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What’s big, rare, and smells like literal death? If you guessed a corpse, you’re not wrong. The pungent flower in question is a tropical plant called titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), a species of corpse flower. Appropriately, people say it smells like rotting flesh. 

The stinky plants are rare and native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Nevertheless, a corpse flower named “Pangy” calls Massachusetts’ Mount Holyoke College home, where it has just bloomed, according to the Associated Press.

“Terrible,” “horrible,” “putrid,” and “rotten” are just some of the one-worded descriptions the blooming has inspired, per a Mount Holyoke College social media video. One person has a more inspired take: “Impressive. I don’t think I’ve smelled a flower that smells like that anywhere, so very impressive.” 

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The chances to be impressed by a titan arum are few, however, because its blooming cycle is brief and occurs every five to seven years. Researchers reportedly discovered the chemistry behind its pungent odor in 2024. 

“A few people who have come in since have described the smell as being unbearable, tangy, like a trash can — it’s overwhelming,” Tom Clark, director and curator of the Mount Holyoake College Botanic Garden, told the Associated Press. “But that odor is there for a purpose. It’s there to attract pollinators, flies in particular.”

Here’s everything you wanted to know about corpse flowers but were afraid to ask.

What makes corpse flowers so smelly?

Several chemical compounds contribute to this smell. Sufides are the key odorant. Dimethyl trisulfide gives the flower its rotting animal-like sulfury odor. Dimethyl disulfide is a lesser, but still present smell like garlic. Additionally, a chemical found in sweaty feet called isovaleric acid and compound that smells like a mix of garlic and cheese called methyl thiolacetate are also present. The last scent to hit your nose before the flowering structure collapses after a few days is trimethylamine. This compound smells like dead fish.

What else makes corpse flowers stick out?

That signature smell isn’t the only striking feature of this plant. The titan arum creates the biggest unbranched cluster of flowers on earth. If you’re thinking to yourself, I only see one flower, that’s because the structure you’re looking at is not a flower. It’s a spadix (the tall pole-looking thing) and a spathe (a kind of leaf). There are many small flowers at the bottom of the spadix. Speaking of the spathe, regardless of what inspired the species’ genus name (Amorphophallus) its resemblance to the male genitalia is self-evident. 

How big are corpse flowers?

Amorphophallus titanum has the largest known unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom. The bloom can grow up to eight feet tall, according to the United States Botanical Garden with some individual plants reaching heights of 12 feet. 

Why do their flowers disappear so quickly?

Generally, corpse flowers can take about seven to nine years to bloom. Some will only bloom once every few decades. They also do not have an annual blooming cycle like many other plants, and will only bloom when it has enough energy to do so.

The corpse flower stores its energy in a swollen base at the stem–called a corm–that weighs about 100 pounds. Corpse flowers have the largest known corm in the plant kingdom. If it is a non-flowering year, one leaf about the size of a small tree will shoot from the corm. The leaf will then branch out into three sections, with each part growing more leaflets. After several years, the plant will finally gather enough energy needed to bloom. The bloom can then only be held for about 24 to 36 hours before collapsing. 

Are corpse flowers endangered?

Like in botanical gardens, corpse flowers are rare in nature as well. The species Amorphophallus titanum is listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Some botanists estimate that there are fewer than 1,000 individual plants in the wild. The IUCN also estimates that the population has decreased by more than half over the past 150 years. Logging and turning the plant’s habitat into land for palm oil plantations are believed to be the reasons behind the decline.  

Are they dangerous to more than just our noses?

According to the Chicago Botanic Garden, each corpse flower can produce over 400 fruits with two seeds. The fruits will go from a gold color to a rich crimson. They are fully ripe about six months after pollination. 

However, don’t eat them. Their fruit is poisonous to humans. Large, orange-beaked birds called the rhinoceros hornbill typically eat the fruit and disperse the seeds. 

The post Rare rotting-flesh smelling flower blooming at a Massachusetts college appeared first on Popular Science.

Randi Minetor has written nine books about people dying in national parks. Needless to say, she has a lot of thoughts about it.

