Before the Higgs boson was discovered, scientists wondered if we live in a stable universe, an unstable one, or one that’s metastable—stable for an extended time period, but not at the absolutely most stable point it could be at. Now that the Higgs boson has been discovered and the first measurements of its mass made, scientists think that we’re probably living in a metastable state. Basically, our universe seems to be comfortably tucked in a valley of energy states, but it’s still not the lowest ground around. If something pushes us up and over the side of our valley (or tunnels through the valley wall), we could fall into new and lower territory.

Seven days; lots of science in the news. Here’s our roundup of this week’s most notable and quotable items: Something like real-life telepathy is within our reach now; this week two people 5,000 miles apart had direct brain-to-brain communication. For days, lava has spewed from the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland, but thankfully there has been no ash, which would threaten to shut down much of Europe’s airspace. Scientists have determined finally how rocks weighing hundreds of pounds move in Death Valley. Astronomers have created a stunning new 3-D map of the galactic supercluster Laniakea, home to our own Milky Way galaxy and at least a hundred thousand others. NASA wants your predictions on the state of exploration a decade from now to include in a time capsule aboard the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft. Over in Europe, it was announced that a doggie cosmonaut spacesuit is going up for auction next week. Although America still reigns as the most obese country in the world, we are eating slightly healthier these days. Viewing habits could be a contributing factor, though; new research indicates that watching action films inspires people to consume more food. Google is investing in eternal life—or at least building a new research facility for Calico, their anti-aging biotech R&D company. Mexico presented its first litter of gray wolf pups conceived by artificial insemination; …

Forensic pathologist Judy Melinek uncovered the last chapters in the stories of New Yorkers killed by accidents, mysterious illnesses, terrorist attacks, and other strange circumstances during her tenure at the city’s medical examiner office. We got a chance to chat with Melinek recently about her new book (coauthored with her husband, T.J. Mitchell), Working Stiff, which offers a probing glimpse of the ways we die—the messy and mundane—with plenty of fascinating (and sometimes gory) details about the art of autopsies: (Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.) WSF: What makes a good medical examiner? JM: To begin with, you need good diagnostic skills; you need to be a good doctor. In order to be a forensic pathologist, you need to have a basic understanding of all of medicine, and that includes anatomy, physiology, and the subspecialties, because everybody dies at different ages and stages. You need to know pediatrics because children occasionally die; you need to know obstetrics and gynecology because pregnant women die; and you need to know geriatrics because the elderly die. You have to know trauma and trauma surgery because people who had traumatic injuries that come to the coroner or medical examiner’s office will have …

Seven days; lots of science in the news. Here’s our roundup of this week’s most notable and quotable items: Scientists turned a mouse’s bad memories into happy ones with a pulse of light, and cured other mice of peanut allergies by dosing them with Clostridium bacteria. Married couples who smoke marijuana more than once a week were revealed to have the lowest rates of domestic violence. One in seven people suffer from “sleep drunkenness.”  Richard III’s bones show traces of a rich diet including wild birds and freshwater fish. Is the universe a vast hologram? Fermilab researchers intend to find out by measuring the “quantum jitter” of space. Scientists discovered the fossil of the oldest known animal with muscles, snapped a photo of two galaxies colliding 7 billion years ago, and solved the mystery of Death Valley’s “wandering stones”: panes of ice breaking off from frozen lakes act as sails that allow wind to push the giant rocks through the mud, leaving behind nothing but snaky trails gouged in the ground. New subsurface maps of the area around Stonehenge suggest that there are 15 other monuments lying around and underneath the ancient stone structure. British researchers found a way to model the movements of sheep-herding dogs in an algorithm. Breakfast may not, in fact, be the most important meal …

Galileo Galilei was not the originator of the telescope, but in 1609 he did provide a crucial design advance by fitting concave and convex lenses at the opposite ends of a tube. Subsequent improvements followed, bumping up the magnifying power of the telescope, and by 1610 Galileo was able to pick out sunspots, the craggy face of the moon, and the satellites of Jupiter. Now, 405 years after Galileo presented his first improvement on the “perspective glass” to the Venetian Senate, scientists are in the midst of making the next big step in telescope history: the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will create images 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope when it goes online in 2021. If Galileo were brought before the GMT, “I think it would take him probably about 30 seconds to work out what it is,” says Patrick McCarthy an astrophysicist and the GMT’s project director. “And then he’d ask when he’d get to use it.” The GMT’s advanced features aren’t just a matter of size: The world of telescopes has made significant advances since Galileo’s day. For starters, Galileo’s device was a refracting telescope, which bends light through its lenses. A simple Galilean telescope uses two lenses, the first of …