Special Sensory Nerves, Mutant Viruses, and Disappearing Glaciers: NOVA Next Week in Review

This Week’s NOVA Next Feature Article

Two teams of scientists race to decipher a mystery that could link distant wildfires with Greenland’s melting ice sheets. NOVA Next contributor Hannah Hoag reports on the possibility that soot from the wildfires is melting ice sheets thousands of miles away.

In other news from NOVA and around the web:

• C-tactile nerves are responsible for the rewarding emotional import of touch. Now, scientists believe they might hold clues to autism .

• A new study found that non-celiac gluten sensitivity may not exist .
• The entire web of a nematode’s neural activity has been captured in real time.
• In a foreboding warning that seems ripped from a summer blockbuster, a pair of scientists warn that lab-mutated viruses could escape and unleash a global pandemic.
• Legendary musician Tom Scholz of the band Boston told NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists how home-engineering empowered him to create that iconic Boston sound .
• The future of quantum computing might rely on the “ topological qubit .” Get the lowdown on what’s in store for quantum computing and beyond.
• It’s a living, literal tree of knowledge. Read one artist’s plan to use synthetic biology to insert a DNA-encoded version of Wikipedia into a 4,000-year-old strain of apple.
• In theory light and matter are interchangeable . Can we put that theory to practice?
• “More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for A.D.H.D. outside established pediatric guidelines,” writes The New York Times .
• Watch this amazing and rare footage of a supercell taking form in Wyoming.
• This frog species mates while doing handstands .
• What a mosquito looks like— up close and personal .
• Big, flightless birds like the ostrich and the emu live many places because their ancestors flew there .
• Fruit flies take time to make decisions, a new study shows . What about songbirds? Do they make conscious “choices” when singing?
• An extremely dangerous operation is brought to life for the first time in 70 years by a team at Dassault Systèmes.
• NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists is talking science & music this week. Here are some theories on why we evolved to love music. Check out this video from AsapSCIENCE to learn more.

Photo Credit: Jason Box