A Poorly-Timed Asteroid, An Improbable Thruster, and a Lithium Car Battery: NOVA Next Week in Review

This Week’s NOVA Next Feature Article

Epigenetic changes from abuse put victims at risk not just for chronic psychological problems, but chronic physical ones, too. NOVA’s 2014 AAAS Mass Media Fellow, Eleanor Nelsen, reports the story.

In other news from NOVA and around the web:

• A new study suggest that people seem to prefer products that require effort to use .
• What does a social network look like? There are hidden patterns in our seemingly random interactions.
• A new fluffy dinosaur species from the Jurassic Period has been discovered in Russia .
• If the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs had hit Earth a mere five million years later , we definitely wouldn’t be here.
• People do judge you based on your face , and the process is more complicated than you might think.
• Encouraging students to doodle may actually increase their interest in educational subject matter.
• Quantum mechanics is weird. But what if we could develop a “ quantum intuition ” that would make it seem as natural as an apple falling from a tree?
• A tiny region of the brain exerts a big influence on how we experience negative thoughts .
• If Charles Darwin or Tycho Brahe had been on Twitter, what might they have said ?
• International Tiger Day was on Tuesday. Celebrate with this adventure story about scientists on the hunt for tiger poop.

• This female octopus spent more than 4 years brooding her eggs . That’s longer than any other known animal.
• A national federation has named a German long jumper’s prosthetic leg “advantageous,” adding more vigor to an ongoing debate. But state-of-the-art is sometimes second best .
• No one knows how this new, mysterious thruster works. But if it really does, it could give us new access to deep space.
• When crazy ants neutralize fire ant venom with their own acid, it forms a viscous fluid never before seen in nature.
• The range of most electric cars is stuck below 100 miles. That rules out a long commute, let alone a road trip. But nanoengineering could help power electric cars for three hundred miles at a time.
• This ice cream cone changes colors as you lick it.
• Sea level rise could drown Scotland’s ancient history .
• Don’t pee in the pool this summer. It’s dangerous.
• This “nightmare bacteria” can resist most antibiotics .
• 16-foot waves were measured in the Arctic Ocean where there was once only ice .