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Without a mirror, it can be hard to tell if you’re blushing, or have spinach in your teeth. But one color-changing fish has evolved a clever way to keep watch on the parts of itself that lie outside its field of view -- by sensing light with its skin. Credit: James St. John, via Wikimedia Commons

How much is peace of mind worth when it comes to smart gadgets? Credit: AndreyPopov.

From left to right, colleagues Dr. Nicolette Cagle, Nick Schwab, Dr. Daniel Rittschof and Dr. Don Fox work with small critters as part of their work at Duke.

Packed with microscopic Plasmodium parasites, this red blood cell (teal) and other infected cells around it will soon burst and spew their contents into the bloodstream, triggering the periodic fevers that are the hallmark of malaria. Credit: NIAID

Found in lakes and rivers worldwide, single-celled creatures like these Paramecium bursaria can both eat and photosynthesize. Microbes like this play a double role in climate change, releasing or absorbing carbon dioxide -- the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is the primary driver of warming -- depending on whether they rely on an animal-like lifestyle or a plant-like lifestyle. Credit: Daniel J. Wieczynski.

Members of a baboon group in Amboseli, Kenya, relax and groom together, a baboon’s way of social bonding. Credit: Susan C. Alberts, ÀÏÅ£Ó°ÊÓ

Designing an inclusive smart city: Duke researcher Pardis Emami-Naeini wants to make sure the ‘smart cities’ of the future are designed with residents firmly in mind. Photo by John West/Trinity Communications

A notorious bully, Frodo the chimpanzee was Gombe's alpha male for five years. Credit: Ian C. Gilby, Arizona State University.

Jean-Philippe Gibert is an assistant professor biology at ÀÏÅ£Ó°ÊÓ.