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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Environment
This moth may outsmart smog by learning to like pollution-altered aromas
In the lab, scientists taught tobacco hawkmoths that a scent changed by ozone is from a favorite flower.
- Animals
Sea butterflies’ shells determine how the snails swim
New aquarium videos show that sea butterflies of various shapes and sizes flutter through water differently.
- Space
A weirdly warped planet-forming disk circles a distant trio of stars
The bizarre geometry of a disk of gas and dust around three stars in the constellation Orion could be formed by “disk tearing” or a newborn planet.
- Physics
Toy boats float upside down underneath a layer of levitated liquid
The upward force of buoyancy keeps objects afloat even in unusual conditions.
- Archaeology
X-rays reveal what ancient animal mummies keep under wraps
A new method of 3-D scanning mummified animals reveals life and death details for a snake, a bird and a cat.
- Tech
Methanol fuel gives this tiny beetle bot the freedom to roam
A new robot insect uses energy-dense methanol as fuel, not batteries. It could be a blueprint for future search-and-rescue bots with long run times.
- Health & Medicine
Human sperm don’t swim the way that anyone had thought
High-speed 3-D microscopy and mathematical analyses reveal that rolling and lopsided tail flicks keep the cells swimming in a straight line.
- Animals
A South American mouse is the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
At 6,739 meters above sea level, the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse survives low oxygen and freezing conditions atop a dormant volcano.
- Animals
A wasp was caught on camera attacking and killing a baby bird
Some wasps scavenge carrion or pluck parasites off birds, but reports of attacks on live birds are rare.
- Humans
Underwater caves once hosted the Americas’ oldest known ochre mines
Now-submerged chambers in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula contain ancient evidence of extensive red ochre removal as early as 12,000 years ago.
- Life
Here’s how flying snakes stay aloft
High-speed cameras show that paradise tree snakes keep from tumbling as they glide through the sky by undulating their bodies.
- Health & Medicine
Why scientists say wearing masks shouldn’t be controversial
New data suggest that cloth masks work to reduce coronavirus cases, though less well than medical masks.
