Superorganisms, Global Warming, and Coral Reefs: Week in Review

This Week’s NOVA Next Feature

From landfills to the deep sea, superorganisms are redefining life and our search for it on other planets. NOVA Next intern Conor Gearin reports the story.

In other news:

• People with schizophrenia may have been born with a different brain structure .
• Just half a degree of warming could catapult Earth into climate extremes.
• 40 million years before the asteroid hit, dinosaurs were already on the decline .

What We’re Reading

• Scientists have discovered a 600-mile coral reef that stretches more than 3,600 square miles across the ocean floor. [The Atlantic]
• Here’s how British scientists got inside North Korea to study a volcano. [Wired]
• “Manipulating nature’s DNA seems a hugely risky and ethically fraught way to help save the natural world. And yet, we may need to accept the risks .” [The New York Times]
• Mindfulness studies are skewed to report positive results . [Nature News]