“A lot of people go to national parks to challenge themselves, to try things they have never tried before,” she tells Popular Science. “They’ll take a course in canyoneering or hire a guide to go up a mountain; they’ll push themselves in ways they haven’t before. Not everyone can do those things,” she warns. “Just because you want to do it doesn’t mean you can.”

It’s excellent advice that doesn’t always get followed. Yet the number of people who die in national parks each year is smaller than you might expect. Across all national parks, the National Park Service reports an average of 358 deaths per year. 

“The parks work very, very hard to prevent people from getting killed,” she says, with robust search and rescue teams.

When a visitor does die, the work for rangers is far from over. 

The hasty search

The moment a visitor goes missing or needs help, rangers move fast, says Minetor.

“When somebody reports that someone’s in trouble, that immediately puts a process into action in the park,” she says. “You’ve got to tell people where you’re going, so that if anything happens, they know where to look.” Although rules vary by park, visitors are strongly encouraged to share their itineraries before heading into remote or backcountry trails. 

Some people resist even that basic step, Minetor says. “Some people are ‘too cool’ to talk to a ranger or to sign a registry,” she says. “They’re the people who are never going to be found.”

One of the first steps the park will take when someone is reported missing is to conduct what is called a “hasty search,” although Minetor emphasizes that this step is neither rushed nor perfunctory. 

In a “hasty search,” two or three rangers will go out and walk the trail and see if they find anything on the ground that tells them where a missing person might be. Video: Hasty Searching in Search and Rescue – Search Techniques, Emhance International Responder Development®

“It’s called this because they do it right away. Two or three rangers will go out and walk the trail and see if they find anything on the ground that tells them where this person is—a footprint, candy wrapper, anything that will give them an idea,” she says. “Very often, that person is then found through the hasty search.”

The search continues

If a more extensive search is needed, the park will enlist community volunteers to conduct a grid search, spreading out across the terrain in a coordinated pattern, covering every inch until they find something—or accept that they’re not going to. 

Many of the same features that draw adventurous visitors to national parks in the first place—mountains, glaciers, canyon gorges, swift rivers—are the very ones that make recovery operations extraordinarily difficult.

For people in truly remote or inaccessible locations, the park deploys rangers trained specifically in climbing rescue, who make the harrowing ascent themselves to assess what it will take to get the person—or body—out.

In terrain too steep or rugged for a helicopter to land, they may use a technique called short hauling, in which the person is suspended beneath the aircraft on a rope and harness and flown to the nearest point where the chopper can touch down.

In terrain too steep or rugged for a helicopter to land, rescuers might use a technique called short hauling, in which the person is suspended beneath the aircraft on a rope and harness and flown to the nearest point where the chopper can touch down. Image: MichaelSvoboda / Getty Images True Photography

Many of the same techniques are used whether rangers are hoping to find someone alive or recover remains. Regardless, rangers “use aerial reconnaissance and on-the-ground search teams,” says Minetor. “Once the search is deemed a recovery rather than a rescue, fewer teams will be involved in ongoing searches, and the frequency may subside.”

It’s work that demands extraordinary commitment from the rangers involved. 

“These are people who dedicate their lives to saving other lives,” Minetor says. “It’s amazing.”

Sometimes, however, even these rescuers reach their limits. In severe winter conditions, a recovery may have to wait—the body is secured in place on the mountain until weather improves enough for rangers to safely return.

“For people who think climbing a mountain in the dead of winter is a great idea,” notes Minetor, “Let me just say: It isn’t.”

The aftermath

Once remains are recovered, a medical examiner determines the cause of death before they are released to the family.

However, it’s important to note that not every park death requires a wilderness search. When someone dies in a more straightforward way, like a heart attack on a trail or a fatal crash on a park road, the response typically looks more like a conventional emergency, with local first responders arriving on scene rather than deploying a search and rescue team. 

The issue of jurisdiction is more complicated than one might expect for deaths in national parks, with up to three agencies potentially claiming a person’s remains.

“Response to a fatality in a national park may involve up to three jurisdiction types—federal, state, or county,” says NPS spokesperson Elizabeth Peace. “Oftentimes, it is the local or state law enforcement that is the primary or lead [agency], with the National Park Service having concurrent jurisdiction.”

