Required Reading
This week, a virtual tour of the Vermeer retrospective, an AI-written novel wins a prize, filling your fish tank with local water, a tribute to poet Refaat Alareer, and more.
Coco Fusco’s Fight to Rebalance Power
Throughout her decades-long career, Fusco has laid bare the many mechanisms through which subjugated bodies are stripped of their agency.
Charles LeDray’s Search for Lost Time
The toy-like scale of LeDray’s art gives everything a glow of childhood play and fantasy while pushing it far away.
Sniffing women’s tears reduces aggressive behavior in men, researchers report
New research shows that tears from women contain chemicals that block aggression in men. The study finds that sniffing tears leads to reduced brain activity related to aggression, which results is less aggressive behavior.
How technology and economics can help save endangered species
A lot has changed in the world since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted 50 years ago in December 1973. Experts are now discuss how the ESA has evolved and what its future might hold.
Researchers map how measles virus spreads in human brain
Researchers mapped how the measles virus mutated and spread in the brain of a person who succumbed to a rare, lethal brain disease. New cases of this disease, which is a complication of the measles virus, may occur as measles reemerges among the unvacc…
Organic compounds in asteroids formed in colder regions of space
Analysis of organic compounds — called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) — extracted from the Ryugu asteroid and Murchison meteorite has found that certain PAHs likely formed in the cold areas of space between stars rather than in hot regions n…
GPCR structure: Research reveals molecular origins of function for a key drug target
Scientists reveal how G protein-coupled receptors, major therapeutic drug targets, decode critical properties of their ligands.
Astronomers detect seismic ripples in ancient galactic disk
A new snapshot of an ancient, far-off galaxy could help scientists understand how it formed and the origins of our own Milky Way. At more than 12 billion years old, BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and furthest known spiral galaxy in our universe. The re…
New 1.5-billion-pixel image shows Running Chicken Nebula in unprecedented detail
While many holiday traditions involve feasts of turkey, soba noodles, latkes or Pan de Pascua, this year, the European Southern Observatory is bringing you a holiday chicken. The so-called Running Chicken Nebula, home to young stars in the making, is r…
NASA’s Hubble watches ‘spoke season’ on Saturn
A new photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, when the ringed planet was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s ultra-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes.
Supernova encore: Second lensed supernova in a distant galaxy
In November 2023, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed a massive cluster of galaxies named MACS J0138.0-2155. Through an effect called gravitational lensing, first predicted by Albert Einstein, a distant galaxy named MRG-M0138 appears warped by t…
How do painful fibroids grow?
Insights into how uterine tumors grow could give hope to millions of women who deal with painful fibroids.
Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from Southeast Asia
A new study identifies five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from Southeast Asia. The study used DNA analysis and physical characteristics to describe two entirely new species of soft-furred hedgehogs and elevate three subspecies to the level of sp…
New tool unifies single-cell data
A new methodology that allows for the categorization and organization of single-cell data has been launched. It can be used to create a harmonized dataset for the study of human health and disease.