Knowable Magazine
@knowablemag.bsky.social
Sound science. Smart stories. Fact-checked journalism. Published by the nonprofit @annualreviews.bsky.social 📨 Weekly newsletter: https://knowmag.org/SIGNUP 🌎 Lea en español: @revistaknowable.bsky.social 💚 Support: https://knowablemagazine.org/donate
🍫 Hungry for some new bites of chocolate science? Take a look at our latest, by Georgia Michelman: knowmag.org/4q0vAyg
How scientists are perfecting chocolate
Researchers are probing cocoa’s confections to better understand flavor, crystals and bloom
knowablemagazine.org
🦪 Dredging and pollution devastated the once-bountiful oyster reefs of Chesapeake Bay. Careful science may help bring them back. #NationalOysterDay ✍️ @timvernimmen.bsky.social: knowmag.org/4hwbhVf
Shucking the past: Can oysters thrive again?
Dredging and pollution devastated the once-bountiful reefs. Careful science may help bring them back.
knowmag.org
🦉 If you give a hoot about #InternationalOwlAwarenessDay, check out our 2020 piece on the silence of the owls: how the nocturnal hunters manage their whisper-soft flight... ✍️ Dana Mackenzie
The silence of the owls
No one knows exactly how the nocturnal hunters manage their whisper-soft flight, yet it is inspiring the design of quieter airplanes, fans and wind turbines
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🥩 Want to learn how cooking transforms beef’s flavor? Meat scientists have the answers. ✍️ Bob Holmes
Sizzling science: How to grill a flavorful steak
Want to learn how cooking transforms beef’s flavor? Meat scientists have the answers.
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Conflicts with Nepalese residents are growing as expanded forest land and climate change push leopards into human settlements. There are solutions to try. This story by @scigat.bsky.social was first published by @knowablemag.bsky.social. www.thexylom.com/post/leopard...
Living With Leopards in the Himalayas
Conflicts with people are growing as expanded forest land and climate change push the creatures into human settlements. There are solutions to try.
thexylom.com
🦂 The Atacama desert in Chile, one of the driest places on Earth, has become an unexpected source of microbes that thrive in extreme environments. ✍️ Lindzi Wessel
A treasure hunt for microbes in Chile’s Atacama desert
The famously dry region has long been dismissed as a mostly lifeless wasteland, good for little more than mining of minerals and precious metals. To these researchers, however, it’s a microbial gold…
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💉 OPINION: Next-generation vaccines, and a lot more money, are needed now to crack the stalemate in the fight against malaria. #ImmunizationAwarenessMonth ✍️ Pediatric infectious disease specialist Matthew Laurens
The first malaria vaccine is a leap forward, but we can’t stop now
OPINION: Next-generation vaccines, and a lot more money, are needed now to crack the stalemate in the fight against malaria
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⚠️ A mysterious kidney disease is just one of the many health risks faced by immigrant laborers. In a Q&A, occupational health expert Marc Schenker discusses the hazards and a few potential solutions. ✍️ Emily Underwood
Unhealthy work: Why migrants are especially vulnerable to injury and death on the job
A mysterious kidney disease is just one of the many health risks faced by immigrant laborers. In a Q&A, occupational health expert Marc Schenker discusses the hazards and a few potential solutions.
knowmag.org
🐆 Saving Nepal's leopards — and their human neighbors. Conflicts with people are growing as expanded forest land and climate change push the creatures into human settlements. There are solutions to try. ✍️ @scigat.bsky.social: knowmag.org/4pMPlct
Living with leopards in the Himalayas
Conflicts with people are growing as expanded forest land and climate change push the creatures into human settlements. There are solutions to try.
