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Goblin shark filmed in its native habitat for the first time
The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is one of Earth’s rarest and most elusive sharks. It’s also one of the weirdest. With its distinctive, hornlike snout and protrudable jaws, the pink-skinned living fossil is the only surviving representative of a family lineage that dates back nearly 125 million years.
The goblin shark was first identified in 1898, but sightings remain few and far between. The fish typically remain at a depth of around 3,000 feet, and any encounters with humans have been the result of accidental fishing line snags. The 13-foot-long predators also die quickly after reaching the surface.
However, marine biologists at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa recently captured videos revealing not one, but two goblin sharks swimming in their native habitats. The clips accompany a study published in the Journal of Fish Biology, and showcase the surreal encounters in the Pacific Ocean.One goblin shark was spotted near Jarvis Island (halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands) and the other on the slope of the Tonga Trench southeast of Fiji.
“Seeing the most iconic of all the deep-sea sharks alive and looking healthy in its natural habitat is a unique honor,” said University of Hawaii at Mānoa oceanographer and study co-author Aaron Judah.
Spotted on separate expeditions in 2024 and 2025, both videos offer new information on the goblin shark simply based on where they were located. The Jarvis Island sighting extends the animal’s known habitat to the Central Pacific Ocean, while the Tonga Trench recording occurred nearly 2,300 feet deeper than expected.
“The goblin shark is one of these deep-sea charismatic animals that I never thought we’d see alive,” said study-coauthor and Minderoo-University of Western Australia Deep-Sea Research Center founder Alan Jamieson, who spotted the Tonga Trench shark. “To do so was amazing, but to then learn that colleagues in Hawaii also saw one was just incredible.”
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Hidden Nazi symbols discovered in famous German artist’s painting
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a painting by the way it looks? While that sounds much more intuitive, a technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy reveals that what’s on the surface might not be the whole story.
At a first glance, the painting that producer and filmmaker Thomas Schuhbauer found in his parents’ house in Germany seemed innocent enough. It was painted by Erich Mercker (1891–1973), a successful artist from Munich, and it was a wedding present gifted to Schuhbauer’s parents in 1966.
It showcases a motif that is found in some of his other works, too: a view of Munich’s the Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshals’ Hall) monument. The landmark is an arched hall built in the early 1840s in honor of the Bavarian army. However, in 1933, a smaller monument called the Mahnmal der Bewegung was added inside Felderrnhalle. The monument paid tribute to the rebels who died during the failed Nazi coup d’état in November of 1923.
Nonetheless, the painting doesn’t have any blatant Nazi references. The flag waving at the side of the monument is the Bavarian one and not the more familiar Nazi flag. One feature, however, suggests that not all is as it seems. Beneath the closest arch to the viewer is a statue on the pedestal—the top of the Mahnmal der Bewegung. Given that the Mahnmal der Bewegung was destroyed right after World War II, this indicates that Mercker painted it during the Nazi era.
If you look closer at the Bavarian flag’s white and blue colors, you can also find traces of reddish color. Indeed it was the traces of red that made Schuhbauer think there was more than meets the eye, according to Ioanna Mantouvalou, a physicist at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin research center and first author of a study on the painting recently published in Nature Journal Heritage Science..
Schuhbauer thus turned to the research center, where Mantouvalou and a colleague used X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). It consists of a non-destructive technique that, simply put, reveals the presence of elements in things, and comes in handy when researchers want to study hidden layers.
“I investigated the painting together with Yannick Wagener, a masters student at the TU Berlin, and we found that large areas of the original painting had been hidden,” Mantouvalou tells Popular Science.
Namely, the Bavarian flag hides a red Nazi flag, and someone also covered up soldiers, Nazi salutes by passersby, and wreaths on the Mahnmal der Bewegung monument.
At least one version of this painting in its original Nazi version exists, but did Mercker himself modify the Schuhbauer’s copy? The materials in the painting suggest that it could have been altered. The oil paints used to cover these elements had notable quantities of titanium white, a pigment that isn’t in any other part of the painting. However, a tube of oil paint labelled “Titanium White 10103 Schmincke” came to light among the artist’s paint tubes. What’s more, the back of the painting shows a number code which was deciphered in the project to reveal the year of production—1934.
