In the Nov. 10 SN: Real benefits of virtual therapy, monkey malaria in humans, round electrons disappoint, mouse pups with two dads, bats’ hover techniques, Europa’s icy spikes, a vampire burial and more.
SPECIAL K Carefully secured under bell jars, a metal cylinder known as Le Grand K defines the kilogram. Now, scientists are doing away with that benchmark, instead relying on a fundamental constant, the Planck constant, to define the kilogram.
Courtesy of BIPM
TORCHED TOWN The Camp Fire burned through the town of Paradise in Northern California, leaving behind rubble where houses and businesses once stood.
Noah Berger/Associated Press
MAMMOTH WORLD A Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), an American mastodon (Mammut americanum) and a gomphothere (Cuvieronius) were among the prehistoric elephant relatives that roamed North America and Eurasia until the end of the last ice age.
Sergio De La Rosa
PERSISTANT PEST The bacteria that cause Lyme disease are spread by infected ticks, including the blacklegged tick Ixodes scapularis.
Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service/Bugwood.org (CC BY 3.0)
