Week in Science: Amelia Earhart records released

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November 21—This week, are raccoons showing signs of domestication? Plus, a U.S. spy agency released records on Amelia Earhart, and personalized mRNA vaccines are on the way to treat cancer. All that and more below. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor Tell us what you think about this newsletter! Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

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Raccoons Are Showing Early Signs of Domestication City-dwelling raccoons seem to be evolving a shorter snout—a telltale feature of our pets and other domesticated animals Marina Wang

U.S. Spy Agency Releases Amelia Earhart Records The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence released long-promised records related to vanished pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. More records are promised on a rolling basis Dan Vergano

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Halted NIH Clinical Trials List Reveals Slashed Treatments for Cancer, COVID and Minority Health The National Institutes of Health has canceled funding for at least 383 clinical trials in the last year, affecting some 74,000 participants Dan Vergano

Personalized mRNA Vaccines Will Revolutionize Cancer Treatment—If Funding Cuts Don't Doom Them Vaccines based on mRNA can be tailored to target a cancer patient's unique tumor mutations. But crumbling support for cancer and mRNA vaccine research has endangered this promising therapy Rowan Moore Gerety

How the Fossil-Fuel Industry's Pivot to Plastic Is Polluting Our Planet To keep profits rolling in, oil and gas companies want to turn fossil fuels into a mounting pile of packaging and other plastic products Beth Gardiner

Mars Sample That May Contain Evidence of Life Might Never Come Home NASA spent years and billions of dollars collecting Martian samples to bring home. Now they might be stranded Jonathan O'Callaghan

Postpartum Depression Gets a Fast-Acting Fix Deep emotional distress after birth kills many mothers. A new kind of drug offers better, faster treatment Marla Broadfoot

Can Digital Ghosts Help Us Heal? What can AI "griefbots" do for those in mourning? David Berreby

These are the World's Best Cities for Walking and Cycling Data from 11,587 cities show that, rain or shine, some places are just better for bikes and pedestrians Jesse Greenspan

Fluoride in Tap Water Not Linked to Lower Child IQ, Massive Study Finds Researchers tracked thousands of Americans for decades, finding no links between ingesting recommended levels of fluoride and lower cognitive skills Humberto Basilio

Scientists Measure the Temperature of the Universe Just after the Big Bang Quark-gluon plasma, a bizarre state of matter that mimics the early cosmos, is the hottest thing ever made on Earth Clara Moskowitz

NASA's Latest Images Bring Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Into View NASA spacecraft across the inner solar system captured new views of Comet 3I/ATLAS—the third known interstellar object Meghan Bartels

We Had a Name for 'Galaxies' before We Knew They Existed Centuries before other galaxies were known to exist, astronomers called them "spiral nebulas." Today the defunct term still sparks confusion Phil Plait

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