Discover September/October 2023

Over the years, plenty of science publications have made a point of featuring human (or near-human) skulls and skeletons on their covers whenever they can, and Discover has certainly been no different. We do this for a simple reason: The image attracts attention. As humans, we are endlessly fascinated by something we all possess but will never see. So, we can all admit to a certain morbid fascination with these skulls and skeletons, but I try to bear something else in mind whenever I review images of these subjects for publication in our magazine: No matter how old they are, no matter how remote in time these remains may be, I remind myself that what I see once was an integral part of a whole and living being. In many…

(“Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Pop Culture,” May/June 2023) Matt Benoit’s article on voice cloning was both illuminating and frightening. You could quickly grasp many of the ways that voices could be cloned, probably quite easily given the access to online AI nowadays — but some of those uses will undoubtedly be nefarious. If there is one thing history teaches us, it’s that fraudsters and criminals usually adapt quicker to new technologies than governments and law enforcement. Imagine a future in which you’ll need some app or program to tell you if the person calling you for help is really your family member or some clever fake.…

(“Beyond Ecotourism,” Mar/Apr 2023) I liked the ecotourism set of articles in the Mar/Apr edition. However, author Tree Meinch and the main source, Amanda Stronza, both neglected a key part. Stronza brings up the fact that ecotourism is a double-edged sword in that it brings awareness but also a lot of tourists tromping about. However, without ecotourism, the natural area won’t somehow magically stay untouched and pristine. People need an income, so often the alternative to ecotourism is logging and agriculture. In that situation, ecotourism is definitely a winner. AUTHOR AND FEATURES EDITOR TREE MEINCH RESPONDS: Thanks for reading and reaching out, Rob. You raise a great point about land use, which is a vast topic to tackle in one story. It’s true that commercial activities such as logging, agriculture…

(“Well ‘Versed” and “Out There: New Life From an Old Rock,” Mar/Apr 2023) In his editor’s note in the Mar/Apr 2023 issue, Editorial Director Stephen C. George asked, “When you were growing up, what first sparked your interest in science?” In 1950, I was a 10-year-old farm boy who only viewed the Moon as another light in space. That year I saw the movie Destination Moon, about a fictional first trip to the Moon. I was enthralled with both the movie’s vision of what the lunar surface might be like and with the technical adventure required for humans to travel there. Eighteen years later, I had a recent Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry and became a NASA employee working with others at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now, Johnson Space Center, or…

MOUSE GLOWS FROM NOSE TO TOES No, this colorful collage isn’t an art project. Rather, these eerily glowing dormice demonstrate the rodents’ photoluminescence, or their ability to absorb and reemit ultraviolet light. Researchers at the Tallinn Zoo in Estonia found that the brownish-white fur of the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) glowed bright purple under UV light (middle). If the light passed through a yellow filter, the mice’s fur emitted a crimson hue (right), while their noses and feet shone a blue-green color. The phenomenon has been seen in other species, including flying squirrels that appear pink and platypuses that shine blue — but for now, the reasons why these mammals gleam remain a mystery.…

JUST MINUTES into his latest six-part docuseries The End Is Nye, Bill Nye gets drenched in a rainstorm. Later on, a hurricane sends him hurtling into a car’s windshield. In a subsequent episode, he explodes in a fiery inferno after being struck by debris from a wayward comet. Don’t worry: Nye, the science educator and engineer who became a household name in the ’90s thanks to his muchloved Bill Nye the Science Guy show, meets his (fictional) demise in every single episode. In a recent interview with Discover, Nye explains the apocalyptic framing behind his biggestbudget series yet: “We need to scare people.” THE SERIES, released on Peacock in 2022, walks viewers through six scientifically plausible mass disasters — from the eruption of a supervolcano to a global blackout triggered…