Elephants appear to harmonise their vocal rumbles when they join together to form choruses, tuning their voices to sound more alike as the chorus unfolds.

The findings come from a machine learning study, which also reveals that this convergence is particularly likely to occur during specific kinds of choruses 鈥� such as when elephants reconnect with one another or organise group activities 鈥� and that the calls themselves may contain information about what the animals are doing.聽

The findings could offer new insights into how elephants communicate and navigate life within their complex societies, says聽聽at Earth Species Project, a US non-profit organisation that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to attempt to decode non-human animal communication.

鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of like what humans do in conversation, where you almost start to adopt the speaking patterns or accents of whoever you鈥檙e interacting with,鈥� says Keen.聽

Elephants communicate using a聽, but also a wide range of sounds. These include their iconic trumpet call, and also throatier roars. The most common call is the rumble 鈥� so low-pitched it is often undetectable by humans 鈥� which can travel up to 10 kilometres, transmitting long-distance information that can potentially include the identity of the caller and what鈥檚 happening at the time.

聽at Elephant Voices,聽a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC, that promotes the study and protection of elephants,聽says scientists have long been intrigued by the way elephants will rumble together in choruses. Studying those complex sounds, however, has proved extremely difficult because it is hard to pick out any given rumbling elephant in the chorus 鈥� what researchers call 鈥渢he cocktail party problem鈥�.

With significant developments in machine learning, however, Poole, Keen and their colleagues have found that computers are up to the task. They used a collection of 902 recordings of rumbles collected across four decades, emitted by wild female African聽savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) from dozens of family groups in Kenya鈥檚 Amboseli National Park. The calls were grouped according to six distinct social situations: staying in contact while separated; preparing to move; coordinating what to do next; comforting or reassuring calves; greeting close family members; and participating in large family reunions.聽

Machine analyses revealed that elephant choruses carry multiple layers of information at once, and vary in a way that suggests they encode information about what a family is doing together and what happens next, says Keen. Tracking rumbles of individual elephants in the same chorus, the data showed that in some cases, the calls became more acoustically alike as the chorus progressed. Specifically, this convergence occurred when elephants were staying in contact while separated, coordinating what to do next, and greeting after a separation. This suggests that vocal convergence may play a role in helping elephant families build a plan of action, says Keen.

Earlier research that Poole聽and her colleagues published in 2005 showed that elephants can聽聽when they are calling more generally: the new work shows that this imitation involves the rumbles, too.聽

Camera trap spots endangered elephant mother and calf on the move

A weatherproof box and motion-trigger camera help photographer Will Burrard-Lucas capture images of rarely seen African elephants

Combined with other communication tools, including body language, the rumbling calls seem to help facilitate complex social interactions. 鈥淭hey appear able to negotiate, agree and disagree 鈥� and make a plan of action,鈥� says Poole.

The findings not only shed light on elephant communication and cognition, but they could also eventually aid conservation by helping researchers track their behaviour and movements remotely, the team says.

Because rumbles allow for long-distance communication, elephants鈥� ability to unite through their voices is an exciting reflection of their advanced cognition and evolution in their environment, says Andrew McLean, a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature鈥檚聽. 鈥淓volving and elaborating this for social cohesion, group survival and foraging efficiency is very adaptive,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his is a fascinating finding 鈥� although it鈥檚 not really surprising, given how intensely social elephants are.鈥�

Young orangutans who spend little time working out for themselves how to build a broad diet can partly compensate by watching how other orangutans choose what to eat.

The findings suggest that orangutans have different strategies for developing broad survival skills, says at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

Young orangutans acquire a substantial body of knowledge before they can survive independently, which they must do by the time they are 8.5 years old. This includes understanding what foods are safe to eat, where to find them and how to process them in a rainforest offering hundreds of food options of varying levels of accessibility 鈥� from easy-to-access leaves to the more inaccessible but also more nutritious seeds at the heart of a tough, spiny neesia fruit.

精东传媒s already know that orangutans can acquire this knowledge both by observing their mothers and other individuals in their social circle 鈥� a process known as social learning 鈥� and by exploring entirely on their own without any input from others, which is known as individual learning. But how these two forms of learning work together 鈥� and how they affect what orangutans learn to eat before becoming independent 鈥� hasn鈥檛 been clear.

