I always prefer it when the science news is both highly significant and relatively easy to understand and directly relevant. Most of the articles in this batch seem to fit these criteria.

• We’ll start with the news that is the least approachable but it’s really not that bad. Since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) started delivering data, the results have seriously challenged longstanding assumptions in cosmology. The latest one is a claim that the mysterious Little Red Dots seen by the telescope is a primordial black hole with the mass of 50 million Suns. The issue is that according to our current understanding of how galaxies are formed, it should be impossible for such massive black holes to form so early in the history of the universe. So this adds more evidence that to the gathering pile that present theories about the birth and expansion of the universe are just wrong.
• Next we have the discovery that a single mutation in horses led to them becoming rideable by humans and thence changed the course of history. The gene in question is called GSDMC and the researchers the date of the mutation to about 4,200 years ago. In horses, this mutation is known to reshape vertebrae, improve motor coordination and boost limb strength. They were able to show that the frequency of the mutated GSDMC variant shot from 1% to nearly 100% in a few centuries as humans specifically bred horses with the mutation they spread all across Eurasia.
• One uplifting bit of news is the discovery of a process that turns plastic into fuel at 95% efficiency in one step. Other processes already exist but they include dechlorination as a separate step for PVC to avoid releasing toxic compounds. Their new process is apparently do it in a single step and handle mixed PVC materials and polyolefin waste, which includes both polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), together. There’s no mention of how expensive this is or whether this can be scaled but it still sounds like good news to me.
• There’s been a great deal of debate lately about allowing smartphones in classrooms with many countries opting for a ban. This paper which covers a randomized controlled trial involving 17,000 students found that a ban did result in better grades, but the improvement was very minor. Perhaps more significantly, they also found that students exposed to the ban became more supportive of phone-use restrictions, suggesting that a ban might be popular with both parents and students. Yet this is very far from the last word on this issue as others have pointed out that the study fails to account for the possible benefits of using smartphones in schools. This is one area in which many commentators feel like they need to have their say.