This Week’s NOVA Next Feature
Science is revealing the neurological and sociological stimuli behind extremism—and how people can escape its grasp. NOVA Next contributor Christina Couch reports the story.
In other news:
- What the heck is a pentaquark ?
- The strict chicken politics of cock-a-doodle-do
- Agriculture may have started 11,000 years earlier than we thought.
- An Ebola vaccine was so effective in clinical trials, they’ve announced the results early .
- How can we solve the mysteries of human memory ? One Nobel laureate turned to the lowly sea slug.
- Astronomers have discovered the universe’s brightest known aurora , and it’s just 18 light years away.
- How quickly is Greenland’s ice sheet melting? Ari Daniel, science reporter for NOVA and PRI’s The World , has been living on a glacier to find out. Listen to him on the radio , ask him anything , and follow him on Instagram and Twitter for updates.
What We’re Reading
- CRISPR has “promised direct access to the source code of life .” [Wired]
- A radical epilepsy treatment from the early 20th century was one of the first demonstrations that the divided self has a real, physical basis. [The Atlantic]
- Scientists have identified the four English settlers buried in colonial Jamestown’s first church. [Smithsonian]
- Part of an airplane wing —possibly a remnant of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370—has been found on the shores of the French island Reunion. [The Telegraph]
- Guitarist Brian May of Queen finished his Ph.D. astrophysics thesis in 2007. He’s now helping NASA’s New Horizons team interpret Pluto data. [Smithsonian]
- A snow leopard, a golden lion tamarin, and manta rays will be among the animals projected onto the side of the Empire State Building . [The New York Times]
- America’s coastal cities face a “triple threat,” increasing risk of serious flooding . [The Guardian]
Did you miss "Nuclear Meltdown Disaster" this week? Stream it online here.