The most interesting things that happened in the last 12 hours, on Earth and off it.
Meanwhile, deep inside the Earth…
Radioactive decay thousands of kilometres down leaks antineutrinos that pass straight through the planet, and detectors have now caught enough of them to start weighing the uranium and thorium heating the mantle. It is the closest thing to a rock sample from depths no drill will ever reach.
Meanwhile, on an English road site…
Archaeologists clearing ground for a road in England pulled up a Roman fingernail cleaner whose handle is carved as a phallus. To Romans the shape was a charm against bad luck, which they applied to walls, jewellery, sculpture and, it turns out, personal grooming kit.
Meanwhile, in an eating-disorder clinic…
A small trial paired psilocybin with intensive psychological support for people with anorexia, and found the drug appeared to loosen the rigid thought patterns that make the illness so hard to treat. Researchers are careful to call it an opening, not a cure — patients became more willing to engage with recovery, not instantly well.
Meanwhile, in the human genome…
A gene variant inherited from Neanderthals makes the people carrying it slightly taller and more muscular than their peers. Tens of thousands of years after the last interbreeding, a bit of that lineage is still visible in living bodies.
A 97-year-old man was floated out of the rising water in Assam on a raft lashed together from banana logs. The improvised rescue happened in a place locals had long considered beyond the flood's reach.
Meanwhile, in Texas and New Mexico…
The New World screwworm — a fly whose larvae eat living flesh — has crossed back into Texas and New Mexico decades after the US drove it south to Panama by flooding the landscape with sterilised males. A new public dashboard now maps where livestock, wildlife and people are most at risk.
Meanwhile, in the United States…
The FDA has approved the first mRNA flu vaccine, cleared for adults 50 and older and built on the same platform as the Covid shots. Whether insurers will pay for it is, for now, an open question.
Meanwhile, in bound for the Moon's south pole…
Engineers have called "wrenches down" on the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, a package built to be carried out and planted by hand near the Moon's south pole. It will be the first science instrument astronauts set up on the lunar surface since the Apollo crews left theirs behind.
Meanwhile, around the ancient Mediterranean…
The ancient Mediterranean diet, whose modern namesake leans on olive oil, fish and vegetables, was overwhelmingly bread. The emperor Julian called it the most nourishing food there was, and for most people it supplied the bulk of the day's calories.
Meanwhile, inside the pores of a sponge…
Gas squeezed into the pores of a sponge-like material was assumed to sit there in disarray. A new calculation predicts the molecules can instead line themselves into a regular, crystal-like lattice — which would change how much carbon or hydrogen such a sponge can hold.