The study of our animal cohabitants often provides valuable insight into the condition of humanity, but animals have also been a gateway to understanding the natural world. The latest volume of Osiris, entitled “Animal Mobilities,” collects articles on the subject of animal agency and the role of animals in human knowledge production. Studying the movements of animals as individuals, groups, and systems, write guest editors Tamar Novick, Lisa Onaga, and Gabriel N. Rosenberg, “may permit a reexamination of the ethical commitments of both scientific and historical inquiry,” encouraging scholars to more keenly attend to the lives of the creatures that surround them. It may also invite “a reconsideration of how, where, and by whom science is done.”

Coral restoration efforts could be dramatically improved with technologies that support the survival and growth of baby corals, suggests a new study. 

Following deforestation, tropical forests with healthy populations of seed-dispersing animals can absorb up to four times more carbon than similar forests with fewer seed-dispersing animals, according to an MIT study.

In a major step towards early detection, University of South Australia researchers are investigating the biology behind multiple sclerosis (MS) to help predict people’s genetic risk of developing the disease, long before any symptoms appear.