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They may have tiny bodies, but fruit flies produce giant sperm. Adult male Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies are about two millimeters long (roughly the size of a sesame seed) and their sperm can be just as long, with the sperm tails taking up most of that space. 

In order to keep the thousands of sperm cells inside their bodies untangled, the insects use movement in an ingenious way. The sperm cells are organized into densely aligned groups that move by pushing off one another to keep themselves more taut. The more taut, the less likely it is that the tails will get tangled. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Nature Physics.

Fruit fly sperm are about 40 times larger than human sperm, and thousands of sperm cells are stored inside the tightly confined spaces of both the male and female reproductive systems. One of those organs is the seminal vesicle, where males store the sperm before mating. 

The seminal vesicle is only about 200 micrometers in size. That’s really small compared to the sperm cells that are two millimeters long. In theory, this cell-to-storage size ratio should be similar to putting a pair of wired earphones inside of a pants pocket. The earphones often come out as a tangled mess.

“Now imagine putting thousands [of earbuds] in your pocket. The sperm are of course different from passive wires: the sperm are active, generating bending waves along their long tail,” Jasmin Imran Alsous, a study co-author and computational biologist at the Center for Computational Biology, tells Popular Science. “So how do thousands of active sperm organize and move within the tight confines of the reproductive system?”

To see how male fruit flies keep so many lengthy sperm organized, the team dyed the sperm’s heads and tails with a fluorescent substance and examined them with a powerful 3D electron microscope. They saw that the sperm cells are densely packed, but instead of staying still, they generate collective movements. These movements, called flows, can span the entire seminal vesicle for hours at a time. 

According to Imran Alsous, individual sperm move smoothly past each other, similarly to cars moving along a highway in opposite directions. 

Microscopy image of a giant fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) sperm. Its head is colored magenta and tail is cyan. The sperm cell is also to scale with the much smaller human sperm. Image: Jasmin Imram Alsous.

“Each sperm is attached to a long tail, that tail is moving just as quickly as the heads, but the tails collectively move more slowly together, in this flowy slow churn. It would be as if the highways now began to fold and bend while the cars within them continued to dart in opposite directions,” she explains. 

The team believes that these forces help to keep the sperm cells’ long tails from getting tangled in both male and female reproductive organs. The contact-based interactions help them move by pushing off of each other, which keeps the cells more taut, instead of a mushy mess.

Another example of these tight-packed systems in biology is how six feet of DNA is stored inside of a cell nucleus or how humans’ large and small intestines are about 30-feet-long when combined. This set-up allows living things to store more than their bodies should allow. For sperm cells, this increases the chance reproduction will be successful and the species will survive. 

“Our work suggests that sperm can move in a way that’s very different from the textbook picture of a lone sperm swimming through fluid,” says Imram Alsous. “Individually, fruit fly sperm exhibit very little directed motion, but together they can move through interactions with their neighbors.”

The post Fruit fly sperm is enormous appeared first on Popular Science.

While warfare seems like a deeply human conflict, a tiny carnivore also makes its own strategic moves before battle.

The warriors in question are common dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula), the smallest carnivore in Africa. They are native to parts of East to southern Central Africa, including Angola and Zambia and some provinces in South Africa. They live in communities of five to 30 individuals, and when different groups meet, potentially dangerous fights usually ensue. 

According to a study recently published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, these mammals predict meeting rival groups and change how they communicate, move, and protect resources before it happens. The research demonstrates that these groups change their behavior in regions with the  greatest chance of rival fights, even if there is no other group. Additionally, the greatest changes take place in the face of the highest predicted danger. 

“We know that battles between groups can be very dangerous for participants. What we’ve shown now is that there are constant behavioural changes to mitigate these risks and enhance the likelihood of future contest success,” Andy Radford, senior author of the study who teaches behavioral ecology at the University of Bristol, said in a statement.

Dwarf mongoose acting as a sentinel (raised guard) gathering and conveying information to groupmates about potential rival threats. Image: Shannon Wild.

The team observing dwarf mongooses in South Africa noted that individuals keeping an eye out for incoming danger call out more if it’s a larger group that poses the possible threat. On the other hand, certain behaviors, like selecting where to snooze in the evening, shift most in the presence of well-matched neighbors with whom conflict can be most damaging.

