{
  "id": 5093997,
  "title": "Daily briefing: The next generation of lobsters",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/01/daily-briefing-the-next-generation-of-lobsters",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Nature",
    "slug": "nature",
    "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02756-2"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Hello Nature readers, welcome to your daily briefing. Tiny lobster hatchlings are being nurtured at the UK National Lobster Hatchery before being released into the wild, as captured in a finalist image for Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026. The leap second, a periodic time adjustment to keep atomic clocks in sync with Earth's rotation, may be eliminated as soon as October due to the possibility of the first-ever negative leap second. This could potentially disrupt critical infrastructure like electrical grids and financial systems. NASA recently launched the $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, equipped with the largest infrared camera ever built. The Roman telescope, alongside the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Euclid, aims to gather immense data about the Universe, revealing details of millions of stars in our Milky Way and the forces behind its expansion. Meta, the social-media giant, has agreed to pay up to $18 billion and modify its Facebook and Instagram platforms in the United States to address concerns over potential harm to children's mental health. However, experts remain divided on whether social media is genuinely harmful and whether Meta's proposed changes can be effectively enforced. AI tools are being utilized by researchers to predict spillovers, or the transfer of pathogens between species, before they occur. In Uganda, this approach has shown promising results in safeguarding mountain gorillas, as well as the animals and humans that interact with them. Additionally, researchers are analyzing databases to uncover new zoonotic viruses in samples that weren't originally intended for that purpose. Late-stage trial results indicating that a personalized vaccine could extend the lives of melanoma patients without cancer recurrence are expected to boost efforts in accelerating vaccine development for various cancers. A new study suggests that while people generally become happier as they become wealthier, they also tend to become more pessimistic. Factors such as age and optimism levels, both personal and collective, contribute to this phenomenon. To aid researchers in determining the most suitable 'lab archetype' for their AI tool usage, astronomer Michelle Ntampaka and her team have provided a blank template in an arXiv preprint. Read the full story on Nature Careers for more information.",
  "summary": "Nature, Published online: 01 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02756-2 Marvel 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.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}