News from Science

Some kinds of static electricity are easy to understand. Rub a balloon against your hair, and negative charges will accumulate on the rubber because it has a greater affinity for holding charges. Your hair, now positively charged, will be attracted to the balloon. And because like charges repel, strands of your hair will splay out from each other. But identical materials with identical affinities can also exchange charges, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Particles in volcanic ash plumes somehow build up enough charge to trigger lightning; dust in grain silos can spark and explode. Researchers say they have finally found the culprit: trace amounts of surface contamination by carbon-bearing molecules from the air. Learn more: scim.ag/4vspIQj

“It’s extraordinary the effort people went to, to obtain these prestigious objects that didn’t have anything to do with food or subsistence.” Learn more: scim.ag/4oHxQK2

Hummingbird feeders are a beloved pastime for millions of backyard birders and a convenient dining spot for the birds. But for the Anna’s hummingbird, a common species in the western United States, feeders have become a major evolutionary force.⁠ ⁠ According to research published last year, artificial feeders have allowed the birds to expand their range out of Southern California up to the state’s northern end.⁠ ⁠ They have also driven a transformation of the birds themselves. Over just a few generations, their beaks have dramatically changed in size and shape.⁠ ⁠ Learn more: scim.ag/45BSZ0W #ScienceMagArchives

“This study places what may be the final nail in the coffin for the prevailing view that more oxygen made ancient insects bigger.” Learn more: scim.ag/4ezGd5S

The arrival of H5N1 in Australia has triggered an ambitious vaccination program. scim.ag/4vQwmzX

For decades, elementary students learned the same tale of the Solar System: first come rocky terrestrial planets such as Earth, followed by gas giants such as Jupiter and ice giants such as Neptune, with lovable Pluto bringing up the rear. Then 20 years ago, planetary scientists downgraded Pluto to a “dwarf planet.” Now, a growing number of theories say it’s time to revisit our idea of Neptune and Uranus, too—for the so-called ice giants likely contain very little ice. Learn more: scim.ag/4f43oWb

The National Science Foundation has decided to ban collaborations between every U.S. scientist it funds and nearly all Chinese research institutions and their employees. The new policy abandons NSF’s earlier attempt to balance the potential risks and benefits of such collaborations. scim.ag/4ydi9P4

NSF's new X-Labs initiative aims to develop breakthrough technologies—but academics aren’t sure they are welcome. Learn more: scim.ag/4ff697j

A gene therapy given to a 13-month-old boy has, years later, led to a tumor in his brain after the virus carrying the gene inserted part of it directly into his DNA, researchers report. The mass was safely removed, but his case appears to be the first time a gene therapy delivered directly into the body has been linked to cancer. Learn more: scim.ag/49vonz8

Is mimicking the cells that carry hemoglobin the key to a blood substitute? Learn more: scim.ag/4eVkhUg #ScienceMagArchives

A fiber optic technique used to detect earthquakes can also pick up the faint vibrations of nearby speech, researchers report. Learn more: scim.ag/42wdGIO

In 2023, researchers in a deep-sea submersible west of Australia came across several whale skeletons 2400 meters deeper than had ever been described. As the expedition continued, the scientists found an unprecedented abundance of skeletons—the biggest, deepest, and oldest collection ever seen on the sea floor. Learn more: scim.ag/4wspybw

Two papers pin the introduction of smallpox on British colonists and suggest that Australia held far more people than previously believed. Learn more: scim.ag/4aDgrMV

At extreme altitudes, Mother Nature tries its best to keep mammals out. Oxygen thins out, temperatures never crack freezing, and there’s hardly anything to eat. But there’s one mammal that can survive at greater elevations than any other: the Andean leaf-eared mouse. This small, brown rodent has been found at the top of the Llullaillaco volcano on the Chile-Argentina border, 6700 meters above sea level—hundreds of meters higher than its closest competitor. Now, scientists have figured out how these rodents are able to make their home in such an inhospitable environment. And, to the researchers’ surprise, it’s not only a lack of oxygen that has shaped these mice: They also appear to have developed an unusual way to cope with eating the toxic food in the volcanic environment of the Andes. Learn more: scim.ag/4h5d8ly

Northern spotted owls were spared from logging. Now, scientists are making a last stand to save them from a new threat. #LongReads scim.ag/44TJl89

Observational studies suggested the meningitis vaccine could prevent gonorrhea, but a new randomized trial shows no benefit. Learn more: scim.ag/3QHZQks

Octopuses are among the strangest creatures on Earth—right down to their molecules. A new study has found that octopuses of a certain lineage have a mutation not seen in any other organism that makes their cellular machinery extremely accurate at creating proteins. As a result, their proteins are less likely to form toxic clumps. Learn more: scim.ag/4wxHUb9

A spectacular claim about the structure of the universe may be rapidly unraveling. Recently, a pair of cosmologists reported that, on the largest scales, the distribution of the galaxies is stringier than standard theory assumes. However, another cosmologist posted a preprint that suggests the tantalizing signal is an artifact produced by mixing different measures of cosmic distance. Learn more: scim.ag/4yb2ekh

An open letter calls on philosophy journals to begin to mandate potential conflicts of interest amid growing ties to #AI and other companies. scim.ag/4b6Y5UI

A new study challenges the idea that taller trees are more susceptible to drought by taking a close look at dipterocarps, a tropical tree group that dominates the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Height doesn’t seem to stymie these trees’ ability to transport water, the researchers found: Taller dipterocarps appear to show the same reaction to drought stresses as their smaller counterparts. Learn more: scim.ag/4wjTlDe