What’s next for gravitational-wave detectors?

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In 2015, a continent-spanning pair of detectors — the twin facilities of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), in the US states of Washington and Louisiana — first detected gravitational waves. These ripples in space-time originated more than a billion years ago in the cataclysmic merger of two distant black holes. Now, scientists are planning the next generation of observatories, such as the proposed Einstein Telescope in Europe, that could spot gravitational waves from anywhere across the observable Universe.

Nature | 6 min read

A European supercomputer called JUPITER has reached a processing milestone — one quintillion operations a second — and done it completely on renewable power. JUPITER is the fourth-fastest computer in the world and ranks first in energy efficiency among supercomputers. Its role is to push the capabilities of research in areas such as weather modelling, astrophysics and biomedical research — and to keep Europe in the running in the race to innovate in artificial intelligence.

Nature | 5 min read

The panel of top advisers who recommend how vaccines are used in the United States is about to meet: its second gathering since US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr abruptly fired all of its previous 17 members and welcomed 7 new ones — several of whom share his anti-vaccine views. The agenda is unusually thin on details, but COVID-19 vaccines, measles jabs and hepatitis B vaccines for newborns are on the menu.

Nature | 5 min read

Researchers scrupulously categorized the myriad manoeuvres that wild octopuses make with their arms to build a visual catalogue of movements. They captured nearly 4,000 gropes, grasps, tiptoes and other actions in 25 Octopus vulgaris and closely related species from the Caribbean and Spain. Though each arm can do everything, researchers observed that the animals tended to favour their front arms for exploring and their back arms for locomotion — though there was no evidence that they were left- or right-handed, as suggested by other research.

The New York Times | 5 min read

Reference: Scientific Reports paper

Features & opinion

Science historian James Delbourgo’s A Noble Madness is an “illuminating and entertaining history” of the ‘dark side’ of humanity’s desire to collect things, says science writer Andrew Robinson in his review. Through case studies of historical collectors, such as entrepreneur Henry Wellcome and naturalist Hans Sloane, Debourgo explores what drives people to collect and their often dubious and exploitative means. Curiosity — whether scientific, historical or otherwise — is a large motivator, but so too is obsession, which can verge on pathological.

Nature | 7 min read

“I put him on the Mount Rushmore of environmental justice,” says health scientist Sacoby Wilson about Charles Lee, who has spent his career working at the intersection of civil rights and environmentalism. After 26 years, Lee has left the US Environmental Protection Agency, which is under fire from the administration of US President Donald Trump. But he says he has plenty of fight, and hope, left in him. “One legacy of environmental justice is that the movement does not depend on whether you have the support of the federal government,” says Lee. “It is driven by people, it is not driven by an executive order.”

Inside Climate News | 19 min read (free reg required)

Where I work

Food technologist Naailah Ali’s research focuses on the fermentation of cacao beans in Trinidad and Tobago. She aims to develop techniques that farmers can use to improve the process, a step in making cocoa and chocolate. The success of fermentation depends on climate,” she says. “And with weather patterns becoming less predictable, the quality of the beans has started to decline.” (Nature | 3 min read)

On Friday, Leif Penguinson was chilling out at the Sally May Recreation Site on Fossil Creek just north of Phoenix, Arizona. Did you find the penguin? When you’re ready, here’s the answer.

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Jacob Smith

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