To find out, Thillaikumar and her colleagues analysed nearly 7000 instances of learning recorded during more than 1700 hours of observations of wild Sumatran orangutans at Suaq Balimbing, a research station in Indonesia. The observations, collected over 12 years, tracked 21 youngsters as they closely watched other orangutans who were interacting with foods and other objects.

The young apes varied considerably in how much they relied on different kinds of learning, with some using more social learning, and others exploring independently much more often. This might, in part, reflect personality differences, and might also be influenced by early development 鈥� including differences in how mothers care for their young, says Thillaikumar.

Youngsters who learned by watching others also tended to continue manipulating new objects or trying new foods for about 145 minutes after they had closely observed another orangutan. This activity is reminiscent of the way in which children will spend time imitating an activity they have just seen demonstrated by an adult, says Thillaikumar. 鈥淵eah, it鈥檚 practice.鈥�

Next, the researchers drew on about 4700 hours of feeding observations for 13 of the youngsters to estimate the range of foods they had learned to eat by the time they reached independence. Unsurprisingly, the team found that the individuals who had engaged in plenty of social learning and plenty of individual learning had acquired the broadest diets.

But they also found that young orangutans who engaged in very little truly individual learning could partially compensate and develop a reasonably broad diet if they were good social learners.

Orangutan is first non-human seen treating wounds with medicinal plant

A male Sumatran orangutan chewed the leaves of a plant used in Indonesian traditional medicine and placed them on a wound on his face

at Duke University in North Carolina says she鈥檚 impressed by the sheer scale of the work, following young orangutans through the rainforest across their entire, lengthy period of dependency on adults. She was particularly intrigued by how often social observation was followed by young orangutans practising the techniques they had observed. 鈥淚n simpler terms, they show clearly what we see in human children and other apes 鈥� that they watch others perform a behaviour and then go try it out on their own.鈥�

The variability in learning styles 鈥� even at an individual level 鈥� is especially interesting, says , also at Duke University. It suggests that no single form of learning can tell the whole story. 鈥淧redicting dietary breadth at maturity requires looking at all types of learning.鈥�

A backpack can detect when muscles become fatigued and automatically massage the affected areas. This seems to help muscles recover better than heat therapy or pre-programmed massages, like those delivered by chairs and cushions.

About . This can occur when back muscles become fatigued through exertion or prolonged or repetitive activity. Persistent fatigue can impair local blood flow and tissue recovery, potentially contributing to chronic pain.

Tired back muscles can be relieved through heat therapy and automated massage, which often involves rollers moving across the back in pre-programmed patterns. But these tend to be standardised treatments that don鈥檛 take into account people鈥檚 individual muscular issues, says at the Wuhan Institute of Technology in China.

Looking for a more bespoke approach, Yu and his colleagues have developed a wearable system, like a backpack, that uses electrodes on the skin to monitor electrical activity in four groups of back muscles. The system then determines which muscles are fatigued, and how much. Cables move a soft massage head to the affected areas, where sensor feedback allows the system to continually adjust the force according to the fatigue levels, says Yu.

To test their device, the researchers asked 11 men and four women, aged 20 to 26, with no known health issues, to spend 2 minutes resting, followed by 2 minutes repeatedly lifting dumbbells while seated. This induces fatigue in the rhomboids, the muscles between the shoulder blades.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Health Check

Sign up to newsletter

All the participants wore the backpack during the dumbbell exercise so it could record their muscles鈥� electrical activity, but only some then received the backpack鈥檚 massage. The remaining participants divided into groups that received another type of pre-programmed massage, had heat therapy or rested.

During the exercise, the electrical activity in the participants鈥� rhomboids fell as the muscles became fatigued, indicating weaker muscle activation. But after the backpack treatment, this activity was about 2.6 times higher compared with after the pre-programmed massage, indicating greater recovery. It was also about 1.9 times higher than after heat treatment, and four times higher than after resting.

鈥淲e were encouraged by how clearly the adaptive system improved muscle recovery compared with preprogrammed mechanostimulation and thermal stimulation,鈥� says Yu.