Left: The painting depicts a corner of Munich’s Odeonsplatz, with the Bavarian flag flying over the square. X-ray fluorescence analysis shows where areas have been overpainted with titanium white. Right: False-colour representation of the reconstructed painting featuring the memorial and the Nazi flag. Image: © npj Heritage Science (2026)Mantouvalou explains that the paper presents, “the first definite proof that a painting by Erich Mercker was overpainted in order to hide Nazi symbols. The person who conducted the overpainting probably did it with great haste, as a monument, which was destroyed right after the end of the war, is still visible. We cannot prove unambiguously that Erich Mercker himself did it, but all findings point to this theory.”
After World War II, Mercker also created versions of the same perspective that were free of Nazi symbols. The Nazi-versions were titled “Die Stätte des 9. November” (The Site of November 9), while the post-war versions were titled “Feldherrnhalle” (Field Marshals’ Hall), or “München am Odeonsplatz” (Munich at Odeonsplatz, the square where Feldherrnhalle hall is), among others.
According to the researchers, a significant number of artists that collaborated with the Nazis largely avoided backlash for decades. Once the war had ended, many German artists, including Mercker, carried on with business as usual.
“From a purely monetary point of view, it makes sense to overpaint symbols in an oil painting which are not acceptable due to a change in political systems. The fact implies that moral considerations were not important enough to destroy the painting or completely redo the scene,” says Mantouvalou. “This does shed light on the way people come to terms with history and their personal involvement.”
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621 trillion miles of fungi networks crisscross the planet
The world of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) runs deep. They live symbiotically with around 70 percent of Earth’s plant species. Using vast underground networks, the fungi offer vegetation nutrients and water in exchange for their carbon. The fungi then siphon the carbon into the soil, supporting pretty much all life on the planet. In particularly healthy conditions, AM fungi webs can boost plant roots’ foraging area by 100 times while providing over 80 percent of its needed phosphorus.
But just how much fungi is actually doing all of this heavy lifting? New analysis published today by the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) reveals there are over 621 trillion miles of fungal pathways containing around 300 megatons of carbon within Earth’s topsoils. That’s nearly a billion times the Earth’s distance from the sun carrying four to six times the mass of all humans. For the first time, these pathways are visualized in a new global mapping project called A Hidden Infrastructure.
“It is hard to overstate the importance and enormity of these fungi. There could be up to 10 meters (32 feet) of mycorrhizal network in just a teaspoon of soil,” said Justin Stewart, a SPUN mycologist and the co-author of an accompanying study published today in the journal Science.
Mycorrizhal fungi seen from Morrison microscope at at AMOLF Institue of Complex Materials, Amsterdam. September 12, 2025. The circular structures are spores. The original photo is black and white, color is altered for legibility. Credit: Tomas Munita Morrison-setupThe carbon-nutrient supply chains in these formations are fast, too. Previous research shows speeds reaching 120 micrometers a second. That’s around 248 miles per hour when scaled to human proportions. Every year, these fungi move around four billion tons of carbon dioxide into the soil—about 11 percent the amount of human-produced emissions.
As incredible as these figures are, they make sense to mycologist and Popular Science contributor Matt Kasson.
“Nothing really surprises me when it comes to fungi. They are some of the most underappreciated yet important organisms on this planet,” he says. “The numbers are staggering, nevertheless. 110 quadrillion kilometers of fungal hyphae in the top 15 centimeters of Earth’s soils is absolutely mind-blowing.”
Where is all of this fungi? According to the team’s modeling, grasslands contain about 40 percent of Earth’s AM infrastructures, with particularly high concentrations predicted in the Florida Everglades, the Tibetan plateau in Asia, and South Sudan in Africa. The project team stressed that this poses a problem, however. Grasslands remain some of the planet’s least protected areas, and are being turned into farmland at a rate four times that of forests. Once turned into farmlands, these underground networks are frequently reduced by half. The mapping estimates underscore previous research indicating 95 percent of AM fungi hotspots exist outside properly safeguarded regions.