knowablemagazine.org
🤗 This #InternationalDayofFriendship, revisit why real-life places still matter in the age of texting and Twitter. Q&A: @marioluissmall.bsky.social ✍️ Greg Miller
Why real-life places still matter in the age of texting and Twitter
Interactions in physical spaces, whether around the watercooler or at the neighborhood bar, are crucial to forming social ties
knowmag.org
🐅 From tiger scat to DNA to — hopefully — survival: Researchers dig out the elusive cats’ genetic material where they can, to guide efforts at conservation and diversity. #InternationalTigerDay ✍️ Amber Dance
From tiger scat to DNA to — hopefully — survival
Researchers dig out the elusive cats’ genetic material where they can, to guide efforts at conservation and diversity
knowmag.org
This #WorldHepatitisDay, revisit our Q&A with virologist Charles M. Rice on the remaining frontiers in fighting hepatitis C. ✍️ @danielaht.bsky.social: knowmag.org/4wYqcy5
The remaining frontiers in fighting hepatitis C
A scientist whose work was key to identifying, studying and finding treatments for this life-threatening virus discusses the scientific journey and challenges that persist
knowmag.org
"In so many ways, we saunter through our built environments with our electric lights and think it’s going to be fine,” visual neuroscientist David Berson says. “But we’re making ourselves sick." ✍️ @elaberwarren.bsky.social
The body’s hidden light detectors
From camouflage to timekeeping to wound healing, light-sensing proteins called opsins perform all kinds of jobs in nature beyond helping creatures to see
knowablemagazine.org
🦜 Efforts to restore New Zealand’s critically endangered flightless parrot, the kākāpō, include moving the species to predator-free reserves, DNA sequencing, GPS tracking and tailored diets. ✍️ @rinadiane.bsky.social: knowmag.org/3I4uzUo
New Zealand’s quest to save its rotund, flightless parrots
DNA sequencing, GPS tracking and tailored diets are slowly restoring the endangered kākāpō
knowmag.org
Even hermit crabs have individual patterns of behavior — personalities, if you like. But individual behavior patterns may skew scientific studies. An approach called ‘STRANGE’ could help, by taking into account the tendencies and experiences of the creatures under scrutiny. ✍️ @inkfish.bsky.social
Animal personalities can trip up science, but there’s a solution
Individual behavior patterns may skew studies. A new approach called ‘STRANGE’ could help, by taking into account the habits, tendencies and life experiences of the creatures under scrutiny.
knowmag.org
📚 "Pliny was like a Renaissance man a millennium and a half before the Renaissance." Revisit Tom Siegfried's 2023 piece on Pliny the Elder's life and the first natural encyclopedia (complete with unicorns and basilisks): knowmag.org/3McuTC5
Pliny the Elder’s radical idea to catalog knowledge
This year marks 2,000 years since the birth of the Roman author of the first natural encyclopedia
knowmag.org
🩻 It’s not that AI will replace radiologists. Radiologists who use AI will replace radiologists who don’t, says Curtis Langlotz, director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging at Stanford University. Read more in Knowable's latest... ✍️ Lola Butcher: knowmag.org/4fkOhZN
AI won’t replace radiologists, but will dramatically change their jobs
Ten years ago, a pioneering AI scientist predicted that computers would replace human experts as readers of medical images. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
knowablemagazine.org
📼 VIDEO: Time stamps on packaging prompt consumers to toss a lot of food, but what do they actually say about safety? ✍️ Tiên Nguyễn: knowmag.org/4puFZlz
Sell-by dates | Things to Know
VIDEO: Time stamps on packaging prompt consumers to toss a lot of food, but what do they actually say about safety?
knowmag.org
Some lizard species, such as the New Mexico whiptail lizard, reproduce entirely asexually — the species has no males. By studying such species, scientists like evolutionary biologist Sonal Singhal hope to understand more about why sex exists at all. ✍️ Geoffrey Giller
The weird biology of asexual lizards
Some lizard species do without males altogether. Scientists are studying these all-female species to see what they might reveal about the pros and cons of sex.
