Humans develop sharp vision during early fetal development thanks to an interplay between a vitamin A derivative and thyroid hormones in the retina. The findings could upend decades of conventional understanding of how the eye grows light-sensing cells and could inform new research into treatments for macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other age-related vision disorders. 

By combining fieldwork, manual sorting and machine learning, researchers found the warbling duets of Yellow-naped Amazon parrots have language-like properties, including syntax, collocates and an impressive lexicon.  

In two new studies on 28,000 individuals, researchers are able to show that genetic variants in 11 regions of the human genome have a clear influence on which bacteria are in the gut and what they do there. Only two genetic regions were previously known. Some of the new genetic variants can be linked to an increased risk of gluten intolerance, haemorrhoids and cardiovascular diseases.

Psychedelic substances are increasingly being used under medical supervision to treat anxiety disorders and depression. However, the mechanisms by which these substances influence our perception and consciousness are largely unknown. A research team from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has now, for the first time, shown high-resolution images of brain activities in an animal model after the administration of psychedelics. The scientists discovered that visual processes increasingly access brain regions that retrieve memory contents and associations. This could explain how visual hallucinations arise. The scientists report in Communications Biology on February 11, 2026.

In a paper published in Science, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Stuttgart have discovered that the secret to the elephant’s amazing sense of touch is in its unusual whiskers. The interdisciplinary team analyzed elephant trunk whiskers using advanced microscopy methods that revealed a form of material intelligence more sophisticated than the well-studied whiskers of rats and mice. This research has the potential to inspire new physically intelligent robotic sensing approaches that resemble the unusual whiskers that cover the elephant trunk.