Network of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal network with a muti-nucleate reproductive spore imaged with a fluorescent dye and confocal microscopy. Credit: Vasilis Kokkoris / VU Amsterdam, AMOLF“Mycorrhizal fungi have shaped life on earth for hundreds of millions of years, but we still understand too little about how the infrastructure of these living transport systems is distributed across the planet,” said biologist and study co-author Merlin Sheldrake, adding that the recent modeling breakthroughs can help address these challenges.
But while a major step forward, Kasson believes there is much work still to be done on the road to understanding these ecosystems.
“Studies like this one certainly move the needle, but less than 10 percent of known fungi have been formally described,” he says. “Without that information, it’s hard to convince the public that not only are fungi critical for maintaining resilient plant communities, but that fungal conservation is in their best interest.”
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Espresso brewed with soundwaves instead of heat tastes just as good
Making espresso literally boils down to two major components: extremely hot water and high pressure. Add up the world’s espressomakers, and all those shots of caffeine make for a sneakily energy intensive industry. However, researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales Sydney recently discovered a way to sidestep one of these brewing needs. According to their study published in the Journal of Food Engineering, firing ultrasonic soundwaves into room temperature water makes equally strong and flavorful espresso shots that are indistinguishable from the traditional morning fuel.
“It’s a different process, but you get the same richness and concentration of a normal espresso in under three minutes,” chemical engineer and study co-author Francisco Trujillo said in a university profile.
This isn’t Trujillo’s first time introducing ultrasonic frequencies to coffee. He previously patented a similar system for cold-brew coffee. However, those conditions were tailored for the popular drink’s smoother, more diluted flavor with around one-fifth of espresso’s caffeine concentration.
That said, the underlying principles and technology remain the same for ultrasonic espresso. Researchers converted a standard filter basket into a soundwave generator using a transducer. After placing the small metal mechanism against the basket, ultrasound soundwaves shake the container strongly enough to pass along the vibrations through both the coffee grounds and water. This generates a phenomenon called acoustic cavitation, in which microscopic bubbles quickly form and pop in the liquid. The collapsing bubbles then function like miniscule brushes whenever they come into contact with the coffee grounds, which break open to release their flavor molecules, caffeine, and oils.
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“The most important [part] was the brew ratio—that is how much water is used per gram of coffee—because this helps ensure the final drink is concentrated and not too diluted,” explained Trujillo, adding that the team also tinkered with additional factors including the coffee ground’s consistency and length of exposure to soundwaves.
After settling on the optimum ingredient balance and brewing time, researchers conducted a blind taste-test with 100 coffee drinkers using traditional espresso and filter coffee, as well as their ultrasonic alternatives. The team noted that the participants could not consistently differentiate between standard and ultrasonic espressos, and actually had an even harder time assessing between filter and frequency-aided coffee.
Ultrasonic brewing machines may make their way into home kitchens, but the real promise is the technique’s scalability. Trujillo hopes mass production coffeemakers can eventually use his designs to manufacture their drinks much more quickly while using barely 25-percent of the normal energy.
“These findings showed that using ultrasound did not harm taste, and in some cases even improved it, despite brewing at room temperature and without the heat normally associated with coffee making,” said Trujillo.
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Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow need $10 million
For Jenny Voisard, watching the daily antics of a bald eagle family perched above the shimmering waters of Big Bear Lake in Southern California is about togetherness as much as birdwatching.
“We’re all together as a community. We mourn together, we laugh together, we cry together. So it’s emotional and deep. It’s hard to explain in words, really,” Voisard tells Popular Science.
A former corporate marketing consultant from Oregon, Voisard now works as the media manager for Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV). The non-profit is dedicated to conserving the land around Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. However, the organization is most famous for its eagles. FOBBV livestreams a pair of bald eagles named Jackie and Shadow in their nest to millions of viewers around the world 24/7. After their first egg of 2026 was snatched by Ravens, Jackie laid two more eggs that hatched in April and will likely fledge from the nest in July.