In practice, this means that families seeking information after a death in the park should know which agency is leading the response, since it might be the local sheriff’s office or state police, not the park itself, who will be their primary point of contact. 

It is the lead law enforcement agency that generally handles notifying next of kin, says Peace. However, other law enforcement entities may also take action to share information as quickly as possible. The inter-agency coordination helps ensure the family is informed before they hear of a loved one’s death on the news.

“Time is of the essence with next-of-kin notifications. The National Park Service works as quickly as possible to make contact before personally identifiable information is shared in the media,” says Peace.

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For the family left behind, there is, at least, no bill. Minetor says in all her research, she has never come across a family that has had to pay for the cost of a rescue. Only a few parties who got into trouble because of their own “extreme negligence” have received a bill, she says. 

“The park just wants to bring people out alive,” Minetor says. 

National parks have even become the setting for what some are calling “alpine divorce”—a term you may have seen lately for when one romantic partner abandons the other in dangerous terrain, sometimes with fatal consequences. 

For anyone thinking a national park is a great place to end your marriage and collect on life insurance, Minetor has a warning. “Nobody ever collects a cent; the insurance companies know what this is,” she says. “Almost every park that has cliffs has one of these stories, and all of the homicidal spouses are in prison.”

After years documenting almost every conceivable way a person can die in a national park, with titles including Death in Glacier National Park and Death in Rocky Mountain National Park, Minetor has one final surprise in store. 

The leading cause of death isn’t mountain falls or flash floods. “Auto accidents and drowning are the two biggest causes of death in national parks,” she says. “Most of them, honestly, are car crashes.”

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.

The post Someone dies in a national park. Now what? appeared first on Popular Science.

The NASA planned 2028 nuclear powered ion drive spacecraft, SR-1 Freedom will have a 20 kilowatt nuclear reactor. SR-1 Freedom will use 20-plus kilowatt fission reactor fueled by High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium and Uranium Dioxide, encased in a Boron Carbide Radiation Shield. This will power a xenon ion drive. Previous nuclear spacecraft designs involved more powerful ...

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The state of Connecticut is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think of bears. However, the Nutmeg State is home to about 1,000 to 1,200 black bears (Ursus americanus) bears. The bears can be found throughout the state, with most concentrated in its mountainous northwestern corner.

For the first time, a mother bear in Connecticut has been spotted with five cubs. NBC4 Connecticut shared a video of the family, and Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) confirmed that it is the largest litter ever observed in the state. 

By the mid-1800s, humans pushed out black bears from the state by clearing  forest land for farms. After farmers abandoned a number of farms in the late 1800s, forestland began to regrow and bears returned. The DEEP Wildlife Division had evidence of a resident black bear population in the 1980s, and the population has steadily increased ever since.

Bear cubs like these typically emerge in the spring. According to DEEP, mother bears will sometimes leave their cubs alone while they climb up trees to find food and are not abandoning them. It is important to leave the cubs alone—even if they are vocacalizing—and contact a local wildlife management office. Mother bears may travel over a mile while foraging, leaving the cubs unattended  for up to 12 or more hours. 

“Removing cubs from the wild can unintentionally orphan them if the adult bear cannot locate and reunite with the cubs,” DEEP writes. 

This behavior can also happen during bad weather, and it’s important that a cub’s fur protects them from the elements and even spring’s rollercoaster temperatures. 

More than 1,000 bear sightings have been reported since January in Connecticut, and that number will only increase as temperatures warm. There were over 12,000 reports of bear sightings in Connecticut last year. By comparison there were only 22 sightings in 1996. Nearby Massachusetts is home to about 4,500 bears, but Maine wears New England’s bear crown at up to 35,000 bears. 

The post Litter of 5 bear cubs spotted in Connecticut for the first time appeared first on Popular Science.

There are now 13 unsupervised Tesla robotaxi in Austin. There was a 2 months at the 8-10 unsupervised level. Three were added over the last 10 days. This would suggest about 20 by mid next week. NHTSA has reported no accidents in the Feb-Mid March timeframe. There are hundreds of Cybercabs ready roll into Austin ...

