Weekly Headlines (Excerpts)

1. Rats filmed snatching bats from air for first time

Stunning hunting behaviour captured in German cave

 24 OCT 2025  BY CHRIS BARANIUK 

2. Ambient noise can track dangerous ocean acidification

Acoustic technique could make it easier to monitor threat to marine life stemming from rising carbon emissions

 24 OCT 2025  BY PAUL VOOSEN 

3. How NSF hopes to keep Antarctic scientists afloat without an icebreaker

Ending Palmer lease is one of many belt-tightening moves amid budget uncertainty

 24 OCT 2025  BY JEFFREY MERVIS 

4. At futuristic meeting, AIs took the lead in producing and reviewing all the studies

Organizers aim to tune AI to help accelerate science

 23 OCT 2025  BY JEFFREY BRAINARD 

5. Can the Deadliest Catch crab fishery survive warming seas?

After a brutal heat wave, scientists race to predict how Bering Sea snow crabs will cope with climate change

 23 OCT 2025  BY WARREN CORNWALL 

6. Fat-chomping enzyme that ‘moonlights’ as gene regulator could point to obesity treatments

Hormone-sensitive lipase works in the nucleus to keep fat cells healthy, new study suggests

 23 OCT 2025  BY ZUNNASH KHAN 

7. New recipe improves creation of cells that could fight most autoimmune diseases

Nobel laureate makes regulatory T cells that last longer in the body, boosting clinical hopes

 22 OCT 2025  BY CATHERINE OFFORD 

8. Sumerian civilization may have been jump-started by the rise and fall of tides

Millennia before the first cities, early Mesopotamians probably harnessed tides to irrigate crops

 22 OCT 2025  BY ANDREW CURRY 

9. ‘I fear we are sitting on a time bomb.’ Scientists debate mass distribution of antibiotics in Africa

Prophylactic use of azithromycin saves vulnerable children’s lives, but could trigger antibiotic resistance

 21 OCT 2025  BY GRETCHEN VOGEL 

10. ‘It’s like a horror movie pregnancy.’ Researcher studies maggots—by letting them eat him

Science chats with wildlife epidemiologist Tony Goldberg about what he’s learned from becoming a meal for parasites

 21 OCT 2025  BY RACHEL NUWER 

11. A surprise bonus from COVID-19 vaccines: bolstering cancer treatment

Patients who got shots of mRNA before starting a type of cancer immunotherapy lived much longer

 20 OCT 2025  BY PHIE JACOBS 

12. Stranded coral boulders point to a medieval tsunami in the Caribbean

Study pinpoints likely date for a massive earthquake on the Puerto Rico Trench—and highlights an underappreciated regional hazard

 20 OCT 2025  BY KATHERINE KORNEI 

13. Lab mice can now have periods like humans

Studies of rodents with a menstrual on/off switch could help people with endometriosis and other disorders

 20 OCT 2025  BY HOLLY BARKER 

14. Beetle compound is so valuable insects eat bird poop to get it

To obtain the toxic chemical cantharidin, insects suck beetles’ blood—and even munch on their digested remains

 20 OCT 2025  BY RICHARD PALLARDY