BIOLOGY - Your average sunflower sea star can munch through almost five purple sea urchins in a week, and they don’t seem to be picky about the quality of their food. A team co-led by Aaron Galloway at the UO’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology published the findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Feb. 15.

ANTHROPOLOGY - Early human ancestors used small hand-held stone tools to butcher animals and crush plants. At an archaeological site in present-day Kenya, researchers have unearthed some of the oldest examples of such so-called Oldowan tools, dating to 2.6 million to 3 million years ago.

PSYCHOLOGY - Psychology researchers at the University of Oregon think they are getting closer to knowing whether personality and morality can be used to predict whether people adopt prejudicial beliefs.

BIOLOGY - Even worms have a ticking fertility clock. A new study from UO biologists suggests one possible reason why reproduction slows with age. Older worms are less efficient at repairing broken DNA strands while making egg cells—part of a process that’s essential for fertility.

BIOLOGY - Nanomia bijuga, a marine animal related to jellyfish, swims via jet propulsion. And it can control these jets individually, either syncing them up or pulsing them in sequence. These two different swimming styles let the animal prioritize speed or energy efficiency, depending on its current needs, a team of UO researchers found.

ANTHROPOLOGY - Teeth from an extinct monkey species are a clue to the ages of fossils of human ancestors throughout South Africa. A study from UO anthropologist Stephen Frost and a team of colleagues updates the proposed ages of key fossil sites in South Africa, sites that hold important clues to human evolution.

GEOGRAPHY - Cartographers at the University of Oregon’s InfoGraphics Lab were a key partner on a new report on migrations of deer and elk that highlights the challenges the animals face and offers solutions and tools for conservation.

ANTHROPOLOGY - Ever since the first human-controlled spacecraft escaped Earth’s gravity, people have been pushing toward permanent human life inhabiting planets beyond Earth. Some might say it's brand-new territory, but UO professor and Museum of Natural and Cultural History associate director Scott Fitzpatrick argues that humans have already faced similar great unknowns.

ENGLISH - Ben Saunders, a UO professor of comic studies, is working with Marvel Comics on a new collaboration series with publisher Penguin Classics. The first three books published in the series will be “Black Panther,” “Captain America” and “The Amazing Spider-Man,” with Saunders serving as the series editor and author of the scholarly introductions for the latter two.