This Week in Science: Locking Up GMOs, Reading With X-Rays, and a Bat Feeding Frenzy

Seven days, lots of science in the news. Here’s our roundup of this week’s most notable and quotable items.

Researchers inserted a self-destruct mechanism into genetically modified bacteria that could serve as a “firewall” to prevent GM organisms from escaping laboratories.

In couples, healthy habits are much easier to maintain if both partners join in.

Two NASA spacecraft—Dawn and New Horizons—are about to give us our best glimpses ever of the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres.

Evolution might be able to retrace its steps: When scientists looked at the progress of birds over generations, they found that they regained a wrist bone that was lost by the dinosaurs.

X-rays allowed scientists to peer inside an ancient scroll that had been turned into a charcoal-like brick by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

NASA is testing ways of sending scientists to explore Mars virtually, through a 3-D-augmented reality visor.

Scientists made water droplets bounce off a piece of metal by etching the material’s surface with a laser.

There are fish living underneath nearly half a mile of ice in Antarctica. Big trees are disappearing from California.

Psychedelics might be a powerful anti-suicide treatment.

One species of sea-dwelling snail hunt by injecting their prey with insulin, making the victims sluggish by sending their blood sugar crashing.

Mouse-tailed bats eavesdrop on their neighbors to figure out where to hunt for food.

Programmers are trying to create a robot with the mind of a roundworm.

Atoms might be able to be in two places at once.

Illustration by Sarah Peavey