Giant waterlilies are not exactly inconspicuous plants. But in the past few years, we have discovered no fewer than three new species, taking the total to five. The latest species to be described was identified with the help of social media, satellite photos and a mad jungle dash in the dark.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 incredible that we find something so new, which is so large, in this world where we think everything is already known,鈥� says at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, who has helped describe two of the new species.

Giant waterlilies are famed for their massive leaves, which grow up to 3 metres wide. For many decades, just two species were known: Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana. Then in 2016, Carlos Magdalena at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, noticed that giant waterlilies grown from seeds from Bolivia were a bit different, with even larger leaves. In 2022, Magdalena and his colleagues published a paper showing that this was a new species, Victoria boliviana.

Magdalena hasn鈥檛 stopped there. In 2021, Jeremiah Harris, who runs a carnivorous plant business in the US, posted that he took while swimming near the In铆rida river in Colombia next to what he assumed was V. amazonica.

Magdalena was struck by the photos because scientists had thought there were no giant waterlilies in this region. 鈥淭his river is geographically completely separated from the Amazon, and has been for millions of years, and that is why this is such an interesting find,鈥� says Christenhusz.

Magdalena, Christenhusz and their team examined satellite photos and found telltale green dots confirming there really were giant waterlilies growing there. They then organised an expedition to the region. The team found two plants but neither was flowering 鈥� and analysing the flowers is a crucial step in establishing whether a waterlily really is a new species.

At 11pm on the last night of the expedition, with the plane due to leave at 9am, the researchers seemed to have failed. Then one of the guides, Gustavo Melo from the Indigenous Tucano community, said he knew where some more giant waterlilies were growing. The team set off by boat in the dark, and found five plants in a small lake just before sunrise, including some that were flowering.

Magdalena, Christenhusz and their colleagues have now published a paper describing the new species, which they have named Victoria colombiana. It differs from V. amazonica in the orientation of the spines beneath the leaves, and in the shape of its flowers and fruits. The spines are a defence against manatees and plant-eating fish, Christenhusz says, so they vary between species depending on which herbivores are most prevalent.

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As far as the team is aware, V. colombiana is found in only one small area. A single event, such as a pollution spill, could wipe out the entire species, says Christenhusz. But the team is planning to try to collect seeds to help ensure the species survives.

Meanwhile, Magdalena also realised that the giant waterlilies growing in the Pantanal region of South America, hundreds of kilometres to the south-east of Colombia, must have been isolated from other populations for a very long time. Sure enough, genetic studies revealed that they are another distinct species, despite looking very similar to V. cruziana. Magdalena, Christenhusz and their colleagues will publish a paper soon to describe this fifth species, which they have decided to name Victoria mattogrossensis.

A lab accident in the Irkutsk region of Siberia led to the death of a 28-year-old woman from pneumonic plague last week, according to reports from . Nearly 200 people who might have come into contact with her are said to have been put under observation and several hospitals in the area have been quarantined.

There is no reason to think this is the start of a large outbreak. Plague cases are relatively common worldwide but they do not spread widely because the infection is now easily treated and prevented.

鈥淧lague is not a historical disease,鈥� at the University of Birmingham in the UK said in a statement. 鈥淗uman cases occur every year, including outbreaks of the pneumonic form.鈥�

The term 鈥減lague鈥� usually refers to ill health caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, although there is no official confirmation the woman鈥檚 death was due to this pathogen. Y. pestis circulates in non-human animals in many parts of the world and .

The most common form of plague is bubonic plague, which is caused by flea bites and characterised by swollen lymph glands, or buboes. The bacterium can also infect blood, called septicaemic plague, or the lungs, known as pneumonic plague.

The woman in Irkutsk is said to have died of pneumonic plague two days after being hospitalised. This is the deadliest form of the condition and can spread via the air when infected people cough, for instance. However, measures such as wearing masks and avoiding close contact .

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鈥淭his can be controlled and stopped with appropriate surveillance and control measures,鈥� at the University of Reading in the UK said in a statement. Cases are also usually treatable with antibiotics.

The circumstances of the lab accident remain unclear. It is being reported that it was caused by a broken test tube, but if proper procedures for handling dangerous microbes were being followed, this should not have led to an infection. Workers should have been wearing protective equipment, for instance.

There has also been speculation that the woman鈥檚 death was caused by a modified form of the plague created for biowarfare, but there is no evidence this is the case. Pneumonic plague is nearly always fatal if not treated promptly, so there鈥檚 no reason to think this strain is especially dangerous. What鈥檚 more, Y. pestis frequently infects animals and people, so there are legitimate reasons for studying it in labs.

The former Soviet Union did have a large bioweapons programme, which included . Antibiotic-resistant strains have also evolved naturally, and were first .

