8 May 2026

Today’s Visualized takes a close look at how “worm towers” travel. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including plants in peril and how ‘magic’ mushrooms could help people with cocaine use disorder.

Climate | News from Science

Antarctic ice core reveals carbon dioxide’s role in a climate mystery

Scientists have extracted a continuous Antarctic ice core stretching back 1.2 million years, opening an unprecedented window into a mysterious shift in Earth’s ice ages. The Beyond EPICA project, which drilled 2.8 kilometers into the ice at Little Dome C, recovered ancient air bubbles that preserve atmospheric carbon dioxide from a key interval when Earth’s glacial cycles changed dramatically.

Before about 1 million years ago, ice ages came and went every 40,000 years, triggered by subtle changes in Earth’s orbit. Then the climate system shifted into longer, deeper 100,000-year glacial cycles that still define the present era. The cause of this “Mid-Pleistocene Transition” has long been debated.

The new core reveals a striking sequence around 950,000 years ago: Atmospheric carbon dioxide surged by about 50 parts per million in a few thousand years—a geologic instant—then plunged to just 170 ppm, the lowest value ever seen in a continuous ice core (it’s now above 420 ppm). That deep minimum coincides with the first full 100,000-year ice age cycle.

The findings point toward changes in ocean circulation that locked more carbon in the deep ocean, rather than an alternative theory that invokes ice sheet behavior. “Every time we have improved reconstructions of CO₂,” said paleoclimatologist James Rae, “we find out that it’s playing the major role in climate.”

Read the full story

Conservation | Science

High risk of extinction across the flowering plant tree of life

tree of flowering plants showing groups with EDGE species

More than one-fifth of the evolutionary history of flowering plants is at risk of extinction, with 259 of the 417 families containing Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species (red). Forest et al./Science (2026)

If asked to think of an endangered species, something like a tiger, rhino, or elephant might come to mind first. But many of the planet’s plants are also in serious trouble, although how many is unclear because only 18% of them have been formally assessed for International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Two analyses in this week’s Science worked around this knowledge gap to provide a road map for conserving Earth’s leafy life.

One research team looked more closely at flowering plants (angiosperms), of which there are more than 335,000 species. They combined the plants’ phylogenetic tree with statistical estimates of the plants’ extinction risk, yielding a list of nearly 10,000 species to prioritize for conservation given their distinct contributions to the total evolutionary history of the group.

Another team assessed the geographic distribution of 67,000 vascular plant species to see how they might shift with warming temperatures. Their analysis included four greenhouse gas emission scenarios, as well as plant traits, plant dispersal abilities, soil quality, and land use conditions. They found that 7% to 16% of plants are at high risk of extinction, as their ranges are likely to shrink to 10% or less of their current size. And for the most part, it won’t be the plants’ lack of ability to disperse that limits their future range—it’ll be the loss of available habitat due to climate change .

In both analyses, location mattered. The angiosperm study found greater risk to tropical and island species, while the vascular plant study found threats to Mediterranean, Southwest Australian, and East Australian species. “These findings reveal that the areas of the world at the highest risk of plant diversity loss are also biodiversity hotspots or centers of plant diversity,” explained botanists Rosa Scherson and Federico Luebert in a related Perspective.

read the Science Papers about ANGIOSPERMS and range shifts

Read the Perspective

Medicine | News from Science

Psilocybin shows promise for cocaine addiction

Despite billions of dollars spent on potential drug treatments for cocaine addiction, none have proved effective—and cocaine use is increasing in the United States and around the world. But one class of possible remedy has remained untested: psychedelics, which have shown promise for treating myriad other mental health conditions. Now, the results of a pioneering randomized trial reveal a single dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic component of magic mushrooms, brought significant relief for people addicted to cocaine.

The trial aimed to recruit a representative sample of people in Birmingham, Alabama with cocaine use disorder, including those often left out of research on psychedelics. Of the 40 participants, more than 80% were Black and 65% earned less than $20,000 a year. After receiving four or five sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy, half of participants got the hallucinogen and half got an active placebo that at high doses has some mind-altering effects. 180 days after treatment, 30% of the psilocybin group was completely abstaining from cocaine, versus none of the placebo group; those who received psilocybin but continued using cocaine did so less frequently.

