Today in Science: Club drugs could help PTSD

Daily science inspo June 16, 2023: The bubble around our solar system, a lost world of microbes and our most popular stories of the week. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor TOP STORIES The Boundaries of Our Solar System The heliosphere is a bubble of plasma that surrounds our entire solar system. The plasma is ionized gas that billows out from the sun. It flows outward along magnetic field lines in radial spirals tied to the sun's rotation. But just how the interstellar magnetic field of the rest of the galaxy wraps around the heliosphere of our solar system has been hazy until now. A new study of the region uses data from the two Voyager missions and from an Earth-orbiting satellite to describe the lopsided distribution of the interstellar magnetic field at the boundary of our heliosphere. Why this is so cool: Understanding the geography of our heliosphere will help us to plan future missions that pass out of the solar system. Our solar system is currently traversing the Local Interstellar Cloud, so astronomers will be able to use this new map to access that interstellar medium.  What the experts say: "This study is all about connecting what we have measured to make sense of the bigger picture of what our place in the galaxy looks like," says Jamie Rankin, deputy project scientist for the Voyager mission and a space physicist at Princeton University. An outside-in visualization of the heliosphere, the protective bubble of plasma that surrounds our solar system within the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab/Walt Feimer Lost World Discovered Analysis of fat-like molecules isolated from the rocks hundreds of meters beneath the Australian Outback suggests that they were made by a previously undiscovered, ancient population of organisms called eukaryotes, some 1.6 billion years old. Why this matters: Scientists have long thought that eukaryotes did not exist before 800 million years ago, because traces of a biomarker for their existence could never be found. This new study looked for a different biomarker to identify the fossils–an intermediate set of fat-like molecules found in modern eukaryotes that the researchers hypothesized might have been an end-product made by ancient eukaryotes. What the experts say: Using hypotheses about the evolution of biosynthetic pathways to guide the search for ancient life could reveal more about early life, says Susannah Porter, a paleontologist who focuses on early eukaryote evolution at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "It's thinking about the record of biomarkers from an evolutionary perspective. And I think that's needed." TODAY'S NEWS • Space and physics editor Lee Billings discusses this week's discovery of Population III stars--the earliest stars in the universe--on this week's episode of Cosmos, Quickly. | 5 min listen • Which was the first organism to take a nap? Likely a small, ocean-dwelling animal that took advantage of its nervous system to hunt for prey. | 6 min read • Smoking rates have declined in the past decades, but there are still more smokers now than in 1990. | 2 min read • Young people suing Montana to take action on climate change wrap up their arguments in a first-of-its-kind trial. The state takes the stand next week. | 5 min read More News EXPERT PERSPECTIVES • In May, the Supreme Court slashed federal protections of wetlands protections. This was a remarkably bad decision, writes Adam S. Ward, the chair of the Department of Biological & Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University. "Americans should expect more floods and droughts, worse drinking-water quality and degraded ecosystems, all springing from the inevitable loss of the now-unprotected wetlands adjacent to our bays, lakes and rivers," he says. | 6 min read A Florida marsh home to many birds threatened by a recent Clean Water Act legal decision. Credit: Bkamprath/Getty Images More Opinion ICYMI (our most-read stories this week!) • World's Largest Fusion Project is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal. | 11 min read • Why Dying People Often Experience a Burst of Lucidity. | 8 min read • In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S. | 4 min read Happy Friday, dear readers! It was an exciting week in science, from the potential spotting of the universe's first stars, to an important milestone achieved in renewable energy. In case you missed it, on this week's episode of Your Health, Quickly, senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman discuss how MDMA (molly or ecstasy to partiers) is evolving into a serious treatment for PTSD. Check it out this weekend! Reach out anytime to let me know how you're enjoying this newsletter: newsletters@sciam.com. See you Monday! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters here. Scientific American One New York Plaza, New York, NY, 10004   Support our mission, subscribe to Scientific American here   Unsubscribe Email Preferences