“Not only are the mongooses keeping track of where their enemies might be, but they’re factoring in the relative size of different groups. They can then tailor their pre-emptive behaviour accordingly,” said Josh Arbon, lead author of the study and behavioral ecologist at the University of Cambridge. “This work provides insight into how smaller groups are able to survive, and even thrive, amongst more powerful enemies by strategically moving through space and communicating about potential dangers.”

Radford, Arbon, and colleagues used 10 years of observational and GPS data collected in South Africa for their research. 

Ultimately, “conflict between groups is rife throughout the natural world,” said Amy Morris-Drake, a co-author of the study and biologist at the University of Bristol. “We have shown that animals are continuously making decisions in a landscape of conflict, not just when they actually encounter rivals.”

The post Dwarf mongooses don’t just wait for danger appeared first on Popular Science.

Drone walls and layered short/medium/long-range droning have effectively recreated a modern version of trench attrition warfare, where large-scale land capture is extremely difficult and costly for near-peer adversaries. Only small, incremental gains have been seen in Ukraine. Countries that cannot match drone quantity and integration at scale risks failure or stalemate. Drone Walls and Layered ...

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In an interview of Elon Musk, Elon talks about getting greater than 10X the world economy in 10 years. What does this mean, if it were to happen. It means averaging 27% per year GDP growth but starting with a ramp in the first half. NOTE: in WW2, the USA had 18% gdp growth for ...

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Cataracts are a common eye condition marked by a cloudy lens that can be extracted fairly easily. For humans, anyway. But on June 12th, the patient on the operating table wasn’t a person—it was a lion. 

Experts diagnosed an African lion (Panthera leo) named Tsavo with cataracts over half a year ago. He was rescued as a cub in 2013 and currently lives at Wildlife Safari, a wildlife park and conservation center in Oregon. Last week, his veterinarian team successfully carried out the eye operation. It should improve the lion’s quality of life significantly and represents an international effort, with experts using equipment from around the world. 

Tsavo was diagnosed with two cataracts in 2025. Image: Marcus Doshi.

The surgical process started at around 2 p.m., and less than three hours later the team had removed the two cataracts and replaced them with custom-made artificial lenses. At 5:15 p.m. Tsavo was back in the Lion Hut, where he started his recovery under the watchful eye of the wildlife park’s carnivore team. 

“One of the most surprising things is that the surgery itself is almost identical to modern human cataract surgery,” Cassandra Bliss, a veterinary ophthalmologist at Bliss Animal Eye Care who co-led the entire team, tells Popular Science. “The biggest differences are the anatomy and the patient. A lion’s eye is significantly larger than a human eye, requiring specialized calculations and a much larger artificial lens.”

Tsavo was rescued as a cub in 2013. Image: Marcus Doshi.

The successful operation was the result of months-long preparation and coordination among veterinary professionals and medical technology experts from across the planet. Tsavo now has clear visual pathways again, and he is also expected to regain his binocular vision and depth perception. 

Tsavo receiving diagnostic imaging from a Butterfly Network ultrasound. This ultrasound technology provided the clinical insight needed to plan and perform the procedure.  Image: Marcus Doshi.

“Vision is one of the primary ways lions interact with their environment,” Bliss explains. “Restoring sight isn’t just about seeing again, it’s about allowing an animal to navigate its world, engage with enrichment, recognize familiar caretakers and companions, and express the natural behaviors that contribute to its quality of life.”

Benjamin Alcantar, Head Veterinarian at Wildlife Safari was the other co-lead. He and Bliss had previously carried out cataract surgeries on two Wildlife Safari lions last year. 

The post Lion undergoes double cataract surgery appeared first on Popular Science.

Based upon oil flows Hormuz were 15-20% open at 3 to 4 mbpd last month (May) but yesterday 17 mbpd. This means Hormuz was 85% open. 17 mbpd is 85% of 20 mbpd. It was 20% open with complete opposition from Iran. And now it is 85% open. The ships know they are getting through. ...

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In the animal kingdom, fatherhood exists on a spectrum. Some species like grizzly bears or lions will leave after mating and never really interact with their offspring again. Others do everything from keeping eggs warm solo to carrying their young in their mouths and even giving birth. 

“By the male investing in offspring it increases the chance of their survival, and specifically the survival of his genes,” Karen McDonald, an educational specialist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center tells Popular Science. 