Among the participants was Lorenzo, who had been using cocaine almost daily for decades. During his all-day dosing session, he first saw frightening, dark imagery, including a looming, mountain-size demon. “It was like I was facing death and the devil ,” he recounted. Eventually, light began to creep in, then rainbow colors. “In one part … I was apologizing to God. Like, ‘I’m sorry I let you down. If you give me another chance I’ll definitely straighten myself out.’” Now 63, he has not touched cocaine in the several years since the trial. And he has shared his psychedelic experience with some of his old friends who still use. “For a lot of Black people, this is something they’ve probably never heard of and never experienced.”

Read the full story

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Visualized

a beetle with grey nematode streaks visible

All aboard the strawberry sap beetle! This invasive critter may serve as a vector for a newly described species of nematode worm. Gustavo Alarcon-Nieto/Genes and Behavior Group

Microscopic worms called nematodes have long fascinated scientists by joining together to form writhing, wriggling masses.

In 2025, researchers examining rotting fruit in an orchard in Konstanz, Germany filmed these tentaclelike “towers” in the wild for the first time. Later lab experiments demonstrated that the slimy superorganisms can glom on to fruit flies, supporting the idea that nematodes form such towers to hitchhike on animals. Now, genetic analysis has revealed that these tower-building worms belong to a previously undescribed species, which researchers have dubbed Caenorhabditis apta.

As scientists observed in 2025, a rotting peach is the ideal spot for these worms to get their wriggle on. Perez et al./Current Biology (2025)

As the team reports this week in Ecology and Evolution, these nematodes appear to use two species of sap-feeding beetle as their own personal ride-share service. The researchers didn’t directly observe C. apta attaching to the beetles, but after surveying hundreds of invertebrates from orchard fruit, they found dense, squirming clusters of the worms exclusively on Stelidota geminata (commonly known as the strawberry sap beetle) and Epuraea ocularis—both of which are invasive crop pests in Europe. The discovery raises the possibility that C. apta arrived in Europe comparatively recently after hitching a ride on these beetles.

“The introduction of a new nematode species in Europe might not seem like a big issue,” lead study author Ryan Greenway explained in a statement, “but we know that nematodes can play an important role in helping their vectors spread, and vice versa.” If C. apta is indeed a recent arrival, the researchers say, its interactions with native European species could already be driving major ecological changes.

Read the paper

podcast

A team effort to save a giant fish, the power of moonlight, and how scientists can navigate a tough political environment

By Sarah Crespi, Warren Cornwall, H. Holden Thorp | 7 May 2025

On this week’s show: Ecologists and villagers work together in the Amazon to save a fish, a nighttime foraging bird that syncs up with the Moon, and practical political resistance with historian Timothy Snyder.

Listen Now

Et Cetera

Listening to the mountain’s whispers

Last year, a massive landslide in Alaska caused a 481-meter megatsunami. It was sheer luck that no boats were in the fjord when it happened—and now, scientists have deconstructed the string of events that led to the sudden disaster. In the days leading up to the slide, seismic stations picked up tiny rumbles, which increased in frequency until about an hour before the mountainside slid. The rocks were “whispering to us, not yelling,” explained one researcher. The hope is that similar signals can be detected ahead of time to predict potentially catastrophic events.

Science Paper | Read more at The New York Times

Particular pressure

A new device can measure the pressure produced by a single particle hitting an extremely small silica sphere. “Individual molecular collisions are rarely observed in real time. Traditionally, their effects are only seen on average, like how a fast-moving object appears blurred in a long-exposure photograph,” explained one expert—which is why the new tech is sparking hopes that it could aid in the discovery of new particles

arXiv preprint | Read more at New Scientist

There may be life on Mars after all

Fungi collected from NASA’s ultrasterile clean rooms have now survived simulated space and Martian environments, highlighting gaps in so-called planetary protection protocols and raising the possibility that there is already or will soon be life on Mars—thanks to our spacecraft. “The whole point [is] that we don’t know all the capabilities of life on Earth—and shouldn’t pretend we do,” said one expert. “Most extremophile biologists who spend two seconds thinking about it would be pretty sure that Earth organisms able to survive on Mars do exist.”

Applied and Environmental Microbiology Paper | Read more at Scientific American

Last but not least

I’m in a particularly good mood because I’m about to spend this Mother’s Day weekend with my amazing daughter. So, I’ll leave you with an uplifting long read about a very big fish.

Also, happy 100th, David Attenborough!

Christie Wilcox, Editor, ScienceAdviser

With contributions from Eric Hand, Kelly Servick, Hannah Richter, and Phie Jacobs

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