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Starship V3 booster & ship will be ready for their first test flight in a few weeks (aka Early to mid May) . Both Starship and the Super Heavy Booster have successfully completed the static fire tests and are ready to take to the skies. Starship V3 booster & ship will be ready for their ...

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Titan is the largest of Saturn’s 292 known moons, by far. It’s also the only other cosmic body apart from Earth confirmed to host standing liquid similar to our oceans in our solar system. But don’t necessarily expect calm conditions. According to a new modeling system detailed in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the smallest gust of wind on Titan could generate huge, roiling waves across seas of hydrocarbons.

While there are an endless amount of fascinating places across our solar system, Titan remains one of the most intriguing. It’s nearly 50 percent larger and 80 percent more massive than Earth’s moon, making it even bigger than the planet Mercury. Titan is also teeming with prebiotic compounds, meaning it’s one of the best contenders for hosting life in oceans beneath its icy shell. 

While its average surface temperature of -296.59 degrees Fahrenheit ensures a total lack of flowing water, there are still rivers and seas full of light hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane. Astronomers have long suspected these large bodies of liquid generate waves that regularly carve out coastlines and shape landscapes, but Titan’s thick atmosphere and distance from Earth makes it difficult to confirm.

Scientists may still lack visual confirmation of the moon’s waves, but they can now gain a better sense of their fluid dynamics with a new modeling system from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Appropriately named PlanetWaves, the free-to-use simulator indicates that unlike Earth, the smallest breeze would easily birth 10-foot-waves thanks to Titan’s unique surface.

“On Earth, we get accustomed to certain wave dynamics,” study co-author and geophysicist at WHOI Andrew Ashton said in a statement. “But with this model, we can see how waves behave on planets with different liquids, atmospheres, and gravity, which can kind of challenge our intuition.”

Previous research has largely focused on predicting how a planet’s gravity may affect waves. As MIT planetary scientist Una Schneck explained, their team’s model is the first to include additional important compositional factors like a liquid’s surface tension, viscosity, and density. And when it comes to Titan’s liquid, the results would be hard to comprehend if seen firsthand.

“It kind of looks like tall waves moving in slow motion,” said Schneck. “If you were standing on the shore of this lake, you might feel only a soft breeze but you would see these enormous waves flowing toward you, which is not what we would expect on Earth.”

Gravity also plays an important part in allowing—or preventing—waves. In addition to Titan, the study’s authors tested PlanetWaves on conditions once seen on ancient Mars, as well as three exoplanets far beyond our solar system. In each case, the location’s unique factors create very different situations. 

The “cool super-Earth” LHS1140b may have water, but its strong gravity would hinder large waves without significant wind gusts. Meanwhile, Venus-like exoplanet Kepler 1649b’s sulfuric acid lakes require even stronger wind speeds. However, exoplanet 55-Cancri e is the most stubborn of all the simulated planets. Its powerful gravity and oceans of molten lava would need hurricane-like conditions to create even the smallest waves.

PlanetWaves is far more than a novel simulator. Calculating fluid behaviors on distant planets and moons could help inform engineers building new spacecraft and probes. If all goes as planned, the Artemis program is expected to build the first long-term human presence on the moon sometime in 2028. What comes next is anyone’s guess, but researchers are preparing to go with the flow.

“Imagine a completely still lake,” Ashton said. “We’re trying to figure out the first puff that will make those first little tiny ripples, on up to a full ocean wave.”

The post Saturn’s largest moon could see 10-foot waves from a tiny breeze appeared first on Popular Science.

It is being reported that xAI will rent tens of thousands of GPUS to AI coding company Cursor. It is about $2.5-18 per hour for GPU rentals. For 10,000 GPUs it would be $15-40 million of rent. For 50,000 GPUs it would be $75 million to $200 million per month. If XAI was renting half ...

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Blue Origin New Glenn 3 has a good static fire. They are trying to go for a Saturday or Sunday launch. They will launch the second commercial version of the AST Spacemobile direct to cellphone (DTC) communication satellite. AST Space Mobile needs 40-60 commercial operational and in position satellites to begin intermittent commercial service. ASTS ...