knowmag.org
🧠 Ultrasound isn’t just for images. Sonogenetics and other promising technologies let researchers use focused sound waves to control genes and entire cells deep in the tissues of living animals, without surgery. #WorldBrainDay ✍️ Bob Holmes: knowmag.org/4vCuHwQ
Sounding out the brain
Ultrasound isn’t just for images. Sonogenetics and other promising technologies let researchers use focused sound waves to control genes and entire cells deep in the tissues of living animals,…
knowmag.org
What can the world learn from Britain’s humble hedgerows? More than you might think! These historic planted barriers between agricultural fields serve as pest control, wildlife movement corridors, carbon sinks and more. ✍️ @katarinazimmer.bsky.social: knowmag.org/3SOmCYB
What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge
Hedgerows were historically planted as barriers between fields, but in a human-dominated world, they are critical havens, corridors and connectors for wildlife
knowmag.org
🧑💻 Our latest: 4 tips to help you be an eco-friendlier AI user Escalating use of tools like ChatGPT saps more and more power. While the onus is on tech companies to reduce AI’s resource consumption, there are a few simple things individuals can do to lighten the load. ✍️ @katarinazimmer.bsky.social
Using AI chatbots? Here are four ways to reduce the energy drain
Escalating use of tools like Gemini and ChatGPT saps more and more power. Experts offer some tips on how to consume less.
knowablemagazine.org
I’m delighted to see @theopennotebook.bsky.social’s “The Best Science Stories and How They Work” come out today! I annotated Jessica Seigel’s @knowablemag.bsky.social story “The Truth about Lying,” for it, check out the book here: www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...
The Best Science Stories and How They Work: A Collection with Commentary - The Open Notebook
An invitation to engage with some of today’s most respected science journalists as they take readers beneath the surface to tell the stories behind eleven of the best science stories.
theopennotebook.com
🌔 57 years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on another world. Revisit our 2019 story on how the moon landings changed our view of the solar system. #MoonLandingDay ✍️ Christopher Crockett: knowmag.org/4eVBj4A
How the moon landings changed our view of the solar system
Lunar samples hinted at a barrage of debris pummelling planets billions of years ago. Fifty years after Apollo 11, that story is still unfolding.
knowmag.org
Last month, the European particle physics lab CERN shut down the Large Hadron Collider. It's set to come back online, new and improved, in 2030. In the meantime, revisit our 2018 podcast episode on how particle accelerators came to be in the first place. ✍️ Charlotte Stoddart: knowmag.org/4ncmpIB
How particle accelerators came to be
PODCAST: They started out so small, one could fit on the palm of your hand, but to make groundbreaking discoveries, physicists had to think really big — as in, vast machines with the power and…
knowmag.org
Meant to punish or protect, social isolation in prison creates a ripple of unintended effects on the psyche. Revisit our 2018 Q&A with psychologist Craig Haney on the hidden damage of solitary confinement. ✍️ @raminskibba.bsky.social: knowmag.org/4pqTMK0
The hidden damage of solitary confinement
Meant to punish or protect, social isolation in prison creates a ripple of unintended effects on the psyche
knowmag.org
How do trees find their sense of direction as they grow? Researchers are getting to the root — and the branches — of how the grandest of plants develop. ✍️ @rachelscience.bsky.social: knowmag.org/4yorrYQ
Bent into shape: The rules of tree form
How do trees find their sense of direction as they grow? Researchers are getting to the root — and the branches — of how the grandest of plants develop.
knowmag.org
🐍 This #WorldSnakeDay, revisit our May story on serpent evolution by Amber Dance: knowmag.org/4eZU2fj
Evolution of snakes: Scientists unravel the mysssteries
Huge snakes, tiny snakes, poisonous snakes and constrictor snakes, snakes that slither, burrow or swim: New fossils and modern technology are tracing serpent origins
knowmag.org
We can't wait to read @theopennotebook.bsky.social's upcoming "best of" anthology of science stories! We'll be keeping an eye out for some familiar names...
The Best Science Stories and How They Work: A Collection with Commentary - The Open Notebook
An invitation to engage with some of today’s most respected science journalists as they take readers beneath the surface to tell the stories behind eleven of the best science stories.
knowmag.org
A massive algal bloom in the ocean is, at first, a riot of life. But its aftermath may be death for those below the waves, as the bloom leads to a scarcity of oxygen in deeper waters. ✍️ @raminskibba.bsky.social: knowmag.org/3SQgNtt
Marine wildlife is starting to suffocate
Global warming and agricultural runoff have driven the loss of oxygen in oceans around the world, with looming ecological consequences.
knowmag.org