To save coral reefs, kill the rats (Pacific Standard)
by John C. Cannon
Coral reefs face all kinds of environmental threats, including… rats. Turns out, reefs around rat-free islands have 50 percent more fish biomass. The reason shows just how interconnected ecosystems are.

To speak to aliens, it might take a toddler (Slate)
by Kate Morgan
If we ever meet an advanced alien species, it might communicate in ways that make no sense to us. That could mean that the people who have the best chance of figuring it out are 15-month-olds.

Attack of the killer yeast (Wired)
by Maryn McKenna
A deadly, treatment-resistant superbug is spreading around the world. But the methods doctors have developed to respond to other infectious disease won’t work. That’s because this time it’s not an extra-strong bacteria or virus, but an extremely weird yeast.

Siri, how am I feeing? (Aeon)
by Polina Aronson and Judith Duportail
How can the virtual assistants on our phones learn to respond to our emotions? And how does it change the way we think about emotion when we’re communicating with, and through, machines?

History through animal eyes (The Boston Globe)
by Amy Crawford
What does history look like from the perspective of a circus elephant or a colony of bedbugs? Diving deep into newspaper archives and DNA data helps us understand more dimensions of the past.

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