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After decades of frustration, efforts to develop antibodies that can ferry drugs into cancer cells—and minimize damage to healthy tissue—are gathering steam. The next generation of these ‘weaponized antibody’ therapies, called antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs), is working its way through clinical trials. Researchers will gather to discuss this renaissance on 30 November at the Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Munich, Germany. The improvements come after the first wave of experimental ADCs failed to deliver on its promise....

From Nature magazine More than 17,000 people have signed an online petition urging US President Barack Obama to require all scientific journal articles resulting from US taxpayer-funded research to be made freely available online. The signatures, obtained within a week of the petition’s launch after an active social media campaign, put it over two-thirds of the way towards the threshold that will require an official response from the White House....

When Natasha Marrus started her residency in general psychiatry in 2007, none of her 11 classmates ever mentioned autism. They eagerly discussed schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and occasionally a “really tough” resident would talk up personality disorders, recalls Marrus, now a child psychiatrist at the Autism Clinical Center at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. But even those who were considering working with children did not share her interest in autism....

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, the grandfather of modern economic theory, referred to individual self-interest as “the first principle of pure economics.” Until recently, economists routinely equated being rational with being selfish. The assumption was that, because humans are biological creatures, we’d been programmed by Darwinian evolution to put our own interests first—survival, after all, is a tough competition. As a result, even seemingly altruistic traits, such as giving money to charity or helping strangers in need, were seen as traits ultimately rooted in self-interest....

If European lawmakers have their way, by next year any American flying from Boston to Paris will have to pay for the plane’s carbon emissions over Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, the Atlantic Ocean and France. A case before the highest court in the European Union to decide the matter starts today. At stake is this question: Can Europe’s climate policy reach the tailpipes of planes flying to and from the continent, even when that plane is over other parts of the world?...

You probably know the GIF as the perfect vehicle for sharing memes and reactions. We believe the format can go further, that it has real power to capture science and explain research in short, digestible loops. So each Friday, we’ll round up the week’s most GIF-able science. Enjoy and loop on. Holy Jumping Maggots! Credit: Reproduced and adapted with permission of Journal of Experimental Biology, G. M. Farley, M. J. Wise, J....

The confluence of misinformation and infectious disease isn’t unique to COVID-19. Misinformation contributed to the spread of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and it plagues efforts to educate the public on the importance of vaccinating against measles. But when it comes to COVID-19, the pandemic has come to be defined by a tsunami of persistent misinformation to the public on everything from the utility of masks and the efficacy of school closures, to the wisdom behind social distancing, and even the promise of untested remedies....

In 1802 Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, a 31-year-old French aristocrat just two years in America, started a powder mill on the banks of Brandywine Creek outside Wilmington, Del. Since then the company he founded has become virtually synonymous with the state. Du Pont, who had studied explosives with Antoine Lavoisier, a founder of scientific chemistry, began producing gunpowder superior to any previously available in the new country. His company quickly became the nation’s leading gunpowder manufacturer....

As soon as her instructor’s dissecting knife cuts into the cadaver’s skin, a medical student swoons, falling to the floor. Her fellow students pity her, thinking that she is simply too tenderhearted to be a doctor. They are wrong: her problem is not in her head. Rather than being unable to endure life’s occasional unpleasantness, otherwise healthy people who faint when they see a few drops of blood or if they stand in place too long are survivors....

Under normal light, the South American polka dot tree frog (Hypsiboas punctatus) sports a muted palette of greens, yellows and reds. But dim the lights and switch on ultraviolet illumination, and this little amphibian gives off a bright blue and green glow. The ability to absorb light at short wavelengths and re-emit it at longer wavelengths is called fluorescence, and is rare in terrestrial animals. Until now, it was unheard of in amphibians....

