdam construction conditions

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The prelimbic cortex arbitrates memory-guided conflict resolution

Caban-Murillo et al. show that, during approach-avoidance conflict, prelimbic cortex ensembles are recruited to represent reward and punishment through distinct network patterns. Both ensembles are necessary for and optimize communication during conflict resolution. Finally, avoidance behavior during conflict is supported by ventral tegmental area neurons projecting to the prelimbic cortex.

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Retinal Layer Thickness for Risk Stratification of Progression Independent of Relapse Activity in Relapsing‐Remitting Multiple Sclerosis

Brain and Behavior, Volume 16, Issue 8, August 2026.

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Evolutionary history and seasonal dynamics shape interspecific interactions between two sympatric desert fox species

Publication date: September 2026 Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 239 Author(s): Eli Geffen, Reuven Hefner, Michal Ucko, Noam Leader, Adi Barocas

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Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 16, Pages 1249: Development, Implementation, and Refinement of a Mental Health Consultation–Liaison Model in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Learning Health System Approach

Proactive mental health consultation–liaison (C-L) services in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are increasingly recognized as essential to infant health and family functioning, yet there is limited guidance on how to develop sustainable and effective programs in real-world clinical settings. This paper describes the development, implementation, and iterative refinement of a NICU mental health C-L program using a learning health system (LHS) framework. Grounded in a theory-driven model that conceptualizes the infant as the identified patient, the program was designed to target proximal mechanisms influencing infant regulation, parent–infant interaction, and medical course. Consistent with LHS principles, program elements were introduced incrementally and refined through embedded data collection, rapid feedback loops, and multidisciplinary team learning. Data sources emphasized feasibility, reach, implementation processes, and acceptability rather than hypothesis-driven outcome testing. Over six years, this approach supported the expansion of multiple integrated service components, including dyadic intervention services, parent mental health screening and referral pathways, unit-wide family engagement initiatives, and neurobehavioral care practices. Rather than presenting a fixed protocol, this paper offers a replicable framework for developing NICU mental health C-L services that balances developmental theory, implementation realities, and sustainability. The LHS approach provides a pragmatic roadmap for NICUs seeking to build or refine mental health services in contexts characterized by clinical complexity, evolving evidence, and system-level constraints.

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Switching to one or the other : Shorebirds behavioural flexibility in food transport mechanisms

Shorebirds provide an excellent model for investigating the relationship between bill morphology and food acquisition. Food acquisition comprises three successive behavioural stages: foraging (locomotion and prey capture), feeding (food handling and transport), and swallowing. During food transport, these birds use two non-lingual mechanisms, surface-tension transport (ST) and ballistic transport (BT), whose characteristics depends on the kinematics of head and beak movements and the physical properties of the food. We investigated the behavioural flexibility of these transport mechanisms in captive and free-ranging individuals of two species with contrasting beak morphologies: the Pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) and the Black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus). Although these species have beaks of a similar size, avocets are distinguished by their upward-curved beaks, whereas stilts have a rather straight beak. We examined the effects of food water content and the presence or absence of water in the beak on food transport by quantifying maximum gape, maximum head displacement, and maximum head velocity. Transport kinematics were jointly influenced by food properties and water availability in the beak. Moist food improved transport performance in both species, whereas dry food required compensatory increases in gape amplitude and head movements, demonstrating that neither ST nor BT constitutes a fixed behavioural sequence. Species also differed consistently in their transport strategies: Black-winged stilts relied on slower, larger-amplitude head movements, whereas Pied avocets exhibited faster, more precise movements, particularly when water was present. These findings demonstrate that ST and BT share common biomechanical foundations while being governed by rapid kinematic adjustments to changing environmental conditions that probably correspond to flexible motor control. This behavioural flexibility in food transport is therefore likely to enhance feeding performance and ecological resilience in the heterogeneous habitats occupied by shorebirds, suggesting that context-dependent modulation of transport behaviour represents an important adaptive feature of these shorebirds.

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A cell size-dependent competition between geometry and polarity governs nuclear and spindle positioning in early embryos

By mapping centrosome position and orientation during early embryo development, Nommick et al. uncover a progressive apical shift and continuous planar alignment of centrosomes. They propose a size-scaling model in which apical surface microtubule decentering forces take over bulk centering forces as cells become smaller during development.

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A fixed-time fault-tolerant tracking control for fractional-order UAV networks using adaptive fuzzy neural and event-triggered mechanisms

Scientific Reports, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-65044-zA fixed-time fault-tolerant tracking control for fractional-order UAV networks using adaptive fuzzy neural and event-triggered mechanisms

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An orexinergic circuit driving migraine relief by lavender essential oil

Huang et al. find that lavender essential oil relieves NTG-induced migraine by engaging an anterior olfactory nucleus-driven, OX2R-dependent orexinergic circuit from the lateral hypothalamus to the lateral parabrachial nucleus. These findings support the development of aroma-based strategies for migraine management.

