Daily briefing: There are two kinds of beer drinkers - these are the flavours that divide them

"A worm that lives around hydrothermal vents on the floor of the Pacific Ocean creates a toxic yellow pigment found in Rembrandt and Cézanne paintings. Paralvinella hessleri is the first known animal to create orpiment, which was used by artists for centuries. The biomineral is formed when the toxic arsenic and sulfide compounds in the creature's environment react in its skin cells. Orpiment is still toxic, but much less so than either of its precursors alone, so the worm can tolerate it."

"Beer drinkers fall into two distinct categories: those who prefer strong flavour chemicals, such as the one associated with strawberries, and those who prefer mellow ones, such as that linked to pineapple. More than 100 self-proclaimed beer enthusiasts who tasted 18 lagers with a similar bitterness split into two factions with "polar opposite" responses, said food scientist Devin Peterson, who presented the results at the American Chemical Society meeting."

"Posts about research on the nascent social network Bluesky receive substantially more attention than similar posts on X, formerly called Twitter. Researchers looked at hundreds of thousands of posts that linked to academic articles and found that those on Bluesky had much higher levels of interaction (such as likes and replies) than those on X, and tended to summarize research articles rather than just stating the name of the pape"

Paralvinella hessleri from Pacific hydrothermal vents biomineralizes orpiment by reacting environmental arsenic and sulfide in its skin cells, producing a less-toxic yellow pigment that the worm tolerates. Beer consumers separate into two clear groups based on preference for strong strawberry-associated flavour chemicals or mellow pineapple-linked compounds; tasting of 18 similarly bitter lagers by over 100 enthusiasts produced polar-opposite responses. Posts linking to academic articles on the nascent social network Bluesky attract substantially more interactions (likes, replies) and more often summarize findings rather than merely naming papers, compared with similar posts on X. Evidence also indicates measurable chemical exposure from some beauty products.

Read at Nature