How working out like an astronaut can reduce back pain and slow ageing

The same principles that help astronauts stay strong in microgravity can help us all resist the slow collapse of ageing 鈥� and it鈥檚 not all about hitting the gym more

at Harvard University says the device is a move in a 鈥渃reative direction鈥� for combining soft robotics with mechanical therapy to address back pain and muscle fatigue. But it needs to be lighter and less bulky before it can become a practical solution, he says.

鈥淭here are definitely some very interesting engineering features in the system, and I see a lot of value in this as a proof of concept for this technology,鈥� says at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. 鈥淏ut if you want to use it in the context of people working on the assembly line as they claim, I think this is a bit far into the future.鈥� 聽

The team hopes to make the design smaller and more compact, and to test it in a larger group of people working in real-world conditions that may cause back pain, says Yu.

A bird that was eaten and partially excreted by a dinosaur 66 million years ago has left behind the best-preserved feathers ever recovered by scientists from dinosaur-age rock. This pushes the聽evolution聽of feathers, like the ones on modern birds, back by 10 million years and may tell us more about why most birds didn鈥檛 survive the post-asteroid mass extinction.

鈥淭his is the best feather we鈥檝e ever seen in a Mesozoic [252 million to 66 million years ago] deposit,鈥� says at the Field Museum in Chicago. 鈥淸It鈥檚] like a feather you could pick up off the ground.鈥�

Birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction triggered by an asteroid strike 66 million years ago. But, puzzlingly, only one branch made it through: neornithes, the ancestors of every bird alive today.

In 2016, at the University of Washington in Seattle was collecting fish fossils in north-eastern Montana鈥檚 Hell Creek Formation when he discovered a broken coprolite, a fossilised dropping, with a feather clearly visible along its fractured surface. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 believe what I was seeing,鈥� he says.

A few years later, he invited O鈥機onnor to team up with him and his colleagues to analyse the coprolite using micro-CT scans and 3D surface scanning. Two leg-bone fragments, 18 and 12 millimetres long, resembled some previously found at Hell Creek and attributed to hesperornithiformes. These were flightless, short-winged diving birds, similar to modern loons (Gaviiformes) or grebes (Podicipediformes), and were related to Neornithes.

Free newsletter

Sign up to The Daily

Sign up to newsletter

Further analyses showed that the 9.3-millimetre-long primary feather had a water-repellent structure, similar to that of modern pelicans, says O鈥機onnor. Both this and a second, smaller wing feather also had lightweight, spongy cores surrounded by a harder outer layer. This combination makes them both light and stiff, which is typical of modern feathers.

鈥淲hat is exciting is to push the occurrence of modern feathers into non-modern birds,鈥� says O鈥機onnor. Differences in plumage are emerging as a major contributing factor as to why some birds survived while others didn鈥檛, she says.

The team also found two fluffy body feathers with loosely arranged branches, echoing in a lineage that didn鈥檛 survive the extinction event.

Combined, this suggests that the bird the feather belonged to 鈥� and hesperornithiformes in general 鈥� had a 鈥渕iddle ground鈥� of primitive and modern plumage, says O鈥機onnor. While the wing and tail feathers might have allowed for successful diving, for example, the less advanced body feathers would have been relatively poor insulators, making the animals more vulnerable to the 鈥渨inter鈥� that occurred after the asteroid impact.

鈥淭hese are the feathers that are responsible for keeping the body warm, right?鈥� says O鈥機onnor. 鈥淪o maybe these primitive feathers were good enough to keep them warm during the greenhouse world of the Mesozoic, but not good enough to keep them warm during this environmental catastrophe that was triggered by this impact event.鈥�

Dinosaur hunting in the Gobi desert: Mongolia

Embark on an exhilarating and one-of-a-kind expedition to uncover dinosaur remains in the vast wilderness of the Gobi desert, one of the world鈥檚 most famous palaeontological hotspots.

Find out more

The dropping 鈥� which probably came from a Nanotyrannus or a young Tyrannosaurus rex 鈥� also contained two rigid, diamond-shaped scales, 3 to 4 millimetres long. The researchers think this came from a gar (Lepisosteidae), a narrow-bodied fish that still exists today. This would have been too small for the dinosaur predator and thus was probably eaten by the bird.

