your science briefing for 10.10.2025

The human cost of overusing and abusing antibiotics, how global warming could wake dormant volcanos, why new memories don't override old ones, and more...

With antibiotics, we had a great thing going for decades. Diseases that once ravaged humanity became annoying nuisances. Death from infections became rare. But as the antibiotic became a magic pill for all that ails you, we’ve gone overboard and created an environment to breed new bacteria, ones with resistance to our antibiotics. We’re now busy trying to invent and discover new antibiotic classes with AI and prevent the return to the bad old days, but if we don’t, by 2050, as many as 40 million people per year will die as a consequence… (The Guardian)

You know the old cliche that human dog owners kind of look like their pets and vice-versa? Turns out, that’s not entirely a cliche, nor is it really accidental. It may be the result of our subconscious biases… (Nautilus)

Another interesting side effect of global warming could be brewing under our feet in the still — but possibly not for as long as we’d like — frozen continent of Antarctica. As the ice sheets and glaciers melt and retreat, dormant volcanoes could growl back to life. It happened before, during the end of the last Ice Age, and it will almost certainly happen again… (PhysOrg)

We may be drowning under a mountain of plastic that’s seeping into our food, blood, and organs, and existing recycling techniques aren’t even close to making a dent in it, but don’t worry, the plastics industry finally has a solution. It’s called pyrolysis and it… doesn’t actually work and is only a PR stunt… (ProPublica)

Have you ever wondered why your new memories don’t just overwrite your old ones, and the experiences you recall from yesterday don’t just mesh with today’s without a number of extenuating circumstances? Scientists studying memory in mice think the answer is in how we sleep, particularly how older and newer memories are processed at different times in the sleep cycle… (Nature)