Voisard originally joined as a volunteer to help answer questions and learn about eagles. But life and FOBBV had other plans.
“I never could have believed in a million years that this is my life and this is what I’d be doing, even just a few years ago,” says Voisard. “So it’s just a testament to Sandy and her vision and her when she starts something.”
The Sandy who Voisard is referring to is not the eaglet who hatched this spring, but FOBBV’s former executive director Sandy Steers. Sandy died on February 11 after battling cancer. A life-long wildlife activist, she helped launch the cameras in 2015 and was FOBBV’s resident bald eagle expert. She devoted countless hours and energy to educating the public on the animals that call this slice of the San Bernardino National Forest home.
Sandy Steers served as FOBBVs executive director and bald eagle expert. Image: FOBBV.“She was very intuitive on how people learned,” says Voisard. “What she really wanted to do was blend science and storytelling and make it so that it would resonate. She hoped people would understand what they were watching, but then maybe they would pay attention more to the birds in their own backyard. Ultimately, what she thought was that if people cared about what was happening with nature, they’d want to take care of it.”
One of Sandy’s passion projects was protecting the last undeveloped northern shoreline along Big Bear Lake from development. Called Moon Camp, this stretch of land has been sought after by luxury housing and marina developers for nearly 25 years. The land sits less than one mile away from Jackie and Shadow’s nest, and this part of the lake is home to all of the fish that the eagles and their eaglets rely on for sustenance. It is also home to undisturbed forest that support birds, squirrels, and other animals, as well as the ash-gray indian paintbrush (Castilleja cinerea), a rare and threatened endemic plant only found here.
FOBBV is concerned about further human encroachment on the animal and plant species in the area, particularly the eagles. Bald eagles have made a remarkable comeback due to conservation efforts, but still face several threats including lead poisoning, collisions with cars, avian influenza, eating fishing line, and habitat loss.
“There used to be 20 to 35 visiting bald eagles that used to come to Big Bear Lake during the winter, and now we’re down to six to 10 at best,” says Voisard. “And bald eagles are increasing everywhere else.”
The land is currently owned by RCK Properties and discussions about its development stretch back to 2002. In September 2025, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors met to discuss the proposed development of over 50 homes and a 55-slip marina to the unincorporated community of Fawnskin.
A map of the proposed development area and trees where birds can/may perch. Image: FOBBVAt the time of the hearing, RCK Properties’ Steve Foulkes told CBS News Los Angeles that he believes it is a sound project from an environmental standpoint, that the building will be slow, and the project will provide jobs and income over a longer period of time.
Foulkes tells Popular Science that, “RCK Properties has no comment on the fundraising effort beyond confirming that we entered into an Option Agreement with the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust.”
Sandy and the San Bernardino Mountain Land Trust negotiated a limited purchase agreement with the developer and are fundraising to purchase the land for its appraised value of $10 million. The fundraiser has already raised over $3 million with more than one month to go.
“Sandy passed away right after the agreement was signed, so we’re doing this in her honor,” says Voisard. “She put all of that on her shoulders because she wanted to save everything.”
Sandy releasing mountain yellow-legged frogs into Bluff Lake. Image: FOBBV.If they do not raise enough money by the end of July, Voisard says that the money will go towards a financing option with the land owners. With this option, the land trust would pay a higher interest rate quarterly.
A celebration of Sandy’s life will be held on Saturday, June 13 at Veterans Park in Big Bear, California. The event will also be livestreamed—just like Jackie, Shadow, Sandy, and Luna’s nest.
“I hope that they remember her love of life and nature and everyone and her kindness and her just big open heart,” Voisard says.
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What did T. rex’s breath smell like?
Imagine the world millions of years ago. You’re in forest clearing bordered by tall conifers. Suddenly, the trees part and a Tyrannosaurus rex stomps into view. As it gets closer, the air fills with the smell of fear. And the smell of T. rex. It’s pretty pungent. But what exactly did T. rex’s breath smell like? Experts reckon it wasn’t pleasant.
