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👨 Chip off the old gene block? How Dad's habits get passed down...
✍️ Holly Barker: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2026/epigenetic-effects-of-sperm-on-offspring
Among the discoveries is a slab of crust that runs from Maine to Georgia and may have formed via volcanic eruptions some 200 million years ago when the supercontinent Pangea broke up. For more on the geology of that eastern stretch of North America, read our recent story. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/physical-world/2025/how-did-eastern-north-america-form
Across the United States, an array of 1,800 stations has been probing the electrical conductivity of rocks deep beneath the surface. This Magnetotelluric Array has uncovered hidden fragments of continent, the stretching of crust and places likely to harbor mineral deposits, Paul Voosen reports at Science.
https://www.science.org/content/article/deep-earth-map-reveals-lost-u-s-continent
🐍 New fossils and modern techniques are updating the story of how our favorite sssslithering reptiles came to be.
✍️ Amber Dance: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2026/evolution-of-snakes
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. By 2030, it’s expected to kill more people in the United States than any cancer except for lung cancer.
Read Amber Dance's piece on the path to curing it: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/progress-for-pancreatic-cancer
Desperate patients with pancreatic cancer have just been granted "early access" to a promising yet unapproved treatment by the FDA.
“The longer you stay clean, the stronger the pull can get. That's not a failure of willpower but how addiction reshapes the brain's synapses, and understanding it changes how people think about relapse.”
Thanks to 1440 for sharing our story: https://join1440.com/newsletter/shutdown-breakthrough-40-hour-workweek-and-the-best-of-april
“There has definitely been a growing number of people who question widely accepted scientific evidence. It’s important to pay attention to.”
👀 On our radar: Raw milk? Vaccines? A hefty chunk of people believe unproven claims
✍️ Helen Pearson, Nature
🧠 Changes in neural connections due to substance use and withdrawal are long-lasting, and craving can peak well into abstinence. Understanding this process could inspire drugs to support recovery.
✍️ Emma Yasinski: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2026/what-addiction-does-to-synapses-in-brain
Our made-up stories sometimes come with made-up languages — think of Na’vi spoken in Avatar or the Elvish tongues in Lord of the Rings.
When crafting such tongues, linguists often begin with an inventory of sounds and then develop the rules that dictate how those sounds interact.
✍️ Maria Temming, Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/conlang-fictional-languages-linguistics
