The brightest take on this week’s science
It’s time for a spark of hope!
This week, an incredible result was shared at a major cancer conference in the US:
An experimental vaccine for the ‘deadliest major cancer’ has kept some patients alive for years.
Also in this issue:
🧠 A brain chemical linked to tinnitus
🤯 A mind-blowing fact about square poop
🔬 A microscope mystery
Let’s get to it!
LOOK IN
Tinnitus Is Linked to a Crucial Brain Chemical
(seb_ra/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
The so-called ‘happy’ chemical, serotonin, has a curious connection to tinnitus.
Over the years, numerous studies have linked phantom noises, which ring, hiss, buzz, or throb in the ear, to a change in how the brain modulates serotonin.
In mice, neuroscientists have mapped a neural pathway between a serotonin-producing part of the brainstem and the auditory region.
When researchers artificially activated this pathway, mice behaved as if they were experiencing a sound only they could hear.
“It's producing symptoms that we would expect to be experienced as tinnitus in humans,” says neuroscientist Laurence Trussell of Oregon Health & Science University.
The findings suggest that targeting this serotonin pathway may be a useful approach for treating tinnitus.
HEADLINES
This Week in Science
LOW-KEY GENIUS
A Vaccine For ‘The Deadliest Major Cancer’
(Science Photo Library/Canva)
Pancreatic cancer is sometimes called the deadliest major cancer in the world.
While the disease is rare, roughly 87 percent of those who receive a diagnosis won't survive the next five years.
An experimental mRNA vaccine has now given some people their lives back.
The medicine is still in testing, but at a six-year follow-up, all but one of the patients who responded to the vaccine were still alive and well.
One of these patients was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 66 and received nine doses of the vaccine. She is now 72 years old.
"There's no limitation on what I can do," the patient reports, “so for me it's absolutely been a miracle."
ZOOM ZONE
Microscope Mystery: What Do You See?
(Steve Gschmeissner/SPL/Getty Images)
A) Bone
B) Rubber
C) Nerve fibers
D) Sponge
Answer at the bottom.
LOOK OUT
5.5 Million Bees Under a New York Cemetery
(Adapted from Hoge et al., Apidologie, 2026)
Believe it or not, a cemetery in Ithaca, New York, is home to roughly 5.5 million bees.
They nest beneath the ground, alongside the human dead.
These curious insects are called regular miner bees (Andrena regularis) because they spend most of their lives alone, burrowed beneath the soil.
Each April, they emerge from the ground, like buzzing zombies, rising to eat, mate, and dig burrows for their new young.
A few years ago, in a field survey of the cemetery, scientists estimated that an average of 853 bees were nesting in every square meter (10.8 square feet) of soil.
That’s roughly 5.56 million bees that may have emerged from the site in the spring of 2023.
WOW FACTOR
Science Fact of The Week
(David Hu and Scott Carver)
Get a load of this poop.
It comes from the Australian wombat – the only known animal in the world to squeeze out cube-shaped feces.
Scientists still can’t agree on why the shape occurs…
DOPAMINE HIT
Before You Go…
Wave goodbye to this mummified face from ancient Egypt, recently revealed using a CT scanner 👋
(Medical Imaging Center (OKK), MNMKK Semmelweis Museum of Medical History)
Microscope answer: Nerve fibers
The nerves in our bodies are encapsulated in a fatty protective layer called myelin (the blue-green of this week’s microscope mystery). Myelin helps ‘insulate’ our nerves, allowing them to send messages quickly and efficiently. A loss of sleep may damage them.
That’s all for today… see you next week!
- Carly
