The vampire squid’s unusual sex life, 170-year-old champagne, and Yellowstone’s supervolcano

The unusual sex life of the vampire squid

Vampire squid live 500 to 3000 meters below the ocean’s surface, in a zone where there is no light and oxygen is low. To survive the choking darkness, the squid has evolved a reproductive strategy unlike any of its kin—one that has extended its time on Earth.

Judge’s ruling (sort of) grants legal right to research chimps

This week, a New York judge granted a pair of research chimps the right to have their day in court. The original court order allowed the animals to be covered under a writ of habeas corpus, which until now has applied only to humans. But those words were later struck from the order, suggesting that the court has made no decision on whether the chimps deserve to be treated as legal persons.

Two huge magma chambers spied beneath Yellowstone National Park

Geoscientists finally have a complete picture of what's going on under Yellowstone National Park, and they've found not one, but two massive magma chambers underneath the giant volcano! Scientists report that the newly discovered chamber is 4.5 times larger than the one we already knew about.

What does 170-year-old champagne taste like?

Thanks to a shipwreck that kept the vintage in near-perfect aging conditions, we now know what 170-year-old champagne tastes like. Tasters described the aroma of the champagne—likely the oldest ever imbibed—as spicy, smoky, and leathery.

An unexpected microbe is killing organ transplant patients

A new study has implicated bacteria that normally live in the urinary tract as the culprit behind the mysterious deaths of some organ transplant patients. The bacteria cause the amount of ammonia in the blood to skyrocket, with disastrous—and often fatal—results.

Physicists detect radio waves from a single electron

Physicists have long known that charged particles like electrons will spiral in a magnetic field and give off radiation. But nobody has ever detected the radio waves emanating from a single whirling electron—until now.