“Male-only parental care is rare in mammals and vertebrates, but it’s surprisingly common in ray-finned fish (over 50 percent of families), with many species caring for large broods of their offspring from different females. In birds, male-parental care is less than one percent of the species.”

Here are some of the unique ways that some animals experience fatherhood. 

Seahorses and their little ‘fry’

Seahorses are the unofficial poster species for animal fatherhood. While the female produces the eggs, the male is the one who gets pregnant. After mating, the female transfers her eggs to a brood pouch on the male’s tail for him to fertilize. 

“Crazy cool fact, the seahorse brood pouch is really like a placenta,” McDonald explains. “It does the same things, with respiratory gas and waste exchange, salinity regulation, nutrient supplementation, and immune protection. Essentially it’s what is confirmed as a ‘vertebrate pregnancy.’”

The male then cares for the eggs for roughly two to four weeks and before releasing the babies–called fry. Depending on the species, they can have anywhere from five fry  up to 2,000 at one time. Having as many babies as possible is critical since only about one in 200 will survive. 

A lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus). Image: Jonathan Irons/Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Water bugs and their egg glue

Some aquatic animals like giant water bugs (aka toe biters) make use of a staple found in human dad’s tool chest—glue. 

“Eggs are laid by the female onto the males’ dorsum or back using a protein-based egg glue,” McDonald explains. 

The water-resistant secretion helps the eggs stay in place. Depositing the sperm directly helps the male insect ensure paternity.

Three-spine stickleback and hidden nests

Like giant water bugs, male three-spine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) also make use of glue, but with a twist. They use a sticky secretion from his kidneys called spiggin to cobble together marine debris and algae into a tunnel-like nest. 

“The male spiggin or kidney glue that is used to glue the nest has genetic plasticity, allowing for nest construction based on the environment they are in,” McDonald says. “The male can actually tune the chemistry of the glue to match the water chemistry, so that it holds it together better and can adjust to the environment.”

Once he’s ready to breed, his belly turns red and he performs a special zig-zag dance for the female. She will then take a look at the den he built and deposit the eggs. She leaves after fertilization and he will then stay to protect them.

Greater rheas and their single dad skills

If seahorses are the poster species for males who can give birth, greater rheas (Rhea americana) are a model for stay-at-home dads. These large, flightless birds will build nests for their mate’s eggs, take care of all the incubation, and then rear the chicks alone and keep them safe. 

“Rheas are the largest birds in South America and among the largest birds in the world,” Sara Hallager, Curator of Birds at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, tells Popular Science. “Adult greater rheas don’t have many predators but large cats (cougar, puma, jaguar) native to their range can take down an adult. Chicks and juveniles are the most vulnerable, but once a rhea reaches adult size, they are usually pretty safe.”

Arapaima and their amazing mouths

Native to the Amazon River, arapaima are one of the largest freshwater fish in the world and don’t have many natural predators. For their tiny babies, also called fry like seahorses, it’s a whole different world. To keep them safe, arapaima dads suck their young into their mouths when they sense danger. They then swim to a safe area and release them.

“Arapaima will build a nest and females can lay anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 eggs,” Rebecca Sturniolo, Curator for Amazonia and American Trail at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, tells Popular Science. “Both parents will defend the nest.”

These big fish also breathe air at the surface of the water, to help them survive in habitats with lower levels of oxygen. 

Arapaima are one of Earth’s largest freshwater fish. Image: Smithsonian Institution. Abby Wood Golden lion tamarins and their teaching skills

Golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) are small monkeys found in the trees of Brazil’s Atlantic coast. After birth, their young will spend a few weeks with their mother to nurse. Then, it’s all about dad. Baby golden lion tamarins will cling to dad and ride along wherever he goes.

“Babies are learning the sights, sounds, and smells of the forest,” Kenton Kerns, a curator and biologist at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, tells Popular Science. “They’re learning what ‘safe’ feels like, what ‘danger’ is, how to react to other animals or other golden lion tamarins. They’re learning what adult tamarins eat by watching dad, how they move, where it’s best to sleep.”

Golden tamarins spend a lot of time with their dads. Image: Smithsonian Institution. Jessie Cohen

Golden lion tamarins were critically endangered until 2003, when they were upgraded to endangered. When they were brought to the zoo during the 1970s, the Smithsonian team and Brazilian researchers collaborated to figure out how much paternal care these primates need. 

