The light-absorbing rods and cones in the retina (artificially coloured) deteriorate in people with Leber’s congenital amaurosis. Credit: Science Photo Library
Research Highlights
Selections from the scientific literature by Nature's news team
Scientists have identified three genes that helped the modern cauliflower to evolve from its broccoli progenitors. Credit: Getty
Electric-vehicle batteries can still be useful, even after retirement. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty
Renewable energy
Old electric-vehicle batteries can find new purpose — on the grid
An exoplanet (artist’s illustration) that’s home to living organisms might not look green. Credit: Mark Garlick/SPL
A droplet of a magnetic fluid responds to a rotating external magnetic field. Credit: X. Zhao et al./Nat. Mater.
Materials science
A magnetic liquid makes for an injectable sensor in living tissue
Smaller declines in well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic were reported by people who were already socially isolated before lockdowns started. Credit: Getty
There are fewer than 100 known specimens of the critically endangered tea-tree fingers fungus, which grows at six sites in Australia. Credit: Alamy
Conservation biology
Not just truffles: dogs can sniff out surpassingly rare native fungus
The fruiting body of Aspergillus niger (artificially coloured), a fungus that can mop up contaminants in tainted soil. Credit: Eye Of Science/SPL
An inventory lists the aviation emissions of all 197 nations that are signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Credit: Getty
The now-extinct salmon species Oncorhynchus rastrosus had ‘tusks’ protruding from its snout (right top and bottom, artist’s illustration; top left, scan of skull with illustration of the originally proposed position of the teeth; bottom left, skull). Credit: K. M. Claeson et al./PLoS One (CC-BY 4.0)
Palaeontology
This giant extinct salmon had tusks like a warthog
Among the genes that cause post-traumatic stress disorder are some that affect brain neurons (pictured, artificially coloured). Credit: Thomas Deerinck, NCMIR/SPL
Data collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has yielded the first verified detection of tau neutrinos. Credit: Jeff Warneck/Alamy
Particle physics
Detectors deep in South Pole ice pin down elusive tau neutrino
A stone pendant was among the thousands of beads and other ornaments found in a Maya pyramid. Credit: C. Halperin
Electrostatic charge harvested from the skin of the person holding a newly devised water bottle is used to disinfect the bottle’s contents. Credit: Young-Jun Kim
Humpback whales fill their ribbed oral pouches with water to feed — and sometimes, scientists report, to rub off parasites. Credit: Doug Perrine/Alamy
Animal behaviour
A spa session for humpback whales
Along with fearsome teeth, the mouths of hammerhead sharks have receptors that equip the animals to sense bitter tastes. Credit: Getty
Sensory systems
Bitter taste receptors are even older than scientists thought
The rainbow-like phenomenon called a glory (artist’s illustration) appears at the boundary between the day and night sides of the exoplanet WASP-76b. Credit: ESA (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Exoplanets
An exoplanet is wrapped in glory
An X-ray shows growths (white) in the pelvic lymph glands of a child with the blood cancer called lymphoma. Credit: Zephyr/SPL
A hailstone collected on 30 August 2022, in Spain’s Girona province, with a one-euro coin for comparison. Global warming fuelled the storm that generated the hail. Credit: M. L. Martín et al./Geophys. Res. Lett.
Climate sciences
Baseball-sized hail in Spain began with a heatwave at sea
Industrial chemicals that find their way to the ocean are lofted into the atmosphere by sea spray. Credit: Getty
Atmospheric science
