It’s an off-and-on rainy morning here, so I’ve settled by the window with the best lighting and am doing my weekly skim through various papers and articles that caught my eye. This week in things I feel one should know about the world:

• Gears! In insects! This is really old but I had apparently saved this to read later and never got around to it. Check out the video. If a design works at all, you’ll find it somewhere in nature…
• There are mountains in the Earth’s mantle.
• A study about microbiome differences in people with depression. All systems are connected! And maybe by treating one, we’ll be able to treat the other – which would be fantastic considering the many challenges in studying the brain/treating conditions in the brain directly. (open article about the paper)
• Tagging squid for science. Not easy to attach things to a small animal without any bones. A “Fitbit for squid,” as they call it.
• Always love a good expedition, here’s one to Antarctica.
• Learn about the flu and flu vaccines.
• Hydrothermarchaeota from the seafloor may use carbon monoxide and sulfate for energy, which is fairly unusual. They’ve also got a lot of genes for motility and chemotaxis, which may be part of their adaptations to survive in extreme environments. (short article here)
• Need something to read? A women in science reading list.