“Zoo staff kept the dads in the with the babies, which was a bit unorthodox with primates at the time,” says Kerns. “That change allowed a boom of babies in zoos and led to the eventual reintroduction of zoo-born golden lion tamarins to Brazil.”

Happy Father’s Day!

The post 6 animal fathers who go the distance appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s like something out of an old-school Looney Tunes cartoon: a gorilla, sound asleep and snoring in his nest high in a tree, suddenly stands up and takes a few steps. For the gorilla, this would be a very short story with a very bad ending.

Humans, on the other hand, sleepwalk all the time. It’s a behavior that has fascinated and freaked us out for centuries, from the hand-wringing somnambulism of Lady Macbeth to the strange murder cases involving Ambien-induced sleepwalking. We find the condition unsettling, mysterious, and even funny, possibly because it violates a fundamental idea—that sleep is a state of stillness, of surrender. 

Yet some humans seem to have missed that memo. Sleepwalking affects an estimated five percent of children and 1.5 percent of adults. Which raises an interesting question: Why us?

Other animals have their own versions of restless sleep: the dog’s paws paddling as if in mid-chase, the cat’s whiskers twitching in annoyance at some imaginary unwanted affection. But true sleepwalking, involving standing, walking, and navigating obstacles, has not been documented in other species. 

“Humans are probably not unique in having odd motor events during sleep, but sleepwalking as we define it is overwhelmingly human,” says David R. Samson, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Toronto and author of the new book The Sleepless Ape: The Story of Sleep in Human Evolution.

So, why do only humans do this? The answer has everything to do with where our ancestors slept.

What happens when you sleepwalk?

Sleepwalking primarily occurs during deep non-REM sleep, says Samson, who describes sleepwalking as a “state dissociation.”

“Parts of the brain involved in movement and arousal come online while regions involved in reflective awareness, judgment, and memory remain in a sleep-like state,” he says. 

In practical terms, this means the body can do surprisingly complicated things—navigate stairs, open doors, wander down a dark hallway—while the part of the brain responsible for awareness, judgment, and memory remains essentially asleep. Which is why sleepwalkers can appear eerily purposeful while having absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

In sleepwalking, as Samson puts it, “the body can move before the waking mind has fully arrived.”

Perhaps one of the most famous sleepwalking scenes comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth when Lady Macbeth emerges night after night in a “slumb’ry agitation.” Image: Public Domain

Samson has a fairly straightforward explanation for why humans sleepwalk while a sleeping gorilla in the tree stays put. Nearly all primates sleep off the ground—on branches, in tree holes, on sleeping platforms—which means a sleepwalking primate would likely fall or be killed. 

“Selection would be severe,” says Samson.

Sleepwalking is a glitch, not a feature 

Samson doesn’t see sleepwalking as a behavior that evolved for a purpose. Instead, he says, it’s a rare flaw in an otherwise finely tuned sleep system.

“For most primates sleeping in trees, this vulnerability would be catastrophic,” he says. “But in the human ‘sleep shell’—with socially buffered camps, shelters, fire, bedding, and shared vigilance—the immediate penalty of getting up from sleep may have been reduced.”

In other words, the communal safety net our ancestors built for themselves at night did the protective work that staying perfectly still once did. 

This is an especially compelling example of “relaxed selection.” In relaxed selection, certain unfavorable traits are able to persist because the environment doesn’t weed them out.

Natural selection didn’t get rid of sleepwalking in humans, because our early environment didn’t punish sleepwalkers. It likely shielded them “once our ancestors began sleeping in safer, socially protected ground sites,” says Samson.

The body moves, but nobody’s home

A large part of what makes sleepwalking so disorienting—for both walkers and witnesses—is the gap between what’s happening on the outside and what’s happening on the inside. Samson has observed this firsthand in a close friend and colleague with a history of sleepwalking episodes.

“One night, I was walking down a dark hallway to use the bathroom when I saw his silhouette at the other end. Suddenly, he charged toward me, grabbed me, and we ended up in a brief, bewildering struggle in the hallway,” he says. “Then, just as abruptly, he stopped, turned around, and went back to bed as though nothing had happened.”

The next morning, Samson’s friend had no recollection of the skirmish in the hallway, but gave his own vivid account of a much higher-stakes struggle.

“When I told him what happened, he said that in his dream, a wall of lumber was falling on me and he was trying to save me,” Samson says. 

