Deepmind’s New AI, Chickpeas Grown in Moon Dust, Why Animals Talk, and More

The latest from The Porthole and the wider world of science. [View in browser](| [Join Nautilus]( Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( This Tuesday, check out the top science news—and the latest short sharp looks at science from The Porthole [READ NAUTILUS]( DISCOVERIES The Top Science News This Week [Is There a Limit to How “Fit” a Species Can Be?]([(Preprint)]( Counterintuitively, evolution can make animals worse adapted to their environment. [PNAS→]( [This Geometry AI Is As Good as Your Average Math Olympiad]( AlphaGeometry, one of the latest creations of Google Deepmind, solved 25 of 30 olympiad-level problems, beating the previous record of 10. [Nature→]( [Why Aren’t US Cities Adapting to Worsening Flood Risks?]( Republican cities aren’t more likely to be less prepared for flooding hazards. [Communications Earth & Environment→]( [How to Grow Chickpeas on the Moon]( Usually unfriendly to life, lunar soil can get plants growing with a little help from some friends. [bioRxiv→]( [Japan Lands Safely on the Moon But Is Out of Power]( Will Japan’s lander survive the moon’s long night and eventually recharge from the sun? [NPR→]( [“I Don’t Feel Bad That Animals Don’t Have Language”]( Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum on his new book, Why Animals Talk. [The Guardian→]( [Will This New Battery End Drivers’ Range Anxiety?]( Imagine being able to fully charge an electric car in just five minutes. [Cornell Chronicle→]( [An Ancient Woolly Mammoth Left a Diary in Her Tusk]( Scientists are looking at layers of minerals left behind on mammoth tusks to estimate where the hulking animals spent their days. [The New York Times→]( The Nearness of You Concert to Benefit Stem Cell Research On Tuesday, February 6th Columbia University Irving Medical Center is holding [The Nearness of You Concert](, at Jazz at Lincoln Center, in New York City. Join host Parma Lakshmi and artists Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Christopher Cross, and more for an evening of entertainment in support of MDS-Leukemia stem cell research. Get your tickets now. [GET TICKETS]( WE ARE CURIOUS TO KNOW... Is there anything abnormal about the way you experience the world? Let us know! Reply to this newsletter with your response, briefly explaining your choice, and we’ll reveal the top answers. (This question was inspired by [“Why I See Static Everywhere.”]() Top Answers to Our Previous Question (On the Most Memorable Risk You’ve Taken) - A group of us teenage boys and girls liked to go to a pier in the Delaware Bay to swim. We did a lot of clowning, horseplay in water, about ten feet deep. The normal finish to our fun was to walk on the pier back to shore. One day, I threw out a challenge: "Let's swim to the next pier!" That was more than a mile away, with no place to rest. The other girls declined. Since I was a girl suggesting this, of course the boys couldn't be chicken. We all made it, and were proud of ourselves. But ever after I have felt guilt that I tempted them to do something that could have turned out disastrous – Helyn W. - My most memorable risk was resigning from a tenured faculty position in a US medical school to take a newly-created position in a major pharmaceutical company. I worried about whether I could compete in the high-level science of the "Big Pharma" world. No regrets and never looked back—but I still miss the teaching aspects of my former career. – Jeff L. - Jumping off a mountain with someone I didn’t know in a tandem paraglider! – Martin A. From The Porthole—short sharp looks at science [HEALTH]( [Why I See Static Everywhere]( What we know about a mysterious condition called visual snow. BY CLARISSA WRIGHT Flickering dots and smudges of light everywhere, fuzz and static blanketing my visual field, blurring the edges of my reality. For as long as I can remember, this is what I have seen when I look out onto the world. It is as though someone tuned a television inside my head to an unreachable channel, and it got stuck there, or I became permanently submerged in a child’s snow globe. But I didn’t realize this was unusual until I mentioned it to my partner in a dark hotel room in Scotland a few years ago. [Keep on reading]( Apply to be a 2024 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer The [World Economic]( Forum will select 100 leading technology start-ups to bring their cutting-edge insights to critical global discussions with business and government leaders. Applications for the 2024 Technology Pioneers Community cohort are [now open]( until January 31, 2024. [SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION]( Your free story this Tuesday! [PHYSICS]( [The Eccentric Seer of Supernovas]( Fritz Zwicky decoded how exploding stars fill space with cosmic rays. BY JOHN JOHNSON JR. There was little expectation that anything important would occur at the 1933 meeting of the American Physical Society, which began on December 15 in the main lecture room of the physics department at Stanford University. [Continue reading for free→]( EXCLUSIVE MEMBER CONTENT | [Explore Memberships→]( Watch the Creative Sparks Fly Global leaders in politics, academia, and business just gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to share their vision for a better world. At the 2022 World Economic Forum, we brought together two brilliant minds from vastly different fields to share their own ideas—world-class cellist Yo-Yo Ma and CERN Director Fabiola Gianotti. In a conversation recorded for our series The Intersection, Ma and Gianotti shared their thoughts on the hybridity between music and science, the search for truth, and the nature of creativity itself. Nautilus members get a front-row seat to their discussion—it’s cheaper than airfare to Davos! [JOIN NAUTILUS]( P.S. The German mathematician David Hilbert was born on this day in 1862. In 1915, he was close to finalizing his own theory of gravity, which motivated Einstein, over a few feverish weeks, to complete his own. Hilbert was an advocate of being concise. Astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky once noted that, in his will, “he had left us with the admonition to be brief in all writings and to try to [present our life’s work in ten minutes](.” Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher Thanks for reading.[Tell us](mailto:brian.gallagher@nautil.us?subject=&body=) your thoughts on today’s note. Plus, [browse our archive]( of past print issues, and inspire a friend to sign up for [the Nautilus newsletter](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2023 NautilusNext, All rights reserved.You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](. Our mailing address is: NautilusNext360 W 36th Street, 7S,New York, NY 10018 Don't want to hear from us anymore? [Unsubscribe](