鈥淭his discovery is really exciting,鈥� says at the University of Connecticut. 鈥淚t opens up so many questions about how feathers evolved, what they were originally used for, and how they came to perform so many different functions in modern birds.鈥�

The links among the different animals involved are also fascinating, says Muzio. 鈥淒iscoveries like this really make the imagination run wild,鈥� he says. 鈥淔rom a single coprolite, we are learning about at least three individual species 鈥� morphologically, ecologically and evolutionarily. What more can you ask for?鈥�

People with chronic lung disease breathe better after two months of laughter therapy, results from a small trial show. The promising results may prompt further research into the low-cost treatment option.

In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) 鈥� a leading cause of disability and death worldwide 鈥� air isn鈥檛 fully expelled when exhaling, meaning stale air remains trapped inside the lungs. The millions of people who are affected by the condition often feel breathless, even during simple daily activities.

Doctors treat COPD with medications like bronchodilators and corticosteroids, and may also recommend specialised breathing exercises. These include pursed-lip breathing, in which patients breathe in through the nose and out slowly through the lips, which creates a gentle build-up of pressure that helps release some of the air trapped in the lungs. But many people with COPD continue to become increasingly dependent on others for care over time, reducing their quality of life.

, formerly at Hacettepe University Faculty of Nursing in Ankara, Turkey, had seen research showing that laughter therapy shows promise in people with , and and thought it might help those with COPD as well 鈥� both physically and mentally.

To find out, she and her colleagues recruited 63 people who were already being treated for COPD at Ankara Bilkent City Hospital and divided them into three groups of 21. In their randomised controlled trial, all participants continued their medications, but those in one group additionally performed pursed-lip breathing exercises and those in another group received laughter therapy. Participants in the third, control, group did neither.

The laughter therapy is an established programme that differs from simple responses to humour. It includes playful exercises like mimicking a motorcycle starting or a lion roaring, rhythmic clapping with vocal sounds and relaxation with calm breathing and smiling. The participants were coached by laughter therapists in face-to-face sessions and then instructed to perform the techniques on their own for 30 minutes, three times per week.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Eight Weeks to a Healthier You

Sign up to newsletter

After eight weeks, participants in the laughter therapy and the pursed-lip breathing groups had less difficulty breathing and better overall health than those in the control group. Those benefits were still ongoing even a month after the trial ended, says Aldan. Even so, the therapies didn鈥檛 change how much daily assistance participants needed from caregivers. Aldan and her colleagues didn鈥檛 directly compare the effects of pursed-lip breathing and laughter therapy. They at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

While more research could help clarify exactly how laughter therapy helps, Aldan suspects it might exercise the breathing muscles, promote deeper exhalation, improve lymphatic flow and trigger the release of endorphins, while also lowering levels of stress hormones.

鈥淭his structured approach may help facilitate gentle air expulsion and reduce air trapping without overwhelming the respiratory system,鈥� she says. 鈥淧sychologically, it can also offer a safe, enjoyable way to reduce anxiety and support emotional wellbeing.鈥�

Laughter therapy really could boost your emotional well-being

Structured interventions that encourage a good giggle, whether they are laughter yoga or clown visits, could have health benefits

Importantly, however, laughter therapy is distinct from intense or unguided laughter 鈥� like the response to a funny social media video 鈥� which can actually trigger adverse effects like acute airway collapse or exertion, says Aldan. 鈥淟aughter therapy is not merely 鈥榣aughing鈥� 鈥� it is a structured protocol that naturally incorporates deep breathing exercises and rhythmic warm-ups to prepare the lungs and body for laughter.鈥�

鈥淭his is a small but well-run study,鈥� says at Vall d鈥橦ebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, who wasn鈥檛 involved in the research. 鈥淭hese results 鈥� showing that patients can breathe more easily and feel better in general 鈥� are promising. Laughter therapy is simple and low-cost, meaning it could be used by anyone, anywhere in the world. We look forward to further research in this area.鈥�

The team hopes to expand its work with international collaborators.