What is the chemistry behind an ammonium nitrate explosion like the one in Beirut? Who was Deborah Jin, and how did she change quantum physics? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of August 3 - 9 2020 #SciSeekPicks #SciComm.

In this week's cream-of-the-crop from the world of science news, discover how scientists have found cancer in a dinosaur, and how coyote genomes are diverging between urban and non-urban populations. ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise also cover many other important and exciting topics. Why not have a read, inform yourself, and indulge your scientific curiosity?

• What is ammonium nitrate and what happens when it explodes? by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest.

Ammonium nitrate is a fertiliser, and if handled correctly is mostly safe. However, if exposed to high temperatures and confined, it can be explosive. Our thoughts go out to those affected by the explosion in Beirut. 
Credit: Andy Brunning via Compound Interest (CC-BY-ND)

• The end is nearer for ‘Forever Chemicals’ in food wrappers by Michele Cohen Marill for Wired.
• Deborah Jin engineered new quantum states of matter — twice by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for Massive Science.
• Really big experiments that physicists dream of by Sabine Hossenfelder at Backreaction.
• Physicists have a massive problem as Higgs boson refuses to misbehave  by Leah Crane for New Scientist.
• Europe’s Euclid space telescope will see cosmos with panoramic vision by Dhananjay Khadilkar for Scientific American.
• 'Hyper urban' coyote genomes are growing apart their from city and rural cousins by Jaime Chambers for Massive Science.
• In northern China, scientists have found what may be the 2 billion-year-old birthmarks of Earth's first supercontinent by Huaiyu Yuan at the Conversation UK.
• Structure of the pandemic by Sarah Kearns at Annotated Science.
• Doctors diagnose advanced cancer—in a dinosaur by Gretchen Vogel for Science magazine.
• She had her own mutation, sequencing led to a treatment and major genetic discovery - then she died of COVID by Ricki Lewis for DNA Science, a PLOS Blog.

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Check back next week for more great picks!