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Endogenous auditory and motor #brain rhythms predict individual speech tracking

by Christina Lubinus, Anne Keitel, Jonas Obleser, David Poeppel, Johanna M. Rimmele Slow, endogenous brain rhythms in the auditory cortex are hypothesized to track acoustic amplitude modulations during speech comprehension. Temporal predictions from the motor system are thought to enhance this tracking. However, direct evidence for the involvement of endogenous auditory and motor brain rhythms is lacking. Combining magnetoencephalographic recordings with behavioral data, we here show that endogenous peak frequencies of individuals’ resting-state theta rhythm in superior temporal gyrus predict speech tracking during comprehension. Importantly, endogenous rates of speech motor areas predicted auditory-cortical speech tracking only in individuals with high auditory–motor synchronization profiles. Higher rates in the supplementary motor area and lower rates in inferior frontal gyrus predicted stronger tracking. These findings provide support for oscillatory accounts of auditory–motor interactions during speech perception. Behaviorally, higher auditory–motor synchronization was related to higher comprehension, with effects of the spontaneous speech motor production rate only in high synchronizers. Working memory capacity predicted speech comprehension performance only in individuals with low auditory–motor synchronization profiles. No significant relationship between the neural data and behavioral readouts was observed. The findings highlight differential speech processing preferences across individuals, with an auditory–motor route related to enhanced comprehension performance.

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Females prioritise foraging over mating and males prioritise mating over risk avoidance in virgin mantids

Ecological Entomology, EarlyView.

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Young‐Of‐Year Atlantic Cod and Saithe Differ in Individuality and Structure of Movement Traits

Ecology and Evolution, Volume 16, Issue 8, August 2026.

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Trade-off between foraging and vigilance in the Red-legged Seriema

As foraging increases exposure to predators, individuals must allocate time to vigilance in addition to food acquisition. Although those behaviors are assumed to be mutually exclusive, this is often hard to disentangle, given that multiple sensory modalities are often applied. However, when foraging, animals often have one sensory modality more impaired (e.g. vision), than others (e.g. auditory); thus, a level of compromise on vigilance capabilities is assumed while foraging. Here, we test the idea that when a food item requires manipulation, thus reducing vigilance capabilities, social foraging should promote shared costs of vigilance. We conducted video recordings to investigate whether there is a trade-off between foraging and vigilance behavior in red-legged seriemas (Cariama cristata) when foraging in pairs. We studied the social foraging behavioral patterns while seriemas were feeding on macauba palm (Acrocomia aculeata) fruit, which requires a series of throwing maneuvers to crack the hard outer shell. Our results showed that within a pair recording one individual was observed to spend more time vigilant than their partner, while the other individual spent more time throwing fruit than their partner. However, we found no evidence for synchronization or coordination of vigilance and foraging between individuals within a feeding bout. These results provide insight into the foraging ecology of red-legged seriemas and the trade-off between foraging and vigilance in social contexts.

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Distinct cell type–specific mechanisms underlie cognitive dysfunction during persistent integrated stress response activation

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 29, July 2026. SignificancePersistent activation of the integrated stress response (ISR) is causally linked to cognitive dysfunction across neurological disorders, yet specific cell-type vulnerabilities remain unknown. Using single-cell RNA and ATAC-seq in a recently ...

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Pigeons lock their eyes in place during flight

Ros et al. show that pigeons (Columba livia) reduce eye movements and fix their eyes in a stereotypical position within their heads during both indoor and outdoor flights. This stereotypical eye position may help pigeons perceive self-motion critical for flight control and navigation.

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Affective and cognitive empathy in pregnant women and nulligravid controls: a multidimensional neuroendocrine evaluation

Publication date: Available online 4 August 2026 Source: Physiology & Behavior Author(s): Aslı Karakılıç, Çağla Bahar Bülbül Hanedar, Merve Akış Yılmaz, Emrah Özcan, Simge Tezel Yozgat, Özge Kama Başcı, Meryem Gül, Burak Şafak

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Aryl radical addition–dehydrocyclization drives rapid polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon growth

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-76371-0Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous in space, yet astrochemical models fail to reproduce their observed abundances because known growth mechanisms are far too slow. Here, the authors report a plausible pathway for rapid PAH mass growth mediated by multi-ring aryl radicals via the aryl addition–dehydrocyclization mechanism.

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Development and external validation of a nomogram for overall survival in oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma using machine learning-assisted feature selection

Scientific Reports, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-65230-zDevelopment and external validation of a nomogram for overall survival in oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma using machine learning-assisted feature selection

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Control of plant organ growth linked to cell division orientation in inner tissues

The rib zone (RZ) is a region of the shoot meristem that produces inner stem tissues. Yates et al. show that Arabidopsis 1aIQD genes restrict stem thickness by orienting cell divisions in the RZ, challenging the common assumption that plant organ growth is controlled by outer tissues.