In 2018, the Field Museum in Chicago opened a new exhibit centered around Sue, a 13-foot-tall, 40-foot-long T. rex fossil. Sue is one of the most complete T. rex fossils ever found, and Ben Miller, an exhibition developer at the museum, wanted to make Sue’s exhibit as immersive as possible by stimulating visitors’ senses, including their sense of smell.
“Everybody knows what a T. rex is about, but have they considered what its breath smells like?” he asks Popular Science.
T. rex had very stinky breathThe exhibit incorporated a total of four different scents. Three were plant odors, and the fourth represented Sue’s breath. This last smell was, in short, awful.
“T. rex has fairly widely spaced teeth,” says Miller. “It would be eating mostly by swallowing things whole, and the result of that would probably be that it got a lot of bits of meat stuck in its mouth for long periods of time.”
“Sue,” the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found, on exhibit in great entrance hall of the Field Museum in Chicago. Image: Getty Images / Richard T. NowitzThe team aimed to fashion a rotting meat smell to recreate this slightly unhygienic oral arrangement. The solution came from an unlikely source.
“As it turns out, the way you can get that is there is a synthetic rotting corpse smell that is produced to train disaster response dogs.”
The corpse stink was, at first, slightly too repulsive to unleash on the Field Museum’s unsuspecting visitors, so it was toned down slightly.
What did a Late Cretaceous forest smell like?Sue likely was too busy hunting to notice she was very much in need of a breath mint. But the massive dinosaur certainly would’ve been able to smell the world around her with great accuracy. So what did Sue’s forest world smell like?
While the fauna of this ancient world was different from ours, we can find approximations of many of these long-gone scents today.
The other three scents Miller developed for the Field’s exhibit reflected the prehistoric forests T. rex once stalked across North America. In fact, the scents are more familiar than you might think.
“By this point in time, 66 million years ago, flowering plants had pretty much taken over,” says Miller. To recreate the smell of the ancient forest, the team used three scents: ginger root, tulip poplar, and cypress.
The smells have been a part of Sue’s exhibit ever since, and have proved a hit with kids visiting the museum.
This illustration shows the lush temperate rainforest that sprung up on Antarctica during the Cretaceous. Image: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / J. McKay / CC-BY 4.0 What did dinner smell like to T. rex?The Field isn’t the only museum to send visitors’ noses back in time. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis’s Dinosphere exhibit incorporates scents into its immersive world, which transports visitors back to the Late Cretaceous period between 68 and 66 million years ago.
In part of this display, a kiosk asks visitors to choose between three scented containers and decide which one represents something a T. rex would want to eat.
Melissa Pederson, an exhibit developer at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, says that two scents were plants—magnolia and pine—which would be of little interest to the carnivorous T. rex.
Pederson’s team wanted the third scent to mimic the dung of the duckbill dinosaur, Hadrosaurus. Pedersen says that the museum contacted a scent fabricator, who recommended that the best way to mimic the droppings of this large, plant-eating beast would be to use the scent excreted by a non-extinct, similarly large vegetarian. The team ended up with a jar of elephant dung scent.
The jar’s odor wasn’t totally unpleasant, says Pederson. It’s “kind of a sweet scent,” she explains.
Pederson says her museum’s scent experiments help immerse visitors in its exhibits.
“It’s always the goal, in at least some capacity, to evoke emotion in our spaces.”
Opening a window into a time long past, only to discover that some scents persist for millions of years, consistently draws a reaction from the kids and families exploring the museum.
“In a lot of our spaces, the emotions we try to evoke are surprise and delight. We see a lot of that,” Pederson says.
In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.
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Even wild desert cats love catnip
Cats are famously obsessed with catnip, but a recent social media post from the Bronx Zoo in New York City highlights that it’s not just bossy domestic felines that take an interest in the plant.
In the zoo’s video, a three-year-old female sand cat (Felis margarita) plays with a catnip-filled ball. Sand cats are the sole only species that live in the true desert. They can withstand both exceptional heat and cold, from 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) to -13 degrees Fahrenheit (-25 degrees Celsius). They are found across northern Africa as well as southwest and central Asia.
