Inside Science Weekly Newsletter

View in browser Hi! We've been away for a couple of weeks, but our Inside Science team is delighted to share a new set of stories with you. We would like to especially highlight one about how paints made with egg yolks were a mainstay for artists and decorators for hundreds of years. Before oil-based paints, tempera paint was made from mixing egg yolk and pigments because unlike water-based paints, they didn't turn to a powder when the liquid evaporated. Other recent stories include coverage of the physics of spinning tops, what happens when crowds run from the bulls, and so much more. Hope you enjoy these stories and please keep your inboxes open -- we'll be publishing more soon. —Chris Gorski, Senior Editor Featured Story How to Paint a Renaissance Masterpiece, with Eggs A new study probes the network of protons in egg-based paints to highlight how the paint works on a molecular scale. By Tom Metcalfe, Contributor Inside Science's Latest Stories How Crowds Run When Bulls Charge The running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, helped researchers study what happens when lots of people suddenly wish to move quickly. By James Gaines, Contributor When Dust Storms Strike Mars, Could Wind Power Keep the Lights On? New research looks at how dust storms and a thin atmosphere may play into alternative energy sources on the Red Planet. By Joshua Learn, Contributor How Hydra Regrow Their Heads The genes involved in hydra regeneration and development could offer clues about immortality. By Katharine Gammon, Contributor Other Popular Stories from Inside Science The Wondrous Physics of Spinning Tops Zack Savitsky, Contributor Fossil Tracks Reveal Lightning Speed of Dinosaurs Joshua Learn, Contributor Poorer People Get Little Benefit from Digital Activity Trackers Brian Owens, Contributor What We're Reading Pfizer, BioNTech vaccine neutralises Omicron with three shots By Ludwig Burger and Michael Erman, Reuters The omicron variant was first reported to the World Health Organization in late November, and quickly dubbed a variant of concern of the coronavirus. Researchers are scrambling to collect information about how much danger the newly recognized form presents. While it's currently not clear if this new variant is significantly more dangerous than other variants such as delta, Pfizer announced on Wednesday that 3 shots of its vaccine, including a booster, does provide significant protection against infection from the omicron, while two doses may still provide protection against severe disease. The company also announced that they may be able to produce a vaccine tailored to the omicron variant within a few months. The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works. By Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine Savor this one. It's a story full of delicious turns of phrase and hard-to-believe details about the James Webb telescope, which is set to launch later this month. Not too long after it will settle into a comfortable spot about a million miles from Earth and then turning its attention deeper into the universe (and in time) than we've ever been able to look. This vibrant, in-depth feature covers the Hubble telescope, multiple Nobel Prize-winners, a family of astronomers, and the promise of this soon-to-launch telescope. Why Are There So Many Kinds of Phytoplankton? By Saima Sidik, Hakai Magazine The top layer of the ocean is crowded with plankton, far more species than ecologists would expect. They've long been wondering about why a much smaller number don't outcompete and dominate the others. It turns out, Sidik writes, that maybe the plankton don't really compete at all. If scientists take the tiny creatures' perspectives and reexamine the way they apply what's called neutral theory, the predictions for plankton diversity become much more accurate. Read More from Inside Science Copyright 2021 American Institute of Physics. Inside Science syndicates its articles, columns, blogs and videos to news organizations. To initiate syndication, or request permission to republish our content (on a one-time or continuing basis), please contact Inside Science at insidescience@aip.org. News organizations seeking permission to republish Inside Science content must fully credit Inside Science as the original source of the content, include the author byline, and republish the original, unaltered form (excluding content titles, headlines, or sub-headlines). The reprint format can be seen here. Copyright conditions and usage terms are subject to change at any time without consent or any type of prior notice. To unsubscribe from all future mailings from Inside Science please click here. To manage your email subscriptions please click here. Inside Science is an editorially independent news service of the American Institute of Physics © 2021 American Institute of Physics 1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740 About Inside Science | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Reprint Rights | Email alerts | Underwriters