A daily read for science lovers, the endlessly curious and inquiring minds. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
September 4, 2025—Alchemist fish, images that can hack your AI agent and bacteria that play dead in spacecraft assembly rooms. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Typical optical fibres consist of thin, solid glass wires. Tweaking the design could allow them to carry more data over longer distances. Phillip Hayson/Science Source | | - A new "glass straw" optical fiber design that sends light through air rather than solid glass could cut signal loss and make long-distance transmissions cheaper. | 3 min read
- Sneaky spacecraft bacteria found in assembly "clean rooms" can play dead to survive, an unexpected finding with implications for planetary protection. | 3 min read
- A West Coast versus Southeast vaccine divide is taking shape as Pacific Coast states formed a compact to bulwark their vaccine recommendations and Florida moved to ditch school shot requirements. | 2 min read
- Spouses often share the same psychiatric disorders, according to an analysis of almost 15 million people in three countries | 3 min read
| | For decades, mercury pollution has accumulated in lakes and oceans. Over time, the toxin also builds up in fish and everything that eats them—humans included. Investigating ways to prevent this build up, scientists at Macquarie University in Australia genetically engineered zebrafish and fruit flies to convert methylmercury, which accumulates in the body and can wreak havoc on our health, to ethyl mercury, which is less harmful and evaporates from the body. Then the team injected the lab animals with E. coli genes that produce an enzyme to speed up the conversion. The modified fish contained 64 percent less methylmercury than their unmodified counterparts, whereas the fruit flies carried 83 percent less. Why this matters: Mercury pollution is highly toxic to humans. Exposures put millions of people at risk for damage to their neural and reproductive health, reports freelance journalist Cody Cottier. Small fish modified to resist mercury could someday help detoxify the food chain and shield larger fish, birds and humans from the pollutant. What the experts say: "It's proof of concept for engineering animals for bioremediation," says research team member Kate Tepper. "Potentially you could use this for a lot of pollutants," she suggests, perhaps neutralizing microplastics, pharmaceuticals and PFAS with genetically modified fish. —Andrea Tamayo, newsletter writer | | Desktop wallpapers, ads and other images could carry invisible messages capable of controlling artificial-intelligence (AI) agents, a new study shows. That includes ones you've intentionally downloaded, so they might ultimately invite hackers into your computer. For example, an altered "picture of Taylor Swift on Twitter could be sufficient to trigger" malicious behavior in an AI agent on your computer, says the new study's co-author Yarin Gal. AI agents, systems that can autonomously reason, plan and perform tasks such as making restaurant reservations, will become common in the next two years, Gal thinks. How it works: Slightly altered pixels embedded in the downloaded images can be designed to deliver a message to your computer that ultimately spurs the AI agent to visit a website coded by hackers to attack your computer. Why this is interesting: AI agent users and developers should be alert to this vulnerability. "If you're not using an AI agent, this kind of attack will do nothing," writes Scientific American senior tech reporter Deni Ellis Béchard. People using AI agents should "be a bit more sensible" in how they use these systems, study co-author Philip Torr says. | | | | |
- For more than 100 years, Scientific American has reviewed science-fiction and non-fiction books, so we recently decided to pair some archival book reviews with recommended new releases. For example, H.G. Wells co-wrote a nearly 1,500-page tome, Science of Life, about which we raved in our April 1931 review. The contemporary pairing? Riley Black's latest book, When the Earth Was Green. At a slim 212 pages, it might be a better end-of-summer read for 2025. And speaking of Green, guess which 2025 book we've paired with Frank H. Livingston's book, Tuberculosis: Its Cause, Prevention, and Care?, reviewed in our March 1931 issue? | 5 min read —Brianne Kane, Scientific American's resident reader
| | Geographer Bhogtoram Mawroh works with Indigenous People in Meghalaya, India, to adapt agriculture to climate change. "Over the past few years in Meghalaya, we've experienced record rainfall, rising temperatures and extreme heat waves," he says. "The Indian government is undertaking a big push to encourage regenerative farming, but its programme focuses on modern farming practices that stay in one place." Mawroh works to secure funding for Khasi, Garo and Karbi Indigenous People, whose farming system moves between different areas across the mountains each year. Nature | 3 min read | | We always like to hear from you. Please send any feedback, questions or useful book recommendations to: newsletters@sciam.com. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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