Science News Roundup: U.S. university, energy firm hail test of energy fusion project; Explainer - Beyond Delta, scientists are watching new coronavirus variants and more

Italian energy group Eni is a shareholder in CFS, a fusion energy research company spun off by MIT, after investing $50 million in 2018 and led CFS' Series A funding. Explainer - Beyond Delta, scientists are watching new coronavirus variants The continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spawned a Greek alphabet of variants - a naming system used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to track concerning new mutations of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

U.S. university, energy firm hail test of energy fusion project

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems successfully tested the world's most powerful high-temperature superconducting magnet in a step toward building a fusion power plant to generate carbon-free power. Italian energy group Eni is a shareholder in CFS, a fusion energy research company spun off by MIT, after investing $50 million in 2018 and led CFS' Series A funding.

Explainer - Beyond Delta, scientists are watching new coronavirus variants

The continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spawned a Greek alphabet of variants - a naming system used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to track concerning new mutations of the virus that causes COVID-19. Some have equipped the virus with better ways of infecting humans or evading vaccine protection. Scientists remain focused on Delta, now the dominant variant around the world, but are tracking others to see what may one day take its place.

Marine creature dubbed 'the mothership' was primordial scourge

About 506 million years ago, a strange marine creature whose body so resembled a science-fiction spacecraft that it has been dubbed 'the mothership' thrived in tropical seas, menacing prey on the ocean floor in what is now Canada as one of Earth's largest predators to that point in time. Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of fossils of a Cambrian Period arthropod named Titanokorys gainesi in Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies, within a vast rock formation called the Burgess Shale.

All jokes aside, scientists find talking duck

A Dutch scientist has uncovered old recordings of a musk duck mimicking the phrase, "You bloody fool!" - learned when it was raised by humans in an Australian bird park. Leiden University scientist Carel Ten Cate said that what was interesting about the vocal expression of the waterfowl, nicknamed "Ripper", was not so much the message, but that he could imitate humans at all.

South Korean researchers create chameleon-like artificial "skin"

South Korean researchers say they have developed an artificial skin-like material, inspired by natural biology, that can quickly adjust its hues like a chameleon to match its surroundings. The team, led by Ko Seung-hwan, a mechanical engineering professor at Seoul National University, created the "skin" with a special ink that changes color based on temperature and is controlled by tiny, flexible heaters.