Notebook
- Earth
Climate misinformation may be thriving on YouTube, a social scientist warns
Analyzing 200 climate-related videos on YouTube shows that a majority challenge widely accepted views about climate change and climate engineering.
- Neuroscience
Plants don’t have feelings and aren’t conscious, a biologist argues
The rise of the field of “plant neurobiology” has this scientist and his colleagues pushing back.
- Space
A proposed space telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a lens
One astronomer has a bold solution to the high cost of building big telescopes.
- Physics
50 years ago, Fermilab turned to bubbles
The National Accelerator Laboratory, now called Fermilab, used to have a bubble chamber to study particles. Today, most bubble chambers have gone flat.
- Chemistry
A fungus makes a chemical that neutralizes the stench of skunk spray
A compound produced by fungi reacts with skunk spray to form residues that aren’t offensive to the nose and can be more easily washed away.
- Animals
There’s more to pufferfish than that goofy spiked balloon
Three odd things about pufferfishes: how they mate, how they bite and what’s up with no fish scales?
- Paleontology
This newfound predator may have terrorized the Cambrian seafloor
A newly discovered spaceship-shaped predator raked through the Cambrian seafloor in search of food.
- Life
Giving cats food with an antibody may help people with cat allergies
Research by pet-food maker Purina aims to disable the major allergen carried in cat saliva, a protein called Fel d1.
- Health & Medicine
Climate change could raise the risk of deadly fungal infections in humans
The rise of Candida auris, a deadly fungus spurring outbreaks in the United States and worldwide, may have been aided by climate change.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, a drug that crippled a generation found new life as a leprosy treatment
In 1969, a drug that crippled a generation found new life as a treatment for leprosy.
- Life
This is the first fungus known to host complex algae inside its cells
In the lab, an alga and a fungus teamed up to exchange food, similar to lichens. But instead of staying outside, the alga moved into the fungal cells.
- Tech
50 years ago, lambs survived but didn’t thrive inside artificial wombs
Artificial wombs to support preemie babies are closer to reality.
