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June 13, 2025—Storm surge is one of the biggest dangers during hurricanes. Plus, physicists use quantum computers to simulate particle interactions; and look out for the stinging Asian needle ant this summer! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Men work inside of a uranium conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran, on March 30, 2005. The facility in Isfahan made hexaflouride gas, which was then enriched by feeding it into centrifuges at a facility in Natanz, Iran. Getty Images | | - Could Iran have been close to making a nuclear weapon? This is how uranium enrichment works. | 3 min read
- Physicists used quantum computers to simulate "string breaking" interactions between subatomic particles. | 3 min read
- EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Wednesday that his agency would repeal two 2024 power sector standards: one to limit climate pollution and another to curb mercury pollution. | 7 min read
- People have been getting stung by the Asian needle ant. It looks ordinary enough, but its sting can be worse than a fire ant's and can cause anaphylaxis. | 3 min read
- In honor of Father's Day, get to know the Djungarian hamster, a dwarf variety that lives in the cold, dry semideserts of Russia, China and Mongolia. In the mammalian world, good dads are rare, but this hamster is an exception. | 12 min listen
| | Storm surges often accompany hurricanes and can be more damaging than winds or heavy rains. In 2012 Superstorm Sandy was a weak hurricane prior to making landfall, and yet created a storm surge that killed hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars in damage along the heavily populated coasts of New York and New Jersey. Why this matters: As the climate warms, hurricanes are becoming more intense, and sea levels are rising. Both of these effects are likely to worsen storm surges. Coastal areas that are already vulnerable to storm surge could experience worse impacts, and places that aren't quite vulnerable now may become increasingly at risk. How it works: Surges occur when the strong winds of a hurricane interact with ocean waters, piling up water ahead of the storm. A small part of the effect, however, results from the low atmospheric pressure inside a storm, which decreases the amount of downward force on the ocean, triggering a rise in water level. As the hurricane heads toward shore, it travels over shallower ocean, and the water it carries has nowhere to go but upward onto land. When it nears land, the excess water surges over the shore above and beyond the normal tide level. | | Risk areas: The chart below, based on the National Hurricane Center's National Storm Surge Risk Maps, shows the potential storm surge along the U.S. Atlantic coast from a category 3 hurricane. For example, in 1999 Hurricane Floyd hit the North Carolina coast as a category 2 storm, carrying in surges of nine to 10 feet along the coast. | | Daniel P. Huffman; Source: "A National View of Storm Surge Risk and Inundation," by Brian C. Zachry, William J. Booth, Jamie R. Rhome and Tarah M. Sharon, in Weather, Climate, and Society, Vol. 7, No. 2; April 2015; via www.nhc.noaa.gov/nationalsurge (map data) | | - Here's the first question of this week's science quiz. Also check out today's Spellements, and remember, if you spot any words missing from the puzzle, email them to games@sciam.com. This week, Joaquin M. sent in invar, which is a nickel-iron alloy. Nice!
| | - "Let's say that right now there are intelligent aliens and technological civilizations out there somewhere in the Milky Way," writes columnist and astronomer Phil Plait. "Could they detect us?" It's likely, he says, especially detection of radio signals streaming off our planet. But there are other so-called technosignatures that aliens might pick up on, too. "The galaxy has been around for billions of years," he writes. "No one can say yet who else shares it with us or what they're using to explore it." | 6 min read
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| | Every Friday in summer we'll recommend a great, freshly-published science read. Tell us what you're reading or if you try any of the books we suggest! | | Slither: How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World By Stephen S. Hall. Grand Central Publishing. April, 2025.
 Snakes creep most people out: they slither in and out of sight, hide in startling places and sometimes inflict deadly bites on unsuspecting prey. But science writer Stephen Hall, whose latest book is called Slither, is a lifelong snake admirer. For him, snakes are more than menacing. They are incredibly diverse and capable of surviving on every continent except Antarctica, Hall said in a recent appearance on our Science, Quickly podcast. The snake's ability to endure a range of conditions caught his attention, "not just because of the cleverness of the evolution or the selective process, but also, it's a warning to us in terms of climate change and changes in the global meteorological systems," he explained. "Snakes have a way of adapting to [such changes] that we don't have, and maybe we can learn something from them." Snakes may have directly influenced human evolution as well, he added. "Snake detection theory" posits that our ancient ancestors' ability to spot snakes in the wild may have helped contribute to larger primate brains. Check out the full interview here.—Brianne Kane | | I have no burning desire to hang out with a snake of any kind. But I can recognize that they are pretty incredible creatures. Burmese pythons have been known to swallow deer whole. How do they do this? A typical snake opens its mouth at the joint in the middle of its jaw, and the two halves of the lower jaw flare out to the sides; the skin and tissue in between stretch to accommodate the food. Burmese pythons have so much extra tissue in this gap, they can wrap their mouths around animals many times their own size. Can snakes and I be close friends? No, thanks. Do I want them to live long, happy lives? Heck yeah. | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | | |
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