This Week’s NOVA Next Feature
Neuroscientists are torn over whether inflammation—a natural immune response—is causing a vast number of brain diseases. NOVA’s director of digital media, Lauren Aguirre, reports the story.
In other news from NOVA and around the web:
- A new species of peacock spider has been nicknamed “ Sparklemuffin .”
- A brief history of the speed of light .
- BPS (a BPA substitute) caused irregular heartbeats in female lab rats.
- Construction of the hyperloop is scheduled to begin next year . If it works, a trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles would take 35 minutes .
- This week, the F.C.C. voted to preserve an open Internet .
- These two “unexpected” bright spots on Ceres were snapped by the Dawn spacecraft.
- Schizophrenic people aren’t fooled by this optical illusion.
- Science basically has no idea what the definition of “emotion” actually is.
- Buzz Aldrin took a selfie in 1966 as he floated in orbit during a Gemini 12 spacewalk.
- A mother’s voice and heartbeat may play a critical role in a baby’s neural development.
- Black rats may have been wrongfully accused of spreading the bubonic plague.
- Here’s why this image won’t go viral . (But the linked article might.)
Did you miss "Hagia Sophia: Istabunl’s Ancient Mystery" this week? You can watch it streaming online here.
- The epigenome, explained through Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony .
- Society still defines sex in binary terms. But biologists think there is a wider spectrum that deserves attention.
- Presenting the Physics Oscars ! And congrats to Eddie Redmayne on his Oscar win for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.” Find out what Hawking is saying about black holes lately.
- Scientists have located a giant black hole weighing as much as 12 billion suns.
- The Higgs Boson could explain why matter, not antimatter , dominates our universe.