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On the same day the FDA restricted access to COVID vaccines, the CDC director was sacked and top CDC scientists are resigning.
And it’s barely been two weeks since an antivax conspiracy theorist fired 180 bullets at CDC headquarters.
None of this is making America healthier. What a disaster.
The bright yellow worm that turns ocean poison into golden survival crystals
Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a bright yellow worm thrives where no other animals dare, in toxic hydrothermal vents saturated with arsenic and sulfide. By cleverly turning these poisons into a golden mineral once prized by Renaissance painters, the worm neutralizes the deadly threat and survives in one of Earth’s most hostile habitats. Scientists say https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250827010729.htm
Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a bright yellow worm thrives where no other animals dare, in toxic hydrothermal vents saturated with arsenic and sulfide. By cleverly turning these poisons into a golden mineral once prized by Renaissance painters, the worm neutralizes the deadly threat and survives in one of Earth’s most hostile habitats. Scientists say this unusual “fighting poison with poison” strategy could change how we think about life’s resilience in extreme environments.
Consider the alternate history where fungi never evolved the ability to digest lignin, the tough woody material found in many plants.
The period of time where plants could produce lignin, but fungi couldn't break it down resulted in the massive coal deposits found in the earth.
Some bacteria can break down lignin, but they require wet conditions to do this. This is what happens in the gut of termites.
So, of course, we can imagine an alternate history where termites rule the earth.
https://phys.org/news/2025-09-rare-iron-age-ingot-sweden.html
A complete plano-convex ingot has been found in Sweden for the first time. The results of the isotopic and chemical analyses carried out by archaeologists at the University of Gothenburg are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
So glad this made it to nature... I think I saw this last year and I was blown away by this whole "arrangement"
Correction: This is another, somewhat similar example of ants having unusual reproductive strategies.
Attached: 3 images This is absolutely wild. Two populations of ants (Cataglyphis hispanica) in the deserts of Spain, the same species but separate genetic lineages. All workers are hybrids of both populations but in both cases, through social hybridogenesis the reproductive queens and males are only of one lineage or the other. Queens of both species must mate out to produce workers (hybrids) but the workers never in turn reproduce. They show it's been like this for a long long time! https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2396
This finding that some ant queens can lay eggs of another species is astonishing. Biology is far stranger than we can possibly imagine.
Bumble bees balance their diets with surprising precision
Bumble bees aren’t random foragers – they’re master nutritionists. Over an eight-year field study in the Colorado Rockies, scientists uncovered that different bee species strategically balance their intake of protein, fats, and carbs by choosing pollen from specific flowers. Larger, long-tongued bees seek protein-rich pollen, while smaller, short-tongued species prefer https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250827010724.htm
Bumble bees aren’t random foragers – they’re master nutritionists. Over an eight-year field study in the Colorado Rockies, scientists uncovered that different bee species strategically balance their intake of protein, fats, and carbs by choosing pollen from specific flowers. Larger, long-tongued bees seek protein-rich pollen, while smaller, short-tongued species prefer carb- and fat-heavy sources. These dietary preferences shift with the seasons and colony life cycles, helping bees reduce competition, thrive together, and maintain strong colonies.
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-political-parties-economic-inequality-large.html
Growing dissatisfaction among the population, loss of trust in politics, increase in crime and violence: Economic inequality leads to a variety of social consequences. Nevertheless, the issue plays a much smaller role in the election manifestos of political parties both in Germany and in other countries than researchers had previously assumed. These are the results of a current study by the Cluster of Excellence The Politics of Inequality at the University of Konstanz, recently published in the journal American Political Science Review.
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