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US has total oil products production equal to Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. The US exported over 5 million barrels of oil per day last week, a record high, amid the Iran War. In aggregate, the US exported a record 12.7 million barrels of crude oil and refined products per day last week. Total extra ...

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Elon Musk is ordering equipment for the Terafab with the capacity to process 3,000 wafers per month. 36,000 wafers per year. 3-4 million chips per year. There could be similar numbers from Intel fabs in 2027 and perhaps double from each of Samsung and TSMC. This could be 10+ million chips per year in 2027 ...

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Successful static fires of SpaceX V3 booster follows yesterdays successful V3 starship static fire. Hopefully go for a launch in 2 weeks. First 33-engine static fire for Super Heavy V3 pic.twitter.com/m3swZHF7iQ — SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 16, 2026

Most stories are small, about short periods in the lives of a few people or small groups. But some stories are big, about bigger people (e.g., Gods), groups, or timescales. The types of our typical big stories have changed greatly across history.

Power Fights - Most stories are about conflict, and so most big stories are about fights. And long ago, most big stories (e.g., Illiad) focused on powers and alliances fighting within worlds that were relatively stable, especially re tech, and within a context of stable morals. As those didn’t change much, stories didn’t care much about them.

The simplest stories of this type focused on one particular fight, with a start, middle and end. More complex stories, on longer timescales, might depict a sequence of fights with relative peace in between. Even more complex versions might have old powers leave, new powers enter, and changing alliances between powers.

Moral Fights - Starting with religious stories, but then spreading to most centuries ago, the sides in fights acquired stronger moral colors. These fights were not just about power (i.e., dominance) but also moral persuasion (i.e, prestige). The simplest versions had good heroes fight bad villains (e.g., Lord of the Rings). More complex versions had many fighting sides, or all sides seeing themselves as good.

Some moral fight stories have a small group of activists trying to spread their new moral view to a wider world. A common feature here is that the world at story end likely has more or less good morality, depending on who wins the fights.

Unstable Tech - Our modern world often has tech and business changing fast on the timescales of big fights. Tech changes often favor particular sides of fights, and can call into question common assumptions in prior moral positions. Many science fiction stories highlight how tech changes can influence who wins, and how they can force one to reconsider basic moral commitments.

The simplest such stories present a world with quite different tech to ours, but where that tech doesn’t change much during the story (e.g., Dune). This helps readers see how tech differences might translate to fight and moral differences. More complex stories focus on one particular big tech change (e.g., Frankenstein), and show that one change affects who wins in fights, and key moral categories. The most complex stories show long fights in the context of a long history of many big tech changes.

Unstable Morals - I’ve lately become unhappy with science fiction, as I came to understand the basics of cultural evolution. Science fiction’s big or fast changing tech, even with shifting powers and alliances over centuries, are usually set in the context of quite stable morals. Yet in fact over the last century or so key values, norms, and morals have changed about as fast as tech, and due to pretty random and plausibly out-of-control cultural evolution. A similar failure happens when historical fiction sets characters with modern values as heroes against villains with old-style values.

So I’d like to see authors try to write big stories, of whole civilizations over long timescales, that more realistically depict cultural instability. Yes it can be comforting to see key characters long continuing to fight for the same shared moral causes, even as their powers, alliances, and tech change greatly. And it can be disturbing to see key morals changing as fast as tech, and nearly as arbitrarily. But the switch to Unstable Tech type stories similarly resulted from the disturbing realization that fast changing tech often upended our conflicts. And we seem to have managed that switch okay.

Sports betting is in the news today, with the rise of Kalshi and Polymarket. Critics point to many issues, but I think most are excuses; what really bothers most is just typical sports bets. On reflection, I’m a bit puzzled by this. Let me explain.

Traditional societies have discouraged, regulated, and banned many kinds of pleasures. Such as sleep, idleness, fancy or plentiful food, fancy clothes, travel, humor, music and dancing, gossip and small talk, drugs and intoxication, fiction, gaming, gambling, bragging, gossip, fighting, spanking, and many forms of sex including prostitution. They feared such pleasures distracting from work and piety.

