Stories by Allison Parshall

Chernobyl’s adaptable canines, sewage sea spray in the U.S., hibernating germs on Everest, and much more in this month’s Quick Hits

A fish species recognizes its own face digitally edited onto another fish’s body. What does this mean for self-awareness?

Decades of data support the use and safety of puberty-pausing medications, which give transgender adolescents and their families time to weigh important medical decisions

New technology gleans the gist of stories a person hears while laying in a brain scanner

Mistaken fossil identity in India, decrypted letters of an imprisoned Scottish queen, marsupials seeking marsupials Down Under, and more in this month’s Quick Hits

Chloroplasts’ choreography keeps plant cells powered

Boris Eldagsen submitted an artificial-intelligence-generated image to a photography contest as a “cheeky monkey” and sparked a debate about AI’s place in the art world

Infections of a new strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that have led to blindness and death highlight the worsening antibiotic resistance crisis

The real-life fungi that inspired TheLast of Us hijack the bodies of ants, wasps, cicadas, and more.

Ancient Maya cities in laser focus, chickens gone wild in Singapore, high-tech drug research in the U.S., and much more in this month’s Quick Hits

A severe geomagnetic storm created auroras that were visible as far south as Arizona in the U.S.

Music made with artificial intelligence could upend the music industry. Here’s what that might look like.

Google’s new AI model can generate entirely new music from text prompts. Here’s what they sound like.

Machine-learning algorithms are getting so good that they can translate Western instruments into Thai ones with ease.

Before exploding as supernovae, massive Wolf-Rayet stars spew gas and dust into space, seeding the formation of future stellar and planetary systems

Image-generating AI is getting better at re-creating what people are looking at from their fMRI data. But this isn’t mind reading—yet

Flu and COVID symptoms are easily confused. A new home test—the first for flu—tells them apart in minutes

A thin film can switch from releasing heat to trapping it, and wrapping the coating around buildings could make them more energy-efficient

The pandemic fungus in the television program The Last of Us is real. But an expert says other fungi are much more threatening to humans

One in three cases of maternal sepsis can be prevented with a single dose of antibiotic, a study in low- and middle-income countries shows

The strong force holds our atoms together. Scientists may have observed its small-scale fluctuations for the first time

These merging supermassive black holes are among the closest ever observed and could help unlock deeper secrets of cosmic history

Laser beams could be used to deflect lightning strikes from vulnerable places such as airports and wind farms

People are infected by bacteria that, after contacting heavy metals, develop drug-resistant traits