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There is a long history of lab accidents leading to infections, deaths and even outbreaks. For instance, in 2007, an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK was traced to labs. In 1979, , Russia, after what the US claimed was the accidental release of anthrax spore from a military facility. There is, however, no evidence the covid-19 pandemic was a result of a lab accident.

While lab-acquired infections with Y. pestis are rare, they are not impossible, Stamataki said. 鈥淭his incident warrants a full account of what happened. That account matters beyond Russia.鈥�

Russia has that Ukraine is developing bioweapons with the help of the US, but there is no evidence for this. In 2024, it was reported that in Russia called Sergiev Posad-6.

The 2026 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for the development of techniques for controlling nerve cells with light, known as optogenetics.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a tremendous step forward to be able to link nerve cells and their function to specific behaviours,鈥� said , a member of the Nobel committee. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a completely new dimension of understanding of the function of the brain.鈥�

In the 1990s, , then at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany, wondered how a single-celled alga, called Chlamydomonas, can swim towards light. He discovered the key to this is a light-sensitive protein.

In the 2000s, Hegemann teamed up with , then at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany. They showed that this light-sensitive protein acts as a switch, opening a channel that lets ions flow through the protein when exposed to light. They called the protein channel-rhodopsin.

鈥淭hey had just discovered the switch neuroscientists had long dreamed of,鈥� , a neuroscientist and member of the Nobel Committee, said during the prize announcement.

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The discovery of channel-rhodopsin was a major breakthrough in itself, said El Manira, but , at Stanford University, California, took things even further by showing that this protein could be used to control nerve cells.

Deisseroth genetically engineered rats to produce channel-rhodopsin in their nerve cells, meaning these cells could be activated by shining light on them. This work, published in 2005, enabled researchers to study the function of specific groups of neurons.聽聽聽聽

鈥淔or the first time, causal links between specific brain circuits and behaviour had been achieved,鈥� said El Manira. 鈥淭he technology transformed neuroscience. Optogenetics was rapidly and widely adopted all over the world.鈥�

More light-sensitive proteins have since been discovered, which respond to different colours, enabling even more precise control of engineered nerve cells.

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Therapies based on optogenetics are also being developed. For instance, it is being explored as a way to restore some sight to people who are blind because they have lost the light-detecting rod and cone cells in the retina. Optogenetic techniques can be used to make nerve cells in the retina respond directly to light instead, but this does require wearing special goggles.

There are several clinical trials ongoing with this approach, said , chair of the Nobel Committee.

The downside of optogenetics is that light can鈥檛 penetrate far into the body. So, several groups around the world are trying to develop equivalent methods based on ultrasound or magnetism.

Do you have any idea what you鈥檙e looking at in the image above? It might look completely abstract at first glance, but this is, in fact, an aerial photo. The white cobwebby-looking bits are bubbles, the green is algae and the straight lines are the edges of tanks.

This is the Kasslerfeld sewage-treatment plant in Duisburg, Germany, next to the Rhine river, which treats wastewater from nearby businesses and homes.

鈥淭his is part of my series which illustrates environmental damage in a creative way to engage viewers,鈥� says photographer and environmental activist J Henry Fair.

While wastewater plants help minimise human impact on rivers, Fair points out that they don鈥檛 remove all pollutants. For instance, they don鈥檛 filter out all microplastics. We all have microplastics in our bodies, Fair says, but the ramifications of that are not understood.

Fair has been using small aircraft to document the impact of human activity on the landscape, with the aerial view often revealing much that can鈥檛 be seen from the ground. The photograph above is one from a new exhibition at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, .

鈥淚 first photographed it in passing, then the curators became excited about it, so I went back to reshoot it. But then could not find it. So we flew all around Duisburg, and finally saw it as we were giving up the search,鈥� said Fair.

Waste features in many of Fair鈥檚 photographs. The strange red landscape in the image below is made of the toxic mud left after aluminium is refined from bauxite in Gramercy, Louisiana. The two lines are vehicle tracks. The waste contains heavy metals such as lead and mercury, among other things.

Another alien-looking landscape in the image below is actually the waste treatment at a pulp mill in Ticonderoga, New York state. Trout in nearby Lake Chamberlaindangerous levels of dioxins as a result of historical pollution from factories including the original paper mill at Ticonderoga.

What looks like blood in the shot below is actually molten sulphur being added to large piles of solid yellow sulphur in Fort McMurray, Canada. The sulphur is a byproduct of the tar sands refining process and is stored on-site because there is little demand for it. Fair points out that the petrol (gasoline) made from tar sands results in much higher carbon emissions than that made from oil.

And does the image below show a peaceful Zen garden? No. This is actually earth from a lignite mine in Grefath, Germany. The earth is removed to reveal the lignite 鈥� a particularly dirty form of coal 鈥� around 100 metres down, and then transferred to areas where the coal has already been stripped.

Fair鈥檚 exhibition at the Bruce Museum runs until 7 February.