Our world still bans many things, but pleasure isn’t usually a central consideration; we are far more indulgent and approving of pleasure. Yet we still do ban a few pleasures, including recreational drugs, dogfighting, corporal punishment, loan sharks, dwarf-tossing, gambling, and sex that is paid or with minors. Drugs, dogfighting, dwarf-tossing, corporal punishment, and loan sharks seem to be about physical harms, and also shame and empathy. Sex has long evoked deep complex opaque feelings.

But sports bets don’t involve shame, physical harm, or deep opaque feelings. We mostly approve of sports, and of people putting lots of time and energy into playing and watching sports. And sports bets complements those activities, making them more interesting, engaging, and better informed.

Yes, we dislike money all else equal, but we let money touch many adjacent areas. Yes, sports bets can waste time and money, but so do a great many allowed pleasures. Yes, they involve risk, but we let people take big risks in deciding who to date, and in longshot careers like acting, music, or athletics. Yes, sports bets resolve faster, but you can bet just as fast and big in ordinary financial markets. Yes, bookies once charged high fees, but new markets have far lower fees.

I guess I lean toward explaining banned sports bets as just a random exception to our usual historical trend, which seems a weak but good sign re how long we’ll let these new sports betting markets continue to be legal. Not my thing, but I usually don’t mind others having fun via their things.

Added 14Apr: Many point to the possibility of commitment problems, where people are tempted in the moment to do stuff they would want to commit ahead of time not to do. But it isn’t that hard to set up commitment mechanisms, and when we do few actually avail themselves of such options.

Archaeologists in Poland are finally solving an over 2,000-year-old mummy mystery. After modern warfare erased vital information about the ancient Egyptian child, researchers were unsure about the boy’s origins and life. Now, they’ve discovered a striking detail while examining the delicate remains—a once-hidden ritual object resting on the boy’s chest. Their findings published in the journal Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage are now helping fill in the gaps of our understanding of ancient burial practices, while also underscoring how much is left to learn about the complex art of Egyptian mummification.

The child’s precise origins are an unfortunate casualty of war. Although the mummy has remained a part of the Archdiocesan Museum in the city of Wrocław since 1914, its records were lost during World War II. The well-preserved body remained in the museum’s archives for decades, but archaeologists only began a first comprehensive analysis in 2023. Led by historian Agata Kubala at the University of Wrocław, the team utilized techniques including CT scanning and X-ray imaging to create highly detailed, 3D images of the mummy and its decorated casing known as the cartonnage. This allowed them to gain unprecedented looks at the specimen without damaging it.

The boy likely came from a middle-class family during the Ptolemaic Period. Credit: Marzena Ożarek-Szilke / University of Wrocław

Kubala and her team determined the boy was around eight years old when he died based on his teeth development. However, without any obvious signs of disease or physical trauma, his exact cause of death remains unclear. Despite these gaps, they still could confidently assess other details about the mummy. Preparers extracted his brain through the nasal cavity using traditional methods, but also removed most of his vital organs via some unconventional routes. Mummification frequently relied on organ removal via abdominal incision, but in this case, they appear to have done so through the rectum. The body itself was then partially filled with textile materials, but lacked a large amount of resin. Taken altogether, researchers say these details point to a middle-class family’s burial during the Ptolemaic Period (about 332–30 BCE).

Although the historical records are gone, the mummy’s cartonnage offered numerous clues about its origins. It included iconography and thematic images of rosettes, a winged scarab, and lotuses all point to Upper Egypt—more specifically the area near Kom Ombo or Aswan. There is even the depiction of a hybridized deity carrying a mummy. The study’s authors theorize this may be the primordial snake god, Nehebkau.

But according to the archaeologists, the most intriguing find isn’t the mummy’s preservation techniques or cartonnage design. During 3D imaging, experts noticed an unknown object placed on the child’s chest. Attempting to physically examine the item is far too risky given the overall state of the remains. While a definitive answer isn’t possible just yet, the archaeologists think the item is possibly a papyrus scroll containing personal information on the boy—maybe even his name. The researchers are undeterred, and plan on exploring alternative methods to reveal the object’s secrets.

