In colleges around the United States, students are attending school on esports scholarships. The National Association of Collegiate Esports works with around 120 colleges and universities in the US and Canada, many of which are creating scholarships to attract gamers. With the rise of competitive esports, schools are not only easing students’ financial burdens but also building elaborate gaming arenas like the one at the University of California, Irvine. As in other varsity sports, students are recruited in high school, in this case through the High School Esports League. The scholarships awarded range from $5,000 to $60,000 over four years.

In northeastern Brazil, researchers say a massive group of termite mounds could be as much as 4,000 years old. The mounds, which cover an area the size of Britain and can be seen from space, are “the world’s most extensive bioengineering effort by a single insect species,” according to a Brazilian scientist. The amount of excavated soil is more than 10 cubic kilometers, equivalent to 4,000 pyramids of Giza, a British researcher told Science Daily. And the termites are still digging the underground tunnels that result in these impressive earthworks.

In Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University-trained physicist Omer Gottesman used sheets of crumpled paper to study scientific principles. Trying to make sense of the chaotic and disordered remains of paper when it is unfolded can help shed light on larger-scale processes: “crumpling dynamics are often considered a paradigm of complexity.” The research by Dr. Gottesman and his associates, which was published in November, looked at “how the shape of a crumpled sheet at any given time will determine its crumpled state in the future.”