Abstracts: Climate Denialism, Sperm Whales, and More

• While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that the Zika virus directly causes microcephaly in infants, the British Medical Journal released a chilling set of brain scans of infants with the defect. (The LA Times)

• Behind the launch of countless missiles and rockets in the mid-1900s sat the “human computers,” a mathematically savvy team of women who performed critical calculations behind the scenes. (Brain Pickings)

Marine biologists are free-diving to study the languages of sperm whales. (Visual by iStock.com)

• Scientists ridiculed for wasting federal money come to Capitol Hill to justify the significance of their research. (Huffington Post)

• Researchers identify a new way to find treatments for genetic disorders: Study the mysterious individuals who have mutations known to cause the disorders, but who show no symptoms. (The Guardian)

• NASA pushes back against climate deniers on Facebook, telling them not to misrepresent its data. (The Washington Post)

• A study in the journal Science Advances, which examines a dangerous volcano on the boarder of China and North Korea, is the product of a rare collaboration between North Korean and Western scientists. (Nature)

• A new study suggests that at least half of the water on earth is actually older that our entire solar system. (The New York Times)

• Yale is the first Ivy League institution to divest any of its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, Norway just divested its entire sovereign wealth fund from coal. (Yale Daily News and Reuters)

• And finally: Marine biologists free-dive to study the languages of the planet’s largest and most mysterious predators — sperm whales. (The New York Times)