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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