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The precise movements of a young hammerhead shark have been tracked for the first time and are published in the open access journal Animal Biotelemetry. The study, which ran over a 10-month period, reveals important gaps in current efforts to protect these endangered sharks and suggests key locations that should be protected to help the survival of the species.

Honeybee populations are clearly under stress—from the parasitic Varroa mite, insecticides, and a host of other factors—but it’s been difficult to pinpoint any one of them as the root cause of devastating and unprecedented losses in honeybee hives. Researchers writing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Parasitology on November 24th say that the problem likely stems from a complex and poorly understood interplay of stresses and their impact on bee immunity and health

As an actress, producer, director and theatre arts lecturer at The University of Texas at Arlington, Julienne Greer knows the techniques that help draw people’s deepest emotions to the surface. Now, she’s building on her experience and research to help scientists and robotics engineers better understand the human experience so that they can build more responsive robots.

Dr Zhang Yixin of Nanjing University, China, talks about his development of a true random number generator using only the camera of a smartphone, with no other specialized equipment. To date, true random number generators have required the use of expensive, dedicated auxiliary equipment, and Dr Zhang’s innovations may lead to new, widespread applications in secure communications.

China has made significant progress increasing access to tap water and sanitation services, and has sharply reduced the burden of waterborne and water-related infectious diseases over the past two decades. However, in a study published in the latest edition of Nature Climate Change, researchers from Emory University found that climate change will blunt China’s efforts at further reducing these diseases in the decades to come.

Climate change is expected to disrupt ecosystems by changing the life cycles of insects and other organisms in unpredictable ways – and scientists are getting a preview of these changes in cities. Research from North Carolina State University shows that some insect pests are thriving in warm, urban environments and developing earlier, limiting the impact of parasitoid wasps that normally help keep those pest populations in check.

On a quest to design an alternative to the two complex approaches currently used to produce electrons within microwave electron guns, a team of researchers from Euclid TechLabs and Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Nanoscale Materials have demonstrated a plug-and-play solution capable of operating in this high-electric-field environment with a high-quality electron beam.