A new fossil analysis reveals the origins of bipedalism ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
January 12, 2026—A new therapy that appears to slow Huntington's disease, how static electricity helps worms reproduce and why 2026 is a special number. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | - An alien planet discovered by volunteer scientists is out of synch with its siblings, breaking a cardinal rule of astronomy. | 3 min read
- Four International Space Station crew members are set to touch down Thursday after NASA announced the first medical evacuation in the station's history. | 1 min read
- A new study in macaques identifies a brain circuit that acts like a "brake" on motivation, helping to explain why your brain puts off doing unpleasant tasks. | 2 min read
- A new study probes how same-sex behaviors evolved in nonhuman primates. | 2 min read
- Neither a square nor a prime number, 2026 is still a mathematically special number. | 4 min read
| | A small, early clinical trial of a gene therapy for Huntington's disease, a rare and deadly neurological disorder, has shown promise in slowing the condition's progression, reports Scientific American's Allison Parshall. Study participants who received a high dose of the treatment saw a 75 percent reduction in the rate of progression compared with rates in a control group. The therapy's developer, uniQure, posted these results early in hopes of accelerating approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. How it works: There is no cure for Huntington's disease, which is caused by a mutation that causes the HTT gene to produce faulty versions of the huntingtin protein. These proteins damage nerve cells in the brain, causing uncontrollable muscle movements and cognitive decline. The new therapy delivers a drug to neurons via noninfectious viral shells. Once inside the cells, the medication produces tiny pieces of genetic material called microRNA that degrade molecules carrying instructions to build the mutant protein. What the experts say: The therapy involves a lengthy brain surgery and is expected to be expensive if approved by the FDA. The new finding nonetheless provides hope that "perhaps huntingtin-lowering is a really viable therapeutic strategy," says Rachel Harding, a University of Toronto toxicologist. "This news has really buoyed everyone's expectations of what might be possible." —Emma Gometz, newsletter editor | | Flows of tracer particles show the attractive force of a positively charged fruit fly. Parasitic nematodes use this static charge to leap onto the insects. Victor Ortega Jimenez/University of California, Berkeley | | To lay their eggs on unsuspecting flies, tiny worms called nematodes wind up, hurl themselves into the air and land on the insects. Now, researchers have figured out how the worms stick their landings: they harness static electricity. "The mere beating of insect wings generates enough positive charge to pull an oppositely charged, airborne nematode inexorably toward its unlucky host," writes freelance journalist Cody Cottier. A clear trend emerged from the team's experiments with living fruit flies and airborne nematodes: the higher a fly's electric potential, the more likely nematodes were to latch on. Why this matters: For nematodes, a successful jump can mean the difference between life and death. If they miss their landing, they can quickly dry out or starve, losing a chance to lay eggs in the insect's flesh. The pull from static electricity toward the targeted fly greatly improves the chances of surviving a jump, and thus enabling successful reproduction. What experts say: Electrostatic effects may "play countless roles" in the natural world, says Sam England, who studies sensory ecology. "Their importance to ecosystems as a whole has probably been historically quite underestimated." —Emma Gometz, newsletter editor | | | | |
- A remote village in the mountains is difficult to access and has few inhabitants. Because of their long isolation, they have split into three groups with strange behavior patterns. The truth tellers always tell the truth, the liars always lie, and the "mixers" sometimes tell the truth and sometimes lie. A hiker who has lost their way comes across three people sitting on a bench under the village's linden tree. Each belongs to a different group. The first person claims, "I am not a truth teller." The second person claims, "I am not a mixer." And the third person says, "I am not a liar." Which groups do the three people belong to? Click here for the solution.
| | - Baby boomers are turning 80 | Brookings
- What a week of freedom can do for a lab mouse | Defector
- Live from Maine's Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge, a webcam for viewers to tune in to the island's busy pupping beach | Explore
| | A bird walk that my spouse and I enjoyed yesterday in a New York City park along the Hudson River yielded 21 species in the course of an hour. Our group leader helped us spot a soaring peregrine falcon, a pair of fox sparrows feeding in a pile of oak leaves and a hermit thrush darting in shrubs, among other highlights. I don't keep a bird list as my Aunt Judy did, the person who probably most inspired me to pay more attention to birds. And neither did Scientific American's Kate Wong, until 2020, when she took up birdwatching to combat pandemic boredom. There's never been a better time to start observing birds, in part because, as she wrote in this classic feature story, "We're living in the golden age of birding." | | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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