Podcasters looked into her sister’s murder, and then turned on her
From Sarah Viren for the New York Times: "Liz Flatt drove to Austin mostly out of desperation. She had tried talking with the police. She had tried working with a former F.B.I. profiler who ran a nonprofit dedicated to solving unsolved murders. She had been interviewed by journalists and at least one podcaster. She had been featured on a Netflix documentary series about a man who falsely confessed to hundreds of killings. She didn’t know it at the time, but Flatt was at a crossroads in what she had taken to calling her journey, a path embarked on after a prayer-born decision five years earlier to try and find who killed her sister, Deborah Sue Williamson, or Debbie, in 1975."
Human beings give birth because we were infected by an ancient virus
From Carrie Arnold for Nova: "The rise of the mammals may be feel like a familiar tale, but there’s a twist you likely don’t know about: If it wasn’t for a virus, it might not have happened at all. One of the few survivors of the asteroid impact 65 million years ago was a small, furry, shrew-like creature that lived in underground burrows and only ventured out at night, when predators weren’t active. The critter—already the product of some 100 million years of evolution—looked like a modern mammal, with body hair and mammary glands, except for one tiny detail: according to a recent genetic study, it didn’t have a placenta. And its kind might never have evolved one if not for a chance encounter with a retrovirus."
Climate change is killing off the Amazon River dolphin
From Jens Glusing for Der Spiegel: "When the moon hangs large and round above the Amazon, the dolphins climb out of the river and transform into handsome young men. Such is the legend that has been passed down for centuries in villages nestled in the river basin. At least 154 river dolphins died in a two-week period starting at the end of September in Lake Tefé – around 10 percent of the population. Scientists dissected the cadavers, took water samples, analyzed weather and climate conditions and interviewed fishermen and locals. Was it a virus? Were they killed by an organic poison? Ultimately, only one possible explanation remained: they were victims of climate change."
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