Week in Science: Total reversals in scientific thinking

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August 22—This week, sometimes science pulls a 180 in its thinking, remarkable new treatments for peanut allergies, and a new moon spotted around Uranus. All that and more below! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

Top Stories

Can Peanut Allergies Be Cured? Remarkable new treatments can free millions of kids and adults from the deadly threat of peanut allergy, tackling one of our fastest-growing medical problems Maryn McKenna

What Happens When an Entire Generation of Scientists Changes Its Mind Total reversals in scientific thinking are rare—but earth-shattering Charles C. Mann

How Your Brain's Nightly Cleanse Keeps It Healthy Washing waste from the brain is an essential function of sleep—and it could help ward off dementia Lydia Denworth

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Chikungunya Outbreak, Glacial Outbursts and a New Human Ancestor China is having a fast-rising chikungunya outbreak in a place that has never had one before. Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Discovers New Moon of Uranus Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus's rings that's so small you could walk around it Andrea Tamayo

Math Breakthroughs from Behind Bars People in prisons and jails have contributed to some of the greatest ideas in mathematics Manon Bischoff

Humans Aren't as Special as We Once Thought Other species exhibit capabilities that were once thought to be exclusive to Homo sapiens Kate Wong

Why This Seabird's Superpooper Lifestyle Is Amazing Scientists The first detailed observation of the bathroom habits of Streaked Shearwaters at sea leave scientists with a surprising load of questions Meghan Bartels

I Gave My Personality to an AI Agent. Here's What Happened Next A large language model interviewed me about my life and gave the information to an AI agent built to portray my personality. Could it convince me it was me? Webb Wright

How RNA Unseated DNA as the Most Important Molecule in Your Body DNA holds our genetic blueprints, but its cousin, RNA, conducts our daily lives Philip Ball

U.S. Cuts Antarctica's Only Research Icebreaker Ship under Trump Budget Squeeze The National Science Foundation will stop operating the Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker and slash polar science funding by 70 percent, devastating Antarctic research Douglas Fox

These Tiny Disks Will Sail on Sunlight into Earth's Mysterious 'Ignorosphere' With no fuel or engines, tiny explorers will surf sun-warmed air alone to explore high in the skies of Earth and Mars Payal Dhar

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SpaceX moves Super Heavy to pad ahead of Starship Flight 10

It's Friday! | SpaceX moves Super Heavy to pad ahead of Starship Flight 10 | Astronomers discover brightest ever fast radio burst Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version August 22, 2025 FOLLOW US FOLLOW US Something amazing every day SIGN UP ⋅   WEBSITE   The Launchpad It's Friday! The weekend is almost here, space fans! And we've got quite a weekend in spaceflight to look forward to. SpaceX is set to launch its massive Starship rocket on its tenth test flight on Sunday, and if this launch is anything like the previous nine, we can expect quite a show. Blue Origin will also launch its 35th New Shepard rocket mission this weekend, carrying over 40 scientific experiments into space. This week, astronomers announced they've detected what may be the brightest flash of radio waves ever seen and were able to track this fast radio burst (FRB) back to its source. On Saturday (Aug. 23), we will see a "black moon" with August's new moon, defined as the third new moon in a season that will see four new moons. Use the dark skies to get some skywatching in! Ad astra, Brett Tingley, Managing Editor SpaceX moves Super Heavy to pad ahead of Starship Flight 10 (SpaceX) Liftoff of Flight 10 is scheduled for Sunday evening (Aug. 24). Read More Astronomers discover brightest ever fast radio burst (Daniëlle Futselaar/MMT Observatory) "This result marks a turning point: instead of just detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they're coming from." Read More Skywatching How to hunt sparking wonders in the Milky Way this weekend (Alan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) The dark skies surrounding this weekend's new moon phase present an excellent opportunity to spot a trio of star clusters and stellar alignments embedded in the glowing band of the Milky Way. Read More Spaceflight SpaceX launches Space Force's X-37B space plane (SpaceX) The latest mission of the U.S. Space Force's mysterious X-37B space plane is underway. Read More Science & Astronomy Astronomers trace cosmic explosion back 12 billion years (NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde) "This explosion gave off more energy in a few seconds than the sun will over its entire life." Read More Venus, Earth and Jupiter may reduce extreme solar storms (ESA/NASA/SOHO) A new study suggests that the planets in our solar system may be helping to keep the sun calmer than other sun-like stars. Read More Search for Life If aliens explore space like us, we know where to look (Robert Lea (created with Canva)) Scientists have taken a close look at our activity within the solar system to determine where to look for signals from intelligent alien life. Read More Entertainment Did the 'Fallout' Season 2 teaser spoil too much? (video) (Amazon Prime Video) It's back to the Wasteland for more nuked nightmares when Prime Video's hit sci-fi series returns in December. Read More   Follow SPACE Contact Us: Feedback | Advertise Sign Up | Update Profile | Unsubscribe Privacy Policy | Cookies Policy | Terms and Conditions Future US LLC © Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036