“This is not the end of the research,” Kubala said in a university statement. “We are still working on the mummy.”

The post Mystery item spotted in 2,000-year-old Egyptian child mummy appeared first on Popular Science.

This time of year, new flowers and animals are everywhere. Baby birds and squirrels pop up in nests, while opossums and bunnies roam as the weather warms up. Not exactly known for their speed, turtles are also waking up from brumation—aka reptile hibernation. 

Busy roads can be particularly dangerous for turtles, even with the protection from their hard shells. Every squished turtle is another that won’t help create the next generation, which is not welcome news for many already endangered turtle species. Out of 356 known turtle species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 161 of them as threatened. 

If you spot a turtle trying to cross a road, it is important to follow some simple rules.

Make sure that you are in a safe place to stop. You won’t be able to help a turtle if you get hurt. If driving, put on your hazard lights and slowly pull over onto the shoulder.

Assess the situation. It might be best to just stand guard as the turtle crosses on its own. If the turtle is not moving away from danger, pick it up and move it across the street in the direction that it was already going. Turtles know where they want to go to nest, feed, and reproduce, so putting them in the direction they are heading will help them get there faster.

A Blanding’s turtle crossing the road. Image: Courtney Celley/USFWS.

Never pick up a turtle by its tail! Instead, gently place your hands on both sides of the shell as if you are holding a hamburger to carry it. If you do not want to carry the turtle, you can put it on a car mat and carry it across the road that way. 

If you encounter a snapping turtle, be particularly careful. The United States Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) describes them as having “very long necks and a very short temper.” Keep your hands as close to their backside as possible. Snapping turtles are generally more aggressive in how they defend themselves compared to other turtle species. For example, box turtles are more likely to pull themselves into their shells during a rescue. And remember, an aggressive turtle is simply trying to stay alive or to protect their eggs.

An eastern box turtle on a road. Image: Danielle Brigida/USFWS.

Place the turtle on a low spot in the ground, since high impact falls from a tall rock or building can injure them. 

After safely moving the turtle, it can also help to take a picture of the turtle and report it to your local fish and wildlife department. This can help scientists assess local populations.

If you find an injured turtle, safely contain it in a box, log where you found it, and call your local wildlife rehabilitation center for instructions. Importantly, do not try to fix the injuries yourself! Keep it contained and away from danger until rehabilitators can assess the situation. And please don’t keep injured turtles or the healthy ones as pets. Uninjured turtles are best left alone and in the wild. 

The FWS also encourages people to learn more about turtles in your area and get involved in road planning decisions that could impact their welfare. 

The post How to help a turtle cross the road appeared first on Popular Science.

There are some among us who can’t remember which pants they wore yesterday or whether they have plans tonight. Take that person and put them on a bicycle, however, and if they had any kind of comfort level riding in the past, odds are, they’ll have no trouble balancing and steering, even if it’s been years—or decades—since their last ride.

The axiom “like riding a bike” exists for a reason, and it’s supported by ample amounts of evidence that casts light on the weird neuroscience of memory. So why is it, exactly, that we seemingly never forget how to push the pedals and ride? 

The many types of memory

On the surface, remembering a skill like cycling and also being able to call to mind your spouse’s birthday seem similar. After all, these are two things you learned in the past, so it stands to reason your brain would process them the same way. That, however, is not the case, explains Dr. Andrew Budson, a professor of neurology at Boston University and co-author of the book Why We Forget and How to Remember Better. 

Humans have three distinct kinds of long-term memories, he explains, each of which are processed, stored, and accessed via different pathways in the brain. 

1. Semantic memory is how we store information and facts that allows us to navigate the world: how to use objects and tools like toasters and screwdrivers or knowing the differences between cats and dogs. 
2. Episodic memory pertains to long-term memories specific to the person who lived through the experience, like a first kiss. 
3. Finally, procedural memory allows us to retain knowledge of tasks that become second nature and automatic, like playing guitar and, yes, riding a bike. (What we call muscle memory is a type of procedural memory, though the latter is a broader term. All muscle memory is procedural, but not all procedural memory is muscle memory). 