View this post on Instagram“The keepers added catnip to this ball to give the sand cats a novel item to stimulate them physically and mentally. Cats respond to a chemical in catnip called nepetalactone,” according to the post. “Its primary function is to repel insects from the plant. Many cats, though not all, are highly attracted to it, and it is safe and non-toxic for them to enjoy.”
Catnip is part of the mint family. According to Jessica Moody, curator of primates and small mammals at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), not all felid species have the same sensitivity to the plant. Moody tells Popular Science that sex and age also impact the response on an individual level. Bronx Zoo (part of the WCS) animal keepers frequently employ catnip, officially called Nepeta cataria, as well as other scents to incite natural behaviors such as investigation and play.
It’s clearly working with this particular feline, whose species the IUCN Red List categorizes as a species of least concern. However, “it is difficult given their low population density and harsh environment to track true wild populations,” Moody explains. “Primary threats to the survival of sand cats in the wild include habitat loss and a decline in prey caused by human disturbances like livestock grazing.”
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Basketball can make you better at math
Fractions are a difficult math concept for many children to learn, but pairing lessons with basketball may offer some help. After participating in an experimental workshop that combined education with shooting hoops, students in Denmark performed an average of 15 percent better in fraction tests than a control group that did not play basketball..
“I am convinced that sport and physical activity can open up mathematics for pupils who are not otherwise engaged by the subject,” explained University of Copenhagen sports exercise researcher Jacob Wienecke.Wienecke is also the co-author of an accompanying study on the fraction experiment published in the journal Educational Psychology Review.
The project involved over 300 students between ages 11 and 13, who attended a one hour, once-a-week meetup that tied fraction lessons to specific basketball drills. For example, teachers asked kids to throw 10 shots at a hoop, then determine the fraction of successful versus unsuccessful attempts. They then practiced converting those numbers into percentages.
The subject area improvements also went beyond fractions. Study participants also saw around five percent improvement in other math concepts after the workshop. And, of course, their skills on the court benefitted from the extra hoop time.
“Our research shows that you can easily invite other subjects into physical education and make it work,” said Wienecke“And it can actually make children experience that subject in a completely different way, while still preserving their motivation and enjoyment of learning.”
Who knows? By expanding similar programs to more school districts, future NBA Finals teams may also be filled with mathletes.
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Biotech Paper Game
Imagine a biotech firm that funds projects to develop new products, and typically bases their projects on one or more academic papers. This firm wants to learn which papers are promising as bases for new projects. But they want any info they induce to be available only to them, and not to rivals.
Here’s a simple way to do this. Pick a pool of people who seem able to judge promising papers, and give them each N tokens. (Some may get more than others, and tokens might be given at some steady rate until N is reached.) Tell them a rough idea of what sorts of projects and papers the firm seeks, and then let participants at any time privately put tokens on particular papers, or move tokens from old papers to new.
When the firm is willing to publicly declare that it is picking or considering a particular project j, then it declares a set of supporting papers i, with paper weights w_ij, such that Sum_i w_ij = 1. Anyone who put a token on paper j then is locked in to get a payment proportional to w_ij * F_j, where F_j is the funding level of project j. Though that actual funding decision might happen later. (Alternatively, they get a % stake in the project, and are only paid later when project success is determined.)
Now only the company can see how many tokens are on each paper, and who those tokens came from, and can use this info advantage to decide which projects to fund. Obviously it is a problem if participants can get info on which projects are being seriously considered before the official announcement.
From a convo with Kati Conen.
Rare lunar meteorite was smacked three times before finally hitting Earth
A rare type of meteorite discovered in Mali is revealing a multibillion-year tale of lunar catastrophes. With its unique composition, astronomers are beginning to better understand the processes that shaped not only the moon and Earth, but the solar system itself.
The study recently published in the journal Geology is nearly 10 years in the making and focuses on a meteorite classified as NWA 12593. Found in the west African nation in 2017, experts soon recognized the space rock as an especially unique specimen. NWA 12593 is one of only 53 known lunar breccia—a meteorite formed by the amalgamation of multiple moon fragments during separate impacts billions of years ago.
