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The sounds of ‘micro-lightning’ have been recorded by NASA’s Perseverance rover, ending a long search for the phenomenon on Mars. A lack of suitable equipment has made it difficult to gather evidence of lightning on the red planet, but a team of researchers realized that a microphone on Perseverance should be able to pick up the characteristic sounds of electrical discharges. In total they found 55 such examples, along with signs of electrostatic interference indicative of the phenomenon. They dubbed the electric bursts ‘micro-lightning’, as they are far smaller than the lighting seen on Earth, due to the thin Martian atmosphere. The team believe this finding could help better understand Martian chemistry and how best to design equipment to explore the planet’s surface.
Research Article: Chide et al.
News and Views: Is there lightning on Mars?
How the biology of male seahorses’ brood pouches appears similar to mammalian pregnancy— plus, why Neanderthals’ jaws were so beefy.
Research Highlight: The origin of male seahorses’ brood pouch
Research Highlight: Neanderthal DNA reveals how human faces form
The UN’s climate conference, COP30, came to a close last week in Brazil. Nature reporter Jeff Tollefson tells us what was and wasn’t agreed during the final negotiations.
Nature: What happened at COP30? 4 science take-homes from the climate summit
A new analysis suggests that female authors retract fewer medical science papers than their male counterparts. Women are known to be underrepresented in the medical sciences, but even accounting for this an AI-tool revealed that female authors featured on far fewer retracted research articles. Reporter Jenna Ahart has been investigating and told us why this might be, and what it means for research more broadly.
Nature: Women seem to retract fewer papers than men — but why?
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