This week in science: the birds and the bees

Energy companies may prosper in the coming Arctic thaw, while much of the world continues to shoulder the increasing cost of inaction, but there could be yet another threat growing and spreading under the slippery warming surface:

Climate change is thawing Arctic ground that was once frozen all year, making it a potentially potent new source of toxic mercury pollution in the region, according to a new study.

"With increasing temperatures, particularly in northern latitudes, depths below the surface that were permafrost 10 and 20 years ago now annually freeze and thaw," said study coauthor Dwayne Elias, a microbiologist with the federal Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "If this continues, and it probably will, the permafrost of today will become the active layer of tomorrow, [allowing] the bacteria carrying these genes to essentially wake up from being dormant for thousands and thousands of years."

• Siri could be turned ag'in us!
• What is the largest organ in the body? Trick question, its skin! At least by some measurements and definitions. Plus it's awful important to both health and appearance. So this is exciting news:

  Cutting-edge prosthesis are amazing, but they lack one very important feature: a sense of touch. Now a research team from Stanford University has developed artificial skin that can sense force exerted by objects—and then transmit those sensory signals to brain cells.

• The universe is laced with dazzling beauty at all scales. This week, Nikon released the best micro photographs of 2015 showcasing just a sliver of it! First prize went to this exquisite image of bees, eyes, and pollen.
• New data from eggshells suggests that at least some dinos were indeed warm-blooded.
• Tomorrow on Sunday Kos we'll start a discussion about this intriguing find by Kepler:

  Now let’s have a care here. The paper doesn’t mention aliens, and it doesn’t even imply aliens. Not directly, at least. But the astronomers found a star so odd, with behavior so difficult to explain, that it’s clear something weird is happening there. And some of the astronomers who did the work are now looking into the idea that what they’ve found might (might!) be due to aliens.