#240

A major step has been made toward bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction – sort of. The company Colossal has the ambitious goal of bringing its first baby mammoth into the world by 2028. And its newest advance, announced this week, is in turning adult Asian elephant cells into stem cells. But it’s still a long way from here to the company’s vision of cold-adapted elephants fighting climate change in the Arctic – or even that 2028 baby mammoth. 

When did humans begin to affect the Earth’s systems enough to mark the beginning of a new geological era? The Anthropocene is often informally used to describe the current era of Earth’s geological timeline, one in which human activity has reshaped the planet – and some geologists have been lobbying to say it began officially in 1950, with the first detectable nuclear fallout. But in a leaked decision that shocked many, scientists have apparently voted not to make the Anthropocene textbook-official yet. But the story doesn’t end there.

US Army researchers are trying to figure out if AI can help them make better decisions during conflict. Using commercial chatbots powered by models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, the US military has been letting AI call the shots in the midst of battle – in the video game Starcraft II. Is the technology good enough? 

Bumblebees may be capable of culture. It’s a finding that’s causing much debate in the scientific community. Researchers challenged bees to complete a tricky puzzle box, which the bees could not do without being shown how – but the bees who were trained to solve the puzzle then quickly taught their hivemates. Teaching others something they can’t do alone could be considered cumulative culture, which was thought to be unique to humans. Is it time to rethink our exceptionalism?

Plus: How the creation of new strains of cheese mould could lead to brand new flavours of blue cheese and even new drugs; how microplastics found in our bodies may increase heart disease risk; why some white dwarfs look younger than they are – with consequences for astronomy.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Chen Ly, Jeremy Hsu and Sofia Quaglia. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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#239

Two decades ago, following the Human Genome Project’s release of a first draft in 2001, genetic testing was set to revolutionise healthcare. “Personalised medicine” would give us better treatments for serious conditions, clear pictures of our risks and individualised healthcare recommendations. But despite all the genetic tests available, that healthcare revolution has not exactly come to fruition. Amid news that genetic testing poster child firm 23andMe has hit financial troubles, we ask whether personalised medicine was overhyped.

Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras once established strict mathematical rules for what constitutes pleasing music – those rules involve ratios and harmonies that were the basis of much of Western music theory. But comprehensive new research finds people’s preferences have little to do with Pythagoras’ rules.

The invention of the numeral zero to represent nothing is a cornerstone of some of our greatest accomplishments as a species, like calculus, literature and philosophy. Now researchers have figured out how our brains comprehend the idea of nothing – and it may have started as registering the absence of predators, prey, or even weather conditions. The experiment finds where “nothing” lives in our brain and traces back the invention of the numeral zero to our animal roots.

If you want to make friends with a dog but are wary of petting them, there is a way. All you need to do is follow them around and copy their movements. Research into this behavioural synchronisation could prove beneficial to helping nervous pups connect better with people.

Plus: Making plankton poo heavier with clay – for the environment; YouTube’s recommendation algorithm seems to have stopped inadvertently radicalising people; the specific chemical compounds that make an orange taste orangey.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Jacob Aron, James Woodford and Sam Wong. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

Music credit:

“Bonang,” Wesleyan University Virtual Instrument Museum 2.0, accessed February 29th, 2024, https://wesomeka.wesleyan.edu/vim2/items/show/3

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#237

Glaucoma, which can cause blindness by damaging the optic nerve, may be reversible. Researchers have managed to coax new optic nerve cells to grow in mice, partly restoring sight in some. How the treatment works through an eyeball injection and why, for humans, prevention and early detection are still the best options.

Black holes, just like planets and stars, spin. But they may be spinning a lot slower than we thought. When black holes gobble up matter around them, they start spinning faster and we’ve largely used this understanding to guess their speed. But new research also weighs the slowing effect of massive gas jets that black holes emit – revealing that many may have slowed dramatically since their births. How these new estimates of spin also offer insights into a black hole’s history. 

What if we could generate solar power in space, far more efficiently than on Earth – and then beam it down to our houses? An MIT experiment has managed to do one of the most crucial steps of that science fiction-seeming process, converting electricity from a satellite into microwaves that were then successfully received by a collector in California. How these microwaves could supply the power grid on Earth and help ween us off of fossil fuels – if they can overcome some major hurdles. 

Apes like to playfully tease each other, just like humans do. While their methods may be a bit different from ours – poking, hitting, pulling on hair and stealing – it looks like they’re often doing it for fun, rather than to harass or assert dominance. This new finding could explain why humans evolved to enjoy jokes.

Plus: A weird cooling quirk of Antarctica’s atmosphere; the microbes that make your tea taste delicious; and the flamboyant love languages of cuttlefish, scorpions and even dog-loving humans.

Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Alex Wilkins and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.

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