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Developmental factors drive the compartmentalized and discontinuous maturation of the small intestinal epithelium during the early postnatal period

by Johannes Schöneich, Aline Dupont, Stefan Schlößer, Mingbo Cheng, Matthias A. Schmitz, Isabel Richter, Narasimha Murthy Keshava Prasad Gubbi, Kaiyi Zhang, Tiago Maié, Asmae Laouina, Sofia Jäverfelt, Fabian Imdahl, Christophe Toussaint, Antoine-Emmanuel Saliba, Christoph Kuppe, Oliver Pabst, Thaher Pelaseyed, Ivan G. Costa, Mathias W. Hornef The temporal, spatial, and cellular diversity of the small intestinal epithelium during the postnatal period, a critical time window that accompanies the transition from placental energy supply to enteral feeding, and the establishment of the enteric microbiota and postnatal immune maturation, has not been systematically investigated. Here, we used laser capture microdissection and bulk RNA-Seq, proteomics, and single cell RNA-Seq to analyze the total, organ site, crypt- and villus-specific intestinal epithelium of specific pathogen-free, germ-free, and Salmonella-infected mice during the postnatal period. We identified key temporal and organ-site specific expression patterns that revealed a weak effect of the microbiota but strong influence of developmental regulators during early life. We also determined age-dependent signaling pathway and transcription factor activity and characterized age- and cell type-specific developmental trajectories revealing a distinct compartmentalized maturation process along the proximal-to-distal length and crypt-villus axis and a discontinuous appearance of goblet/Paneth cell and absorptive enterocyte transcriptional profiles. Finally, we described the cell type-specific response to neonatal enteric infection. Taken together, our findings identify the epithelium as an integral element in the maturation of postnatal mucosal tissues and in the establishment of host-microbe homeostasis.

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Savings and interference following learning to reach with mirror reversed feedback

Learning to reach with a visuomotor distortion has been shown to influence subsequent reaches with the same distortion and with a new distortion. Here, we examined whether learning to reach with a small 20 degree mirror reversed distortion leads to faster re-learning of the same distortion (i.e., demonstrates savings) and whether learning to reach with a mirror reversed distortion influences subsequent reaches with a 20 degree visuomotor rotation distortion. Thirty participants first learned to reach with the mirror reversed distortion. Following washout trials with aligned cursor feedback, 15 participants reached again with the mirror reversed distortion (MR-MR group), while the 15 other participants reached with a visuomotor rotation distortion (MR-VMR group). An additional twenty participants only reached with the visuomotor rotation distortion (VMR-only group). Implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious strategy) contributions to learning were assessed using the process dissociation procedure. Evidence of savings was evident in the MR-MR group, such that participants demonstrated reduced hand angles when re-introduced to the mirror reversed distortion. This savings was driven by explicit processes, consistent with the rapid retrieval of previously acquired task solutions. Additionally, learning to reach with the mirror reversed distortion interfered with learning to reach with the visuomotor rotation distortion, such that the MR-VMR group demonstrated increased reach variability and longer reaction times when reaching with the visuomotor rotation distortion compared to the VMR-only group. Reduced implicit contributions were also evident in the MR-VMR group compared to the VMR-only group. Together, results indicate that learning to reach with a mirror reversed distortion promotes savings and influences learning to reach with a visuomotor rotation distortion through engagement of explicit processes.

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Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 16, Pages 1245: Ambivalent Sexism, Social Roles, and Body Compassion in Albanian and Italian Women

This study investigated the relationships between ambivalent sexism, social roles, and body compassion in Albanian and Italian women. The participants were 251 Albanian and 280 Italian women who completed validated measures assessing hostile and benevolent sexism, social role transcendence, link to social roles, and three subdimensions of body compassion (defusion, common humanity, and acceptance). Path analyses indicated excellent model fit across samples. In Albanian women, hostile sexism negatively predicted social role transcendence and positively predicted a link to social roles, both of which were associated with lower body compassion. Benevolent sexism was positively associated with social role transcendence, which in turn was related to higher body compassion. In contrast, Italian women showed a different pattern: benevolent sexism positively predicted a link to social roles, while social role transcendence and link to social roles were both negatively related to defusion. Age positively predicted defusion and acceptance, highlighting a possible protective effect. Explained variance was higher in the Italian sample, particularly for the link to social roles. Overall, the findings suggest that the pattern of associations between sexist attitudes, social role attitudes, and body compassion was not identical across the two samples. These findings should be interpreted as exploratory evidence from two distinct sociocultural contexts rather than as formal cross-cultural comparisons.

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