Dispersants, Water, and a New Way to See the Brain: NOVA Next Week in Review

This Week’s NOVA Next Feature

New dams and reservoirs are unmistakably altering the American West’s iconic landscapes. NOVA Next contributor Hillary Rosner reports the story.

In other news:

• Global temperatures are set to cross the 1˚ C warming threshold this year for the first time.
• Turns out coughs, sneezes, and vomit travel way farther than we thought.
• The dispersant Corexit may have made the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill much worse.
• Schrödinger’s feline thought experiment had little impact during his lifetime. So how did it become so widely-used?
• Antarctica may melt more slowly because of gravity.
• Two broken satellites will make the most precise test of general relativity yet.

What We’re Reading

• “ Each bit of dust is a microhistory of your life.” [The New Yorker]
• Neuroscientist Edward Boyden has won a Breakthrough Prize. [The New York Times] He and other scientists are developing a brand new way to see the brain.
• Scientists have discovered a “striking protective relationship” between leg power and preserved mental ability . [The Guardian]
• The dream of a mission to Mars has been alive and well for the last 70 years. [National Geographic]
• Our ancestral microbiome probably looked very different from the modern microbiome. [Nautilus]