“Breccias are similar to what you would see if you went and chipped out a chunk of concrete. You would see all these little rocks, and then they’re fused together by the cement,” Carolyn Crow, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and study co-author, said in a statement.
Electron backscatter diffraction data of NWA 12593. Credit: GeologyCrow and her colleagues used radiometric dating and chemical analysis on NWA 12593 to successfully identify evidence of three major impact events in the moon’s past. The earliest occurred around 3.5 billion years ago amid an era that also produced the first known fossil evidence of life on Earth. This collision was powerful enough to reduce the moon’s surface to molten rock similar to a lava flow.
The impact also created cubic zirconia, a mineral that only forms during extremely high temperatures. Known for its uses in jewelry, cubic zirconia doesn’t last in cold, uncontrolled temperatures. While the mineral disappeared as the lunar surface eventually solidified and cooled, researchers pinpointed lingering traces of its existence in NWA 12593.
The second impact event formed the breccia itself. In the aftermath of that meteor strike, slabs of lunar rock slammed into one another to create a mosaic of materials.
“The meteorite is fused together by the impact process. You get all these chunks of different kinds of rocks that the impact hit into,” explained Crow.
The third event explains how the lunar breccia reached Earth. At some point in the more recent past, yet another impact cracked off a piece of our moon itself and sent it hurtling towards the planet.
A portion of the meteorite’s story also aligns with a tumultuous chapter in Earth’s geological history. The 3.5-billion-year-old impact identified in the breccia occurred around the same time as known impacts on both Earth and the asteroid 4 Vesta, fourth-largest member of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This was a particularly chaotic time in the solar system, with planets still forming amid near-constant collisions Knowing this, further examination of NWA 12593 can help contextualize the history of Earth, the moon, and the wider cosmic neighborhood.
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Brain removal likely used in Iron Age Scottish burial
A pair of related human skeletons discovered in northwest Scotland are offering archaeologists a rare glimpse into Iron Age familial relationships and burial practices. And based on findings detailed in the journal Antiquity, at least some of those ancient funerary rituals involved brain removal and bone sharpening.
While researchers know a lot about the communities of Iron Age Britain (800 BCE–43 CE), not quite as much is known about the actual people who lived there. The region’s moist environmental conditions ensure that bodies decompose far more quickly than in other parts of the world. Northwest Scotland is a different situation, however. Burial practices inside stone cairns helped safeguard at least some skeletal remains from the elements.
“We knew that in the northwest of Scotland, including the Northern and Western Isles, the circulation and deposition of human remains were particularly prominent,” Laura Castells Navarro, a study co-author and University of York archaeologist, said in a statement.
The two individuals were most likely maternal second cousins. Credit: Rebecca Ellis HakenNavarro’s team has spent years examining a pair of individuals excavated a few miles inland from the Norwegian Sea near Loch Borralie. Using osteology (the study of bones)as well as isotopic and DNA analysis, they successfully identified the pair as an adult female and a juvenile male who likely died between 50 BCE and 70 CE. This timeline places them at a pivotal era just before the Romans invaded southern and eastern Scotland in 79 CE.
Genetic material confirmed the individuals are most likely maternal second cousins, although their burial site is far from their original homes. Isotopic analysis indicates that they grew up about 50 miles southeast of Loch Borralie.Additional evidence indicates they share genes with people from Orkney (about 110 miles northeast of the loch) and Applecross, about140 miles to the southwest.
“More broadly, our research shows that prehistoric maritime communities periodically moved around the north coast and Northern Isles of Scotland, possibly in small groups”, said Castells Navarro, adding that this migration facilitated the spread of cultural traditions and rituals.
Some of those practices are dramatically visible in the adult woman’s remains. Scratches inside her cranium point to the removal of her brain, while long bones like the humeri, femur, and ulna were carved down to sharp points. Although the exact motivations for these practices are still difficult to discern, they illustrate complex societal belief structures and observances.
“The care with which she was reassembled and deposited in the cairn possibly suggests she commanded a level of reverence and respect by her community,” Castells Navarro said, adding the remains highlight Iron Age society’s “continued interaction between the living and the dead.”
