January 6, 2025: Dream engineers help people manipulate their dreams, a stamp has saved millions of acres of waterfowl habitat, and mitochondrial DNA that can hop into human DNA. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Little loops floating inside this illustration of a mitochondrion represent its DNA. Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library/Getty Images | | | • Meet Pearl Young, a self-proclaimed "hell raiser" who blazed a trail for women at the predecessor agency to NASA. | 5 min read | | | • President Biden awarded the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to three climate experts last week. | 2 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! | | | Sleep researchers are using new technologies to interface directly with the minds of dreaming people while they are in a "lucid" state, that is, asleep and yet aware they are dreaming. A study in 2021 showed evidence of two-way, real-time communication between the dreamer and a research team. Brain imaging shows that the sensorimotor cortex in the brain interprets dreams as "real." For example, when we dream of clenching a fist, the motor cortex becomes more active, and muscles in the forearm twitch. Controlling lucid dreams could help treat conditions from insomnia to PTSD.
How it works: Lucid-dream training often happens in the early morning during REM cycles. Researchers wake up participants and, for 20 minutes while they lie in bed with their eyes closed, a recorded voice instructs them to remain self-aware and to pay attention to their ongoing sensory experiences. A series of beeps and flashes of light accompany the instructions. When participants go back to sleep, the same beeps and flashes during REM sleep remind participants to hold on to their awareness. Fifty percent of the time participants have a lucid dream—a higher rate than without the sensory cues.
What the experts say: "I expect that the mental health applications of lucid dreaming will grow," writes Michelle Carr, director of the Dream Engineering Lab at the Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine in Montreal. Future products like headbands and watches could help people escape nightmares, "or just help them induce lucid dreams or direct the content for more satisfying dreams," she says. | | | In 2025, the annual Duck Stamp will feature an illustration of a pair of Spectacled Eider ducks. The male, with its bright orange bill, dense green feathers behind the nostril and round patch of silvery-white feathers surrounding the eye, is drawn standing next to its brown-feathered mate with Alaska's snowcapped mountains in the background. The winning image, selected in September at the Federal Duck Stamp contest held in the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., was painted by Adam Grimm, a South Dakota artist.
Why this is interesting: In the first half of the 20th century, hunting, industrial development and the popularity of duck meat were all driving duck population numbers south. The 1934 Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act required waterfowl hunters to purchase a $1 Duck Stamp, with sales supporting migratory bird sanctuaries. Starting in 1950, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has held the Federal Duck Stamp competition to select the image for the annual Duck Stamp.
What the experts say: "Less than three square inches in size, the Duck Stamp has protected more than six million acres of waterfowl habitat," writes Daniel T. Ksepka, who is a paleontologist and science curator at the Bruce Museum. "Although hunters are still required to buy the stamp, almost half of all duck stamps sold these days go to collectors and those who wish to support conservation—98 percent of sale dollars go directly to conserving habitat." | | | David Maass's painting of a pair of Wood Ducks appeared on the 1974 Duck Stamp. David A. Maass | | | • As the number and intensity of wildfires increase, they are continuously threatening astronomical observatories and telescope sites. Wildfires have already destroyed several major telescopes at Australia's Mount Stromlo Observatory, and other facilities have come close to devastating wildfire destruction, writes Peter McMahon, director and co-owner of the Jasper Planetarium, and owner and manager of the Ontario Planetarium. Several facilities are installing new measures to protect against wildfire damage, he says, such as early warning systems, firebreaks and prescribed burn plans. "Fixing the underlying problem, though, will require orders-of-magnitude more effort than simply adapting to a 'new normal' of more—and more intense—wildfires." | 4 min read | | | Can you control your dreams? The best I can do is, during a nightmare, suddenly realize I'm dreaming and will myself awake from the terrible reverie. In the lucid dreaming training explored by researcher Michelle Carr, some people learn how to start flying in their dreams and report feelings of excitement and euphoria. Sounds like a night well spent! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
One New York Plaza, New York, NY, 10004 | | | | | | Support our mission, subscribe to Scientific American | | | | | | | | | |
