Better representation of Northern Hemisphere vegetation may resolve a scientific debate over how global temperatures changed during the past 12,000 years. Our new climate model experiments that include these vegetation changes exhibit a peak in global temperature around 6,000 years ago. This peak agrees well with previous studies using paleoclimate archives to reconstruct past temperatures.

Among other methods, governments use highway message signs to encourage responsible driving. We find that displaying year-to-day roadside fatality counts leads to an immediate increase in traffic crashes. We argue that the statistics distract drivers at precisely the moments when they should focus on the road.

Has it ever crossed your mind that ants could detect cancer? A French team of scientists may have discovered a new non-invasive method for cancer screening using the ants’ sense of smell. Their ants could represent an alternative to other expensive and invasive detection methods like mammograms or MRIs in this major challenge for public health.

Fish vertebrae from a marine sediment record collected from Peru reveal an unexpected regime shift in fish community. During the last interglacial, the warm waters and low oxygen favored small fish species, at the detriment of anchovy that nowadays sustains the largest fishery in the world. Looking at the past helps us predict the future of fish communities in the context of global warming.

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA), we have recently produced record performance in laser-driven fusion experiments. Exploring and manipulating these extreme conditions brings us one step closer to harnessing fusion reactions for carbon-free energy production.

Using modern radio-telescopes, we found that the Milky Way expels large amounts of dense, cold gas from its central regions through a powerful galactic wind. Although we don’t understand well this phenomenon yet, it may shape the future life of our Galaxy as it removes the material needed to form the next generation of stars.