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But theoretical physicist Samir Mathur has proposed a solution: changing the way we think of black holes and picturing them instead as "fuzzballs." SOME PHYSICISTS THINK THAT WE NEED TO SERIOUSLY UPDATE HOW WE THINK OF BLACK HOLES. [Extracted from the article]

RESEARCH GENETICIST Patricia Rosel needed to visit a skeleton-packed warehouse to confirm a longstanding scientific hunch: The 40-foot-long mammals in the Gulf of Mexico weren't Bryde's whales, but a new [...]

- anna funk HOW THE VIRUS HIJACKS YOUR BODY THE VIRUS THAT causes COVID-19 is transmitted through tiny, invisible droplets sent into the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. WHY A PANDEMIC BRINGS OUT OUR WORST THE INTENSE FEAR of the novel coronavirus almost seems as pervasive as the virus itself. - as told to megan schmidt SICK WITHOUT SYMPTOMS MANY COVID-19 cases are thought to be mild, but infected individuals with few or no reported symptoms are still contagious and capable of spreading the virus. HELP RESEARCHERS TRACK CORONAVIRUS BY REPORTING YOUR COVID-19 SYMPTOMS ONLINE HEALTH OFFICIALS can't fight the coronavirus pandemic without knowing where infections are. [Extracted from the article]

IT WAS A GRISLY scene: a hive of decapitated honeybees, their heads chewed off. And it signaled to scientists that thumb-sized 'murder hornets' native to Asia had invaded the Pacific [...]

THE CENSUS TAKERS set out in the spring of 2021 not in cars, but on a fleet of elephants. More than 300 people, including conservation experts and forestry officials, swept [...]

Aspiring Astronauts NASA'S WEBSITE LISTS THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA FOR ASTRONAUT HOPEFULS: Be a U.S. citizen. There were some Black astronaut candidates as early as 1963, but the first Black astronaut from the U.S. to reach space was Guion Bluford in 1983. HOT SCIENCE ASTRONAUTS HAVE one of the most competitive jobs in the world - 18,300 people applied to be part of NASA's 2017 class of astronauts, and only 12 made the final cut. [Extracted from the article]

Any future changes to those seafood laws, however, will have to consider decapod sentience. POLICY & CULTURE LAST SPRING, the U.K. passed the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, marking the first time that animals were declared sentient by British law. [Extracted from the article]

In other scenarios, cultural shifts include broadening testing for animal-spread diseases and even changing funerary practices for people who have died from highly contagious diseases. An epidemiologist and veterinarian at the University of Washington, Pappaioanou says focusing on tracking down diseases in the wild isn't terribly efficient: "The most effective way to stop future pandemics is to stop and prevent human interaction with animals. DISEASE CONTROL HOOFED MAMMALS may be more likely to pass diseases to humans because of their close proximity to us. [Extracted from the article]

The spongy moth's old name was likely in reference to the brown color of the male moth, said to resemble the skin color of the Romani people, who were enslaved in parts of Eastern Europe for nearly five centuries. PLANET EARTH MAGDA MATACHE was "devastated" when she first heard the common name for Lymantia dispar - the gypsy moth. While the slur in the spongy moth's old name was in dire need of replacement because it immediately registered as offensive, she argues that in many cases, a name change isn't necessarily at the top of the to-do list. [Extracted from the article]

"[They] stood out … for passionately advocating for astronomers from underrepresented groups and for promoting many causes that benefit graduate students and other junior astronomers." GOPI MOHLABENG SEARCHING FOR THE INVISIBLE THE MYSTERY OF dark matter, the enigmatic substance that makes up 27 percent of the universe, has plagued astronomers for decades. Johnson offered Zucker a position in her lab, where "I ended up falling in love with astronomy research, adding astronomy and physics as a second major in college", Zucker recalls. Amaury H.M.J. Triaud, an exoplanet astronomer at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and Martin's most-published co-author, says astronomers like Martin don't come along every day. - SARA NOVAK DAVID MARTIN CRICKETER UNO PLHHET CATCHER AUSTRALIAN ASTRONOMER DAVID MARTIN didn't spend his childhood staring through a telescope, but rather with a cricket bat in his hand. [Extracted from the article]

IT SOUNDS LIKE something out of science fiction: fetuses suspended in fluid-filled transparent bags, their blood flowing through a network of tubes hooked up to machines. In utero, the fetus's heart pumps deoxygenated blood into the placenta via the umbilical cord. In the sheep trials, the fetus's heart pumps deoxygenated blood through a tube in its umbilical cord to a machine that oxygenates it. [Extracted from the article]

Panama Protects Nature's "Right to Exist" Essentially, this means judges must weigh the rights of land developers against the rights (and associated protections) of nature to thrive, and "find a way to harmonize these rights." The new law recognizes that "natural entities have an intrinsic value … [and] a specific right to exist", says Constanza Prieto Figelist, the Latin American legal director at the nonprofit Earth Law Center, who helped draft the legislation. [Extracted from the article]

PLANET EARTH From mirror-image butterfly wings to the repeating fractal patterns of fern fronds, most living things display some kind of symmetry - yet the reason why has remained a mystery. SOLVING LIFE'S SYMMETRY Though the PNAS study focused on tiny structures like protein complexes, its authors believe the same principle could explain the phenomenon on larger scales too - including the oft-coveted bilateral symmetry of human faces and bodies. [Extracted from the article]

In a study published in January 2022, Rice mapped sound-producing species onto a family tree and showed that at least 175 families of ray-finned fishes - the largest and most diverse fish group - contain a species that communicates via sound. The first of its kind, this digital library of recordings could help researchers understand fish behaviors, track invasive species and monitor overall ecological health. PLANET EARTH The past year saw a flurry of research documenting a phenomenon that fishers and scientists have known for centuries: Fish are surprisingly chatty creatures. [Extracted from the article]

Oyster reefs once carpeted much of the seafloor, filtering water, stabilizing shorelines and providing habitats for a vast array of life. Australian flat oysters' microscopic larvae drift in currents and swim with hairlike cilia, searching for a hard surface - ideally a thriving reef made of shells from other oysters - to cement themselves to for the rest of their lives. "There is a cost and effort in raising oysters", notes marine scientist Terry Palmer of Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, who works on oyster conservation but was not involved with the study. [Extracted from the article]

The new findings suggest iridescence is an evolutionary two-for-one deal: it helps the jewel beetles hide, but it also scares off predators that manage to spot them. The beetles might be mimicking other iridescent insects that do have chemical defenses, the researchers suggest, or the changes might simply confuse predators - if a beetle's color shifts, a predator might not be able to classify it as safe or dangerous. Johanna Mappes, a University of Helsinki biologist who worked on the earlier study but was not involved with the new one, praises the way Kjernsmo's team controlled for each type of shell finish, "especially creating matte iridescence signals - it's really genius.". [Extracted from the article]