New findings show that female chimpanzees with high-ranking mothers are more likely to be homebodies. The study suggests that the perks of having a powerful mom can make it worthwhile for some females to stay and reproduce in the same group where they grew up, despite the risks of inbreeding with male relatives.

If you have a dog, hopefully you're lucky enough to know that they are highly attuned to their owners and can readily understand a wide range of commands and gestures. But are these abilities innate or are they exclusively learned through training? To find out, researchers investigated whether untrained stray dogs could understand human pointing gestures.

A study in fruit flies has identified a protein which authors say acts as a connection between multiple genes that cause the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when mutated. The research could point the way towards therapies that address the complex genetics of ALS.