The brightest take on this week’s science

What should you do if you come across expired canned fish in the back of your pantry?

Most of us would probably wrinkle our noses and throw the food out. But not parasite ecologist Chelsea Wood. No, she rolls up her sleeves, grabs her tweezers, and goes hunting for dead worms.

If you’re thinking: “Gross – are there dead worms in my canned fish?”

The answer is an unfortunate maybe.

But don’t worry – these parasites are killed by the canning process, so they won’t make you sick. They’re actually a promising sign for the environment.

• Worms in canned fish indicate a healthy ecosystem: They can only flourish if their hosts, like salmon, do, too

• Tweezering through an archive of canned fish from 1979 to 2021, Wood and her colleagues at the University of Washington discovered a steady abundance of parasites in Alaska’s waters

• In some cases, the worms were on the rise

A bit of good news to chew on.

Read more.

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The water we know and love here on Earth is unlike most H₂0 in the Universe.

Out in the cold vacuum of space, water has no liquid form – and ice is different from the neat cubes in your freezer.

Scientists once thought space was too cold for ice crystals

• On Earth, water gradually freezes into a neat, repeating pattern of crystals. But water in space was thought to ‘flash freeze’, quickly turning into an amorphous, molecular mess

• That may not be entirely true, after all. Recent computer simulations and experiments suggest that space ice is at least 20 percent crystalline

We may know how water freezes on our own planet, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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A) Honeycomb
B) Bone tissue
C) Deer antler
D) Pumice stone

Answer at the bottom.

When catastrophe strikes, a future superhero could save your life.

It’s not a bird. It’s not a plane. It’s not even Superman.

It’s a beetle with a backpack.

Scientists in Australia and Singapore have created a breed of cyborg beetle that can climb walls and squeeze through tiny spaces.

One day, the robot-insect hybrid could help search and rescue teams find survivors in rubble and ruin.

This is one creepy-crawly we won’t scream and run from.

Read more.

There are mites having sex on your face.

At nighttime, as you close your eyes, your face becomes the stage for a wild orgy.

Under the cover of darkness, microscopic creatures emerge from the pores of your skin and begin munching on your dead cells and having sex on your tiniest hairs.

Sleep tight!

Time for a stretch.

Microscope answer: Bone tissue.

Our bones are alive and constantly changing. To stay light and strong, some types look like honeycomb on the inside. They even contain secret passageways for blood and immune cells. 🦴