Stressful conditions do not always render reef corals white. We found that mild or brief exposure of corals to heat stress or to unfavourable nutrient conditions does not only cause the loss of the vital symbiont alga but also switches on an optical feedback loop that results in a dazzling display of coral colours. The enhanced pigmentation is thought to help the corals to recover.

Ice-age cycles define the major climate features of Earth's geologically recent past. Combining information from caves, deep-ocean sediments, and astronomical calculations can help unravel when and why these cycles occur.

The brain is one of the most complex organs of the human body. For a long time, it was thought that the brain is hermetically sheltered from entry by invaders, including our body's white blood cells. The discovery that different brain cancers contain quite distinct landscapes of immune cells may help us better understand their development and devise novel and effective therapeutic strategies.

Humans have been largely unsuccessful at protecting assets and economic activity against tropical cyclones. Mangrove forest conservation efforts could yield protection benefits from a coastal defense system that is already in place, cheap to maintain, and self-regenerating.

We have tried to keep a distance from each other to curb the early spread of COVID-19. These practices, however, conflict with our needs for social interactions. Resolving this dissonance demands the capacity to retain multiple pieces of potentially conflicting information in working memory. Minimizing information overload, therefore, becomes even more critical at this challenging time.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) urgently calls for prevention and treatment interventions. Neutralizing antibodies isolated from recovered patients are capable of blocking the virus from entry into human cells, potentially acting as the “Elite Squad” to defeat SARS-CoV-2.