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Giant 120-sided ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ dice highlights every element
Part of Dungeons and Dragons’ enduring charm is the game’s seemingly infinite possibilities. Players may start on a quest to slay a villainous dragon, only to spend hours of their campaign helping a local village deal with a vengeful necromancer. But no matter where the story goes, everyone’s choices are influenced by rolling a lot of dice.
The roleplaying game is particularly famous for its reliance on the 20-sided die, but there are all types of sizes depending on the situation. That said, the situations when someone might need to toss a 120-sided variant are few and far between. However, a collective of game designers called The Mint Tin Guys decided to make just such an accessory available for D&D fans. But why stop there? All those sides deserve some decorative flourishes, so the team recently debuted a unique, aluminum-crafted D120 die highlighting all 118 elements currently listed on the Periodic Table of Elements.
Radioactive elements are also highlighted on the die. Credit: Chris Rossetti / Rampage GamesAccording to its creators, the elemental D120 is “perfect for tabletop RPGs, science classrooms, chemistry enthusiasts, or anyone who enjoys the fusion of geek culture and education.” It’s also a great way to bone up on the universe’s building blocks. Interested dice-throwers can head over to Etsy to snag one for about $150.
Two sides technically feature no elements. Credit: Chris Rossetti / Rampage GamesHowever, the designers took one small liberty.. At last count, the Periodic Table currently stands at 118 elements. The synthetically-created Oganesson was added to the reference table in 2002. With only 118 elements and a 120-sided die, two sides are essentially “wildcards,” but that adds to the overall charm. And with a 1-in-120 chance of landing on a non-element, the chances that you’ll encounter one of them often are pretty slim. Then again, anything is possible during a good D&D campaign.
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Odd-shaped vessel hints at alchemy in medieval German castle
Archaeologists in Germany say a uniquely shaped ceramic vessel discovered inside a castle was potentially used for much more than simple distillations. According to the Saxony State Office for Archaeology, the over 1.5-foot-tall jug’s origins are “presumably” tied to medieval alchemy. But before anyone conjures images of magical rituals, experts say it’s far more likely the container’s creators intended the vessel for more grounded research trying to turn dull metals into gold.
Located in southern Saxony, Germany, Gnandstein Castle’s earliest iteration was built during the 13th century to overlook the Wyhra Valley. Generations of modifications eventually transformed the fortification into a manor, although many medieval architectural elements are still visible throughout the former residence. Gnandstein Castle received around a decade of renovations between 1994 and 2004, during which archeologists scoured the grounds for important historical relics.
More recent construction efforts took place in a previously demolished, 2,400-square-foot portion of the grounds. There, archaeologists found remnants of early modern brick paving and floor tiles dating to the early 16th century. But one additional artifact was particularly interesting—a glazed ceramic vessel with a rounded body, tapered neck, and three feet on the bottom, allowing it to stand upright. Its overall shape and design strongly suggest prolonged, controlled usage instead of storing liquids like wine or cooking oils.
Archaeologists suspect that the container was part of a larger distillation setup. Similar items from the era held liquid that was then heated from flames underneath it. After placing a rounded cap over the neck, vapors would transport up the neck and condense in the cooler top known as a helm or head. Final results frequently included plant extracts, mineral oils, medicines, and alcohol.
The Saxony State Office noted the artifact closely aligns to equipment used in “alchemical and proto-chemical practice” during the 15th and 16th centuries. Popular culture often depicts medieval alchemy as mystical pseudoscience, but a great deal of it actually forms the basis for present-day chemistry, pharmacy, and laboratory research. The ceramic relic itself supports this, as its creator likely chose the material knowing that metal containers sometimes release toxic or contaminating substances during various hot or acidic preparations. The Saxony region also had strong ties to mining and metallurgy around that time, further suggesting alchemical influences.
Unfortunately, the team cautioned that the object’s true use remains unclear. Researchers didn’t find any residual material inside the vessel, so there currently is no way of knowing what it once held. Despite the mystery, it’s now clear someone in Gnandstein Castle hoped to distill something—and possessed the equipment to accomplish it.
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