The truth is there’s nothing particularly special about bike riding—the axiom could have used many other skills, such as ice skating or swimming (in fact, swimming was the favored example of something people don’t forget how to do up until the 1940s, when cycling’s popularity exploded). 

Up until the 1940s, people referred to swimming, not cycling, as a skill you’ll never forget. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Harold M. Lambert

“Riding a bicycle would certainly be a sort of a motor activity, and it depends upon some structures deep inside the brain called the basal ganglia,” says Budson, along with other regions of the brain, including the cerebellum. “Those are the key regions, and that’s very different than memory for episodes of our life, such as remembering last night’s dinner.”

Procedural memories get hardwired in, while still leaving some room for malleability. One bike isn’t the same as another—riding a mountain bike is slightly different than taking a leisurely trip across town on a fixed gear—so once a skill is stored, the basic motions are easy to access, but you can still adapt. 

“What is quite different about procedural memories is that they rely on these different brain structures that are, in general, much more resistant to change over time,” says Budson. “That’s why once you’ve learned how to touch type, you know you can still touch type, although you can certainly adapt it. When you get a new computer and they’ve moved the Escape key or something like that, you’re able to adapt to that.”

Why scientists can’t study cycling and memory directly

Given the popularity of the phrase, it may come as a surprise that there’s not a ton of research out there that specifically examines why we retain the memory of how to ride a bicycle. 

That’s not to say there’s nothing out there on cycling and memory: Some studies have concluded that cycling desks help improve cognitive performance. Others have found a linkage between cycling and improved long-term memory. But few scientists have directly studied biking as an example of procedural memory. 

There’s a few reasons why: first, it can be hard to scan a person’s brain while they’re riding around on a 12 speed. Second, as Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger, a psychology professor at Boston College and Budson’s co-author, explains, a subject self-reporting how good they are on a bike can be faulty and could skew results. 

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Instead, neurologists and psychologists have designed experiments to test procedural memory on entirely new skills, including having subjects draw shapes by looking at their hands in a mirror. It’s tricky at first, but over repetition, they start to get better and better.

“My best guess is that it just feels very uncontrolled versus all of the types of motor skills that scientists have been able to train people how to do,” says Kensinger. 

There are far easier, more convenient ways to examine procedural memory. In science, control over variables is essential to reliable results, and bringing a few folks who have gotten rusty on a bicycle out for a few spins around a velodrome leaves too much to chance to gain any solid data. 

Practice makes perfect

Doing something once isn’t enough to generate the kind of recall associated with procedural memory. The neural pathways involved in the activity need to be beefed up. 

“It’s so much faster for you to learn something the second or the third time than it was for you to learn it the first time,” says Kensinger. “There is something that is priming those pathways to be able to become established more much more quickly.”

In other words, hopping on a bike once won’t be enough for you to be able to do it again perfectly after decades away from bicycles. Repetition is key to forming procedural memories that can be easily jogged even after extended periods of inactivity. 

“Our procedural memories do degrade, but they degrade more slowly than your episodic memories,” explains Budson. “So there’s no doubt that practice helps it to stay very active and that it comes back more quickly.”

While procedural memory activities may need repetition to get wired into our brains, the good news is we’re capable of forming these kinds of memories throughout our lives. 

“If you think about many older adults, they need to learn pretty complicated motor skills,” says  Kensinger. “They might need to learn how to use a wheelchair that might have fairly complicated mechanisms to lock and unlock the brakes. Older adults are quite capable at learning those types of procedural skills as well.”

While adapting to new limitations can be frustrating, our ability to develop new skills near-automatic is helpful as we age. Whether that’s learning how to use a walker, or even using a computer or iPad, grandma and grandpa just need some time and patience to develop new procedural memories. 

It’s easy to see why humans evolved to retain and execute skills without conscious thought. Running away from predators or searching for food shouldn’t be something that requires a ton of focus. So the next time you’re zooming along on your bike, take a second to thank your procedural memory, even if you can’t remember where exactly you’re going. 

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.

The post Why you never forget how to ride a bike appeared first on Popular Science.

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