{"id":79881,"date":"2026-05-30T10:04:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T02:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=79881"},"modified":"2026-05-30T10:04:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T02:04:33","slug":"science-news-may-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=79881","title":{"rendered":"Science News (May 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This has been a lighter month in terms of cool science news with only two articles but both are really cool ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The first <a href=\"https:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2026\/plants-can-sense-sound-rain-new-study-finds-0422\">one <\/a>discusses how rice seeds are are able to <strong>sense rainfall<\/strong>. Experiments proved that dormant seeds are stimulated to germinate when they detect the vibrations of raindrops hitting a puddle or the ground. Mechanically, this is achieved by the vibrations dislodging gravity-sensing organelles called statoliths in some of their cells, sending a signal to the seeds to sprout. The biological advantages of this mechanism is obvious and could be exploited to get seeds to grow faster under the right conditions. We&#8217;ve always known that plants are not passive living organisms as they have senses that respond to the environment around them, but it&#8217;s always amazing to learn just how responsive they are.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>These days I&#8217;m always happy to report any news that isn&#8217;t in the life sciences and this archaelogical <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/science\/archaeology\/mummy-egyptian-homer-iliad-gut-b2962343.html\">discovery <\/a>certain qualifies, even if it arrives suspiciously close to this year&#8217;s release of <em>The Odyssey<\/em> film. Researchers have found a <strong>papyrus fragment<\/strong> of Homer&#8217;s <em>Iliad <\/em>in the gut of an ancient Egyptian mummy. The mummy in question was buried in a Roman-era tomb around 1,600 years ago. Though papyri have often been found incorporated as part of the mummification process, this is the first time that it involved a Greek literary text.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has been a lighter month in terms of cool science news with only two articles but both are really cool ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79881"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80000,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79881\/revisions\/80000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}