Say hello to the next generation of lobsters — August’s best science images

Hello Nature readers,
Today we enjoy the month’s most spectacular science images, learn why timekeepers are rushing to get rid of the leap second, and hear why researchers have doubts about whether Meta’s legal settlement will make social media safe for kids.

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The month’s best science images

These tiny lobster tots are being raised at the UK National Lobster Hatchery before being released into the wild. The image was among the finalists for Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026. See more of the month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.

Fear of a ‘negative’ leap second

The leap second — a periodic adjustment that keeps the relentless march of the world’s atomic clocks in sync with the planet’s naturally varying rotation — could be scrapped as soon as October. The world’s timekeeping authorities want to fast-track a change, already planned for 2035, because we’re facing the possibility of the first-ever negative leap second — meaning that clocks must skip, rather than gain, a second. The unprecedented event could cause chaos, say researchers — especially because the leap second is handled slightly differently across crucial infrastructure such as electrical grids and financial systems. Better, say timekeepers, would be a leap hour — which would mean adjustments only once in hundreds, or thousands, of years.

Lift off for Roman Space Telescope

On 30 August, NASA launched the US$4.3-billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and with it, the largest infrared camera ever built. When it begins operations later this year, the Roman telescope will join forces with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and fellow space telescope Euclid to collect unprecedented amounts of data about the Universe. These data and astoundingly detailed images will yield insight into millions of stars in the Milky Way and the force causing the Universe’s expansion.

Will Meta deal make kids safer?

Social-media giant Meta has agreed to pay up to US$18 billion and make changes to its Facebook and Instagram platforms in the United States, including time limits, to settle a legal case about whether its technology harms kids’ mental health. But research is divided on whether social media is harmful in this way, and whether changes such as the ones announced by Meta can even be enforced. “The pessimistic side of me knows that Meta, in this case, is defining the game. It’s defining what harm is,” says psychologist Kathryn Modecki. “I always say, what if we instead ask, ‘How do we make social media better for all of us, kids included?’”

Can AI help stop the next pandemic disease?

Researchers are harnessing the ability of AI tools to identify patterns in large data sets to try to predict spillovers — the transfer of pathogens between species — before they happen. In Uganda, the approach is showing early promise in protecting endangered mountain gorillas, as well as the livestock and people who interact with them. Other researchers are trawling through databases to identify new zoonotic viruses in samples that were not necessarily collected for that purpose.

Moderna cancer vaccine is a starting gun

The first late-stage trial results showing that a personalized vaccine could help people with melanoma live longer without cancer recurrence “should galvanize efforts to speed up vaccine development across cancers”, argues medical oncologist Patrick Ott. Renewed interest and investment in personalized vaccines could allow researchers to improve alternative cancer-vaccine delivery platforms such as peptides and DNA, and deepen their understanding of how the vaccines affect tumours, both of which could broaden the technology’s applicability beyond just melanoma.

Why are rich people so pessimistic?

People become happier as they get richer, up to a point. But they also become more pessimistic, writes political scientist Florence Gaub. Understanding the myriad factors at play can help us all feel a little more hopeful, she argues. It’s partly down to age — the populations of richer, Western nations tend to be older, and younger people are more optimistic. And there are different kinds of optimism: almost universally, people tend to score higher for personal optimism (‘my future will be good’), than the arc of their country or of history.