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SPONSORED BY  | | January 17, 2025: Plastic in the ocean could be transporting animal invaders. Plus, the human fixation on the past, and the FDA bans dye Red No. 3. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | • The FDA has banned the use of the dye Red No. 3 in all food and ingested drugs. Here's what foods and drugs contain the coloring, and how it compares with Red No. 40 and other artificial dyes. | 4 min read | | | • Astronomers discovered a supermassive black hole with a bizarre white dwarf star orbiting close to its event horizon. | 6 min read | | | Plastic and other debris seen in water off the Maldives. Jakchai Tilakoon/EyeEm/Getty Images | | | Scientists discovered 484 invertebrate animal species including worms, crustaceans and mollusks living on the plastic debris of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a region in the northern Pacific Ocean where currents converge to deposit an estimated 79,000 metric tons of plastic waste. All told, 70 percent of these plastic rafts carried animals normally found in coastal waters.
Why this matters: The scientists found evidence that the coastal species are reproducing, a sign that they are thriving in the open ocean environment. This means they could potentially cross the ocean and invade new shores.
What the experts say: Plastic may be facilitating the spread of invasive species, particularly between widespread coastal ecosystems. "To me, it's another warning call for us that we definitely need to take dramatic, drastic steps to reduce the amount of plastic litter that goes into the ocean," says Martin Thiel, a marine biologist at Catholic University of the North in Chile. "When it's in the open ocean, it's too late." | Researchers ran a large-scale analysis of tens of millions of real and fictional conversations, selected from books, movies, TV shows, and spoken and written real-world interactions. They found that substantially more conversations (real or fictional) were about past events than future ones. This asymmetry, they say, appears to be a fundamental aspect of how humans communicate.
Why this is interesting: Memories of the past influence behaviors, helping people to navigate complex situations or environments using cues that were previously useful. Those memories also help us predict future events, though imperfectly.
What the experts say: "People certainly know more about their past than the unknown future, so perhaps we humans tend to stick with what we know," writes Jeremy R. Manning, a computational cognitive neuroscientist at Dartmouth College. | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (PNAS) | Decoding Deception: The Psychology of Combating Misinformation | This short film, presented by PNAS and the Pulitzer Center, explores potential remedies to the growing infodemic on social media, exacerbated by AI. Interdisciplinary researchers tackle the serious challenges to shared truth. Watch Decoding Deception for solutions. | | | | If you're enjoying all the science we cover in this newsletter, dive deeper with a subscription to Scientific American. You'll have access to all our articles and will be supporting crucial science journalism. | | | • In recent years, nutritional research has focused on the issue of how much industrial processing food undergoes, especially a group of foods labeled "ultraprocessed." But rather than worry excessively about which foods are processed, ultraprocessed, or not, we should focus on what we already know: that some foods, like bacon, are clearly unhealthy and should be enjoyed only occasionally, writes Lydia Denworth, a science journalist and contributing editor to Scientific American. When it comes to healthy eating, "as we've long been told, we should eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains," she says. "In other words, go back to basics—and not back to bacon, which should be consumed only as an occasional treat. Alas." | 4 min read | | | Test your science knowledge with this week's science quiz. Or challenge yourself with our hard Sudoku or today's Spellements puzzle. Remember to send any science words that are missing from the puzzle to games@sciam.com. This week, Martin and Joaquin sent in muons, which are elementary particles like electrons, but more massive. Nice job, readers! | | | MOST POPULAR STORIES OF THE WEEK | | | • Photos Show Why Los Angeles Fires Were the Worst in City's History | 3 min read | • Exotic 'Paraparticles' That Defy Categorization May Exist in Many Dimensions | 4 min read | • Why Are Recurring Dreams Usually Bad Ones? | 4 min read | | | Natural history is full of impressive hoaxes. Daniel T. Ksepka, who is curator of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., rounded up the five greatest dupes in science history. One of them: Often called "America's greatest hoax," a 10-foot-tall gypsum stone sculpture called the Cardiff Giant commissioned by George Hull in the 1860s was said to be an actual giant petrified in the biblical flood. Hull had the sculpture built, and then buried in his cousin's yard. After the statue was discovered by unsuspecting laborers, the cousin (of course) charged visitors 50 cents to have a look. | 12 min read | Henry Salle & Fred Mohrmann, Farmers' Museum; Daniel T. Ksepka (photograph) | | | I suspect many of us ruminate about the past a fair amount. I find it fascinating that researchers suspect humans' bias for thinking about the past is a way for the brain to prep for an uncertain future. In actuality, the future can bring about surprising events, good and bad, that we never could have imagined. Rather than replaying what has already happened, perhaps we'd be better served to strengthen our resilience, compassion, and sense of humor, which seem to be the best skills for navigating this mess called life. | Today in Science will return on Tuesday. Let me know how we can improve this newsletter by emailing newsletters@sciam.com. And have a lovely weekend. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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