Science Times: Creatures in This Underwater Forest Could Save Your Life One Day

Plus: Restrictions Are Slowing Coronavirus Infecctions, Data Suggest

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story March 31, 2020

Annie Flanagan for The New York Times   Creatures in This Underwater Forest Could Save Your Life One Day Before this 60,000-year-old submerged forest disappears, scientists recently raced to search for shipworms and other sea life that might conceal medicine of the future. By JoAnna Klein and Annie Flanagan

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics   Out There Infinite Visions Were Hiding in the First Black Hole Image’s Rings Scientists proposed a technique that would allow us to see more of the unseeable. By Dennis Overbye Zilhão et al. Science, 2020   Trilobites Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins Scientists say that a discovery in a seaside Portuguese cave further challenges popular images of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes. By Nicholas St. Fleur Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times   The World Pushes Back Against E-Cigarettes and Juul Facing ire at home, the e-cigarette giant counted on international expansion to offset losses in the U.S., but the regulatory response abroad has been even worse. By Sheila Kaplan, Andrew Jacobs and Choe Sang-Hun Javier Cebollada/EPA, via Shutterstock   D.I.Y. Coronavirus Solutions Are Gaining Steam From Ireland to Seattle, makers and engineers are creating open-source versions of much-needed medical equipment. By Alexandra E. Petri

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THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK Spencer Platt/Getty Images   Restrictions Are Slowing Coronavirus Infections, New Data Suggest A database of daily fever readings shows that the numbers declined as people disappeared indoors. By Donald G. McNeil Jr. Max Whittaker for The New York Times   The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19 Aggressive screening might have helped contain the coronavirus in the United States. But technical flaws, regulatory hurdles and lapses in leadership let it spread undetected for weeks. By Michael D. Shear, Abby Goodnough, Sheila Kaplan, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas and Noah Weiland Brittainy Newman/The New York Times   More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection Experts have started to question whether masks may offer at least some protection to healthy individuals and essential workers. By Knvul Sheikh Enric Fontcuberta/EPA, via Shutterstock   Jane Goodall Is Self-Isolating, Too She’s in England, in the house she grew up in, and she has a few thoughts about chimpanzees, the coronavirus pandemic and the loo paper shortage. By James Gorman Ivan Damanik/ZUMA Wire, via Alamy   Significance of Pangolin Viruses in Human Pandemic Remains Murky Scientists haven’t found evidence that the new coronavirus jumped from pangolins to people, but they do host very similar viruses By James Gorman     Some U.S. Cities Could Have Coronavirus Outbreaks Worse Than Wuhan’s Four ways to measure the size of the outbreak across U.S. metro areas. By Nate Cohn, Josh Katz, Margot Sanger-Katz and Kevin Quealy Xinhua/Alamy Live News   Can You Become Immune to the Coronavirus? It’s likely you can, at least for some period of time. That is opening new opportunities for testing and treatment. By Apoorva Mandavilli Bryan Anselm for The New York Times   ‘A Heart-Wrenching Thing’: Hospital Bans on Visits Devastate Families To curb the risk of spreading the coronavirus, hospitals nationwide are banning visits from family and friends. By Katie Hafner

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MORE SCIENCE NEWS Sergey Krasovskiy   Trilobites Fossils Show Raptors Prowled North America Late in Dinosaurs’ Era They were smaller than the creatures that savaged “Jurassic Park,” but may have had superior ability to stalk and take down prey. By Becky Ferreira Raul Arboleda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images   Trilobites Pablo Escobar’s Hippos Fill a Hole Left Since Ice Age Extinctions Invasive herbivore mammals seem to restore functions missing in some food webs and ecosystems since the Pleistocene era. By Asher Elbein NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington   Trilobites Life on the Planet Mercury? ‘It’s Not Completely Nuts’ A new explanation for the rocky world’s jumbled landscape opens a possibility that it could have had ingredients for habitability. By Shannon Hall Patrick Shober/Desert Fireball Network   Trilobites This Fireball Ignored the Solar System’s One-Way Signs A meteoroid that grazed the night sky over Australia in 2017 took a very unusual path away from Earth. By Joshua Sokol

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trilobites Uranus Ejected a Giant Plasma Bubble During Voyager 2’s Visit The planet is shedding its atmosphere into the void, a signal that was recorded but overlooked in 1986 when the robotic spacecraft flew past. By Robin George Andrews Australia’s Record Heat Means Another Blow to Great Barrier Reef For the third time in five years, abnormally warm water has caused a “mass bleaching” of coral, and some of it will not survive. Scientists say global warming is killing reefs worldwide. By Richard Pérez-Peña Philip W. Anderson, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Is Dead at 96 His work at Princeton and Bell Labs deepened science’s understanding of magnetism, superconductivity and the structure of matter. By Scott Veale

HEALTH Hilary Swift for The New York Times   In a Town Where Meth Is Eclipsing Opioids, Everyone Feels the Pain One Kentucky community has seen a wave of violence and homelessness as methamphetamine use returns. By Timothy Williams David Scharf/Science Source   Turning Back the Clock on Aging Cells Researchers report that they can rejuvenate human cells by reprogramming them to a youthful state. By Nicholas Wade Lyndon French for The New York Times   The New Old Age When Romance Is a Scam More con artists are finding their marks on all manner of social media platforms, knowing that the payoff from older victims can be big. By Paula Span Gracia Lam   Personal Health Are Bike Lanes Really Safe? I’ve had two recent cycling accidents in which I had the right of way but inattentive drivers cut me off. By Jane E. Brody iStock   Gargling for Coronavirus? What Science Can Tell Us There is no firm proof that gargling prevents respiratory infections caused by coronavirus — or any virus or bacteria. But there’s also little downside. By Neal Naito, M.D. David Brandon Geeting for The New York Times   How to Get More Sleep Tonight Sleep has never been more important. Here are our most concrete recommendations for getting some. By Adam Popescu

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