GoKawiilMarvel at the month’s best science images. Plus, why timekeepers are rushing to get rid of the leap second and whether Meta’s legal settlement will make social media safer for kids.
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.
Credit: Francesca Page/OPY 2026
These tiny lobster tots are being raised at the UK National Lobster Hatchery before being released into the wild. The image was among the finalists for Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026. See more of the month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.
Nature | Leisurely scroll
The leap second — a periodic adjustment that keeps the relentless march of the world’s atomic clocks in sync with the planet’s naturally varying rotation — could be scrapped as soon as October. The world’s timekeeping authorities want to fast-track a change, already planned for 2035, because we’re facing the possibility of the first-ever negative leap second — meaning that clocks must skip, rather than gain, a second. The unprecedented event could cause chaos, say researchers — especially because the leap second is handled slightly differently across crucial infrastructure such as electrical grids and financial systems. Better, say timekeepers, would be a leap hour — which would mean adjustments only once in hundreds, or thousands, of years.
Nature | 6 min read
On 30 August, NASA launched the US$4.3-billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and with it, the largest infrared camera ever built. When it begins operations later this year, the Roman telescope will join forces with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and fellow space telescope Euclid to collect unprecedented amounts of data about the Universe. These data and astoundingly detailed images will yield insight into millions of stars in the Milky Way and the force causing the Universe’s expansion.
Nature | 6 min read
Social-media giant Meta has agreed to pay up to US$18 billion and make changes to its Facebook and Instagram platforms in the United States, including time limits, to settle a legal case about whether its technology harms kids’ mental health. But research is divided on whether social media is harmful in this way, and whether changes such as the ones announced by Meta can even be enforced. “The pessimistic side of me knows that Meta, in this case, is defining the game. It’s defining what harm is,” says psychologist Kathryn Modecki. “I always say, what if we instead ask, ‘How do we make social media better for all of us, kids included?’”
... continue reading