Covid’s main lesson? For this journalist, it’s unpredictability
VIDEO: New York Times science reporter Apoorva Mandavilli chronicles the rise of the delta variant, the latest of many twists in the pandemic that she’s covered since it began. Delta has left parents in an especially tough spot, with schools opening but young children still vulnerable. Watch now
Animals that take advice from bacteria
By Bob Holmes The larvae of many marine creatures drift in the plankton, then settle to the seafloor and transform into adults. Bacteria often help the critters pick where to settle — and that may be just a snippet of a far more extensive conversation. Read more
Can ranked-choice voting heal our poisoned politics?
By M. Mitchell Waldrop The electoral reform also known as instant-runoff voting promises bridge-building and broad appeal instead of culture war and gridlock Read more
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The psychology and politics of conspiracy theories
Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | 8:30am San Francisco | 11:30am New York | 4:30pm London
In the past year, conspiracy theories have had a big impact on politics and public health. What makes them so appealing? How can we disrupt their influence? Join us for a discussion with two experts — a social psychologist and a political theorist — to explore these issues and more.
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From the archives
E-books for kids raise questions about consequences
Children are captivated by video games, movies and other digital media, but how concerned should parents be? Not all screen time is the same, explain the hosts of Parentalogic, a series by NOVA and PBS Digital Studios. Context and age matter, as does the amount of time spent engaging with others in real life. Learn more about the potential benefits — and downsides — of a certain screen activity that’s becoming increasingly popular: e-books.
As the Arctic warms, it’s losing more than just ice
The Arctic’s summer melting season has ended, leaving an estimated 1.82 million square miles of sea ice, the 12th-lowest total since 1979, writes Henry Fountain in the New York Times. Dive into the hidden habitats that thrive inside ice with our slideshow.
What we're reading
A matter of life and death
We humans might be the only species to grapple with our mortality, but other animals surely have a concept of death. So argues philosophy and ethics scholar Susana Monsó in an essay in Aeon. She explores the complexity behind the act of mimicking death, a display known as thanatosis, or “playing possum,” and what it says about the animals that do it, their audience and human exceptionalism.
A new eye on the cosmos
The largest space-based telescope ever built is ready to fly. On December 18, NASA will launch the oft-delayed James Webb Space Telescope. And it will change how we see the universe, reports Brian Resnick for Vox. Its sheer size and sensitivity to infrared light will allow it to peer into the atmospheres of exoplanets, lift the veils on dust-enshrouded stellar nurseries and seek out light from the very first stars and galaxies. “We’re going right up to the edge of the observable universe with Webb,” says one astronomer. “And yeah, we’re excited to see what’s there.”
The multicellular jump
In the beginning, life was single-celled — and then there was a giant leap (or leaps, since it happened several times) to a multicellular lifestyle. Scientists recently replicated a nascent version of that leap with yeast cells, Veronique Greenwood reports in Quanta Magazine. While being forced to cooperate with hundreds (let alone trillions) of cellular neighbors has its downsides, there are also incentives, she writes, and the research may shed light on the circumstances that “could have enticed organisms to take this fork in the road millions of years ago on Earth.”
Art & science
CREDIT: LEVON BISS
Gone to seed
Most of us have seen the insides of an orange or walnut, but it’s a rare treat to witness the heart of a coco de mer. Also known as sea coconut, the fruit takes some six years to mature and is the largest in the plant kingdom (it can weigh upwards of 60 pounds and measure more than a foot and half across). The plant that bears this beautiful beast, Lodoicea maldivica, is a palm native to the inner islands of the Seychelles and is thought to be an example of “island gigantism” — a known phenomenon whereby some island species grow outlandishly larger than their mainland relatives.
The coco de mer is also critically endangered, so it is good fortune that photographer Levon Biss included this cross section in his striking photos of seeds and fruits of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh collection (many of which are in his book, The Hidden Beauty of Seeds & Fruits). See more seedy stunners in this spread at Colossal; visit Biss’s website to peruse his other projects (or purchase prints); and learn more about the biology and folklore of coco de mer at New Scientist.