Well, that was fast. Just minutes after going on sale in the United States, the new Nexus 4 smartphone from Google and LG was already sold out. Visitors to the Google Play store are greeted with a “coming soon” notice for both the 8GB and 16GB versions of the device. The phones previously sold out in the United Kingdom in less than an hour. Some customers reported having trouble accessing the store or checking out successfully....

Whether it’s white, black, pink, red, or even green, the color of sand provides clues as to its makeup and offers a peek into the beach’s history. The color of sand can tell stories of past human activity and can even reveal what kind of sea creatures call that beach home. Sand’s color is derived from its mineralogy, or the physical structure of the crystals that populate the sand. These minerals can come from erosion of nearby landscape, volcanic eruptions, and even the grounding up of sea shells over decades, so the color and content of sand reflect the makeup of the surrounding landscape and even the beach’s inhabitants....

Scientific American presents Math Dude by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. If you’re anything like me, you probably enjoy a good number trick every now and then. Which is exactly why I’m excited that today we’re going to take a look at one of the very best number tricks I know. And not only is it a great trick, it also comes with a fabulous story about how, once upon a time, a school-aged version of a man who would eventually become an extremely famous mathematician and scientist both annoyed and impressed his math teacher....

PARENTS AND PEERS As a psychologist very familiar with the research, I think in “Do Parents Matter?” Judith Harris is conflating personality and behavior, which are two different concepts. Personality has more to do with genetic traits related to mood and energy (which plenty of research indicates are strongly influenced by genetics). Behavior, on the other hand, depends on context and is guided by laws of behaviorism—that is, reinforcement principles. If parents do (or do not) provide reinforcement for specific types of behavior, you will either see or not see those behaviors....

Amid the rugged peaks of the Vicdessos region of the French Pyrenees, the only visible signs of a human presence are a smattering of villages and the odd hiker or skier; it is considered a pristine environment. But even here, scientists have detected tiny pieces of plastic falling out of the air like artificial dust. A first-of-its-kind study finds these particles have blown in on the wind from at least 100 kilometers away and likely much farther....

Just before 4 p.m. Sunday, a message from the future landed in Washington, D.C. Its location was sent out in a tweet: “GPS N38.872033 W77.019141, SW Waterfront Park. All seekers go!” Trey Reyher, who was playing board games with friends at the time, decided to hop in his car and head out to find the “chronofact,” the physical manifestation of a voice mail somehow sent backward in time. Chronofacts carry messages from a variety of possible futures—some sound neighborly and pleasant, while others sound downright apocalyptic and ugly....

As Cleveland Cavaliers guard J. R. Smith has probably heard a few times at this point, you have to be solid in the fundamentals. For a basketball player, some of the fundamentals are dribbling, shooting and, as Smith learned the hard way, knowing the correct score with seconds to play in the first game of the NBA Finals. For the rest of us (who blissfully do dumb things without attracting worldwide attention), the major fundamentals include sleeping, eating, sex and eliminating....

Astronomers are uncovering newfound planets in orbit around other stars at a meteoric rate these days. The tally of known planets outside the solar system now stands at more than 450, of which about 50 have been discovered just this year. That pace promises to increase as NASA’s Kepler mission carries out its multiyear survey of a large patch of stars; the campaign has already located several hundred planetary candidates for follow-up study and confirmation....

Biology is now in the early stages of a historic transition to an information science, while also gaining the tools to reprogram the ancient information systems of life. Our electronic devices typically update their software every few months, yet the 23,000 software programs called genes inside our cells have not changed appreciably in thousands of years. As we begin to understand biology in terms of its information processes, however, we are developing realistic models and simulations of how disease and aging progress and ways to reprogram them....

A square of silvery foil large enough to cover the floor of a boxing ring is now circling high above Earth. What it is about to do next may change the course of spaceflight. The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2, now fully deployed, is the first spacecraft in Earth orbit to be propelled only by sunlight. Pushed by the momentum of photons striking its sail, the satellite, and the technology it demonstrates, could someday lead to revolutionary advances in interplanetary—even interstellar—exploration....