January 16, 2025: A see-through comb jelly with two butts, and the New Glenn rocket lifts off. Plus, can trees communicate through an underground network? —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Blue Origin New Glenn rocket is seen on the launch pad on Dec. 19, 2024, at Launch Complex-36 during a wet dress rehearsal test ahead of the rocket's maiden flight this morning. ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo | | | • Blue Origin's New Glenn space rocket successfully launched shortly after 2AM EST this morning. | 7 min read | | | • President Biden issued an executive order to permit data centers on federal lands in a move aimed at bolstering clean energy and protecting national security during a boom in AI. | 3 min read | | | • Investigators in California are already hunting for the cause of the Palisades fire. Here's how they'll do it. | 5 min read | | | Are you enjoying this newsletter? If you want to dive deeper into the articles I link to, consider a subscription to Scientific American. We have special discounts for Today in Science readers! | | | Two fused comb jellies both react to a prodding. Mariana Rodriguez-Santiago (CC BY-SA) | Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., made a surprising discovery while collecting "sea walnut" comb jellies ( Mnemiopsis leidyi). Two injured jellies had fused overnight in the researchers' tank and become one creature joined at the midbody with two butts. By tracking the fusing process with other jellies, the researchers saw that the animals synchronized their respective nervous systems in just two hours. And food eaten by one mouth was shared between both digestive tracts.
Why this is interesting: That two jellies could fuse so quickly and integrate as thoroughly suggests that comb jellies lack allorecognition—the ability to distinguish between self and nonself within the same species.
What the experts say: Allorecognition is what triggers an immune response in human transplant rejections. Learning from creatures without such responses might help scientists make it easier for human bodies to accept a stranger's organs. "Simple organisms [hold] clues to understanding our own complexity, as well as treasures that can benefit our lives," says Kei Jokura, a biologist at the University of Exeter in England and at Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences. | | | A somewhat romantic idea has crept into both scientific and popular culture: that forests are cooperative places, where trees communicate or interact with each other through underground networks of fungi, called mycorrhizal networks. Researchers conducted a review of the evidence for interactions via fungi and found inconsistent results and weak testing methodology.
Why this matters: In forests, individual selection favors competition, with trees vying for resources in a way that would prevent group benefits. Tree cooperation, as suggested by some tree scientists, goes against those principles.
What the experts say: This controversy is fascinating because "it's an example of people wanting to project their own values into nature and of them wanting to see in nature a model for human behavior," says Kathryn Flynn, a plant community ecologist at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio. | | | • Rather than return the country to "a system of patronage, corruption and incompetence that defined government through the 1800s," the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "could consider mission-driven recommendations from the good government community of public administration scholars and nonpartisan research groups like the National Academy of Public Administration," write Thomas J. Greitens and M. Ernita Joaquin, two administrative science professors. Such groups "routinely investigate the best ways to make government more efficient and effective. Their past research findings can improve hiring, program implementation, cost management and other administrative techniques." | 5 min read | | | It is a beautiful idea, that trees can somehow transmit signals to one another, in warning of invading pests, or coming fire. I'm in the middle of a fascinating book on so-called "plant intelligence" by Atlantic writer Zoë Schlanger titled "The Light Eaters." It examines the research on the astounding ways plants adapt and respond to their environment. I recommend it, not only for the quality of prose, but for the fresh perspective on plant life. Trees might not be able to think according to the human definition, but they display more agency than we realize. | I am always open to book recommendations and any other suggestions for how to improve this newsletter: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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