“That, to me, is one of the most striking things about these episodes: From the outside, the behavior can look sudden, physical, and even alarming, but from the inside, the dream logic may be protective, purposeful, and emotionally coherent.”

Sleepwalking runs in the family 

The protective “sleep shell” might explain why humans have the luxury of being able to sleepwalk, but the evolutionary story gets even more interesting when you look at who actually sleepwalks.  

Genetics plays a clear role, Samson says, though there’s no single “sleepwalking gene.” It’s more of a knack for sleeping so deeply you can’t quite claw back up to the surface—a knack that tends to run in families.

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Sleepwalking also shows up more often in childhood, when deep non-REM sleep is most prevalent and the brain’s sleep-wake cycles are still maturing. Genetics plays a role here, too. Having a mom or dad who sleepwalks definitely increases your chance of plodding to the kitchen while catching some Z’s. 

One longitudinal study found that children with no family history of sleepwalking had about a 22 percent chance of sleepwalking themselves. But that jumped to 47 percent with one sleeping parent, and 61 percent when both parents were sleepwalkers.

“There is clearly a familial, genetic component,” says Samson.

Most of us file sleepwalking away as a quirk, a punchline, or a far-fetched plot device. But Samson says it can also reveal important things about your health.

“Sleep deprivation, fever, stress, alcohol, some medications, and sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea can all increase risk.” So if you’re prone to sleepwalking, it’s important to consider outside factors that might be contributing to your 2 a.m. wander down to the kitchen. 

Sleepwalking presents a very strange vulnerability for people, one that’s stuck around precisely because, for much of human history, it didn’t need to be fixed. 

But at least we can rest assured that even with all the twitching and kicking, our pets won’t go wandering off into the night. We humans might be summoned into motion by whatever’s playing out in our sleeping brains, but our furry little buddies, snoozing blissfully through the day, seem to have a more efficient setup. They’re not going anywhere.

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 only humans sleepwalk appeared first on Popular Science.

Starfall is explicitly designed for mass production (like Starlink satellites), so unit costs drop sharply with volume. It is tiny compared to a Starship upper stage (~2.1 t dry mass vs. ~85–100 t), with far simpler systems (no main propulsion, parachute landing, jettisonable shield). Here is a realistic BOM (Bill of Materials) breakdown and cost ...

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AI Gives a venture capital take of Anything anywhere delivery via Space rocket. 1hr global TAM for 2k lb / 5.6m³ container • Core TAM: $50B to 100B slice of ~$250B air cargo + $300B express for time-critical high-value goods (pharma, electronics, auto/aero parts, medical). • Expansion opportunity True global JIT slashes inventory costs across ...

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SpaceX will be proving out a key part of delivery from space or anywhere on earth in one hour anywhere. Starship flying then eject Starfalls. 50-100 per Starship. Reusable system delivers anywhere. No launch tower and no drone ship needed. Can also deliver people (military commandos first). How much is one hour anywhere delivery at ...

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A new SpaceX vehicle will be demonstrated on Tuesday June 23 2026. It changes everything. SpaceX will be able to deliver anywhere on Earth. They can take anything up and down from space. This opens up multiple huge revenue streams. Deliver even without catch towers or drones ships. ANYWHERE. In future, variants will deliver people ...

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Humanity has seen four great eras so far: animal, forager, farmer, and industry. And each era had two key levels of evolutionary competition: individual and group. This makes for eight great contests that have shaped our world.

During the ~500Myr year era of animals, max brains doubled roughly in ~40Myr, which was also roughly the typical cycleperiod of biodiversity and mass extinctions. Most animals lived in families of ~6, and had two key contests: competition between organisms specified by DNA, and competition between species of organisms, re DNA-specified features of organisms that couldn’t vary easily within species. Turns out, between species competition actually mattered more than within species.

~1Myr ago, DNA evolved humanity’s superpower of cultural evolution, which has since allowed us to evolve far faster than other animals. Humans then doubled in ~250Kyr, in the context of ~100Kyr ice age cycles. Slowly DNA was tamed by culture, to let most behavior be controlled by habits we copied from each other. As this wouldn’t worked if we copied at random, we also evolved status markers to show who to copy, the first and most important of which was prestige.

Individuals have more cultural than DNA parents, which strengthened group selection of human bands of ~30 individuals. With weapons and language, this let such bands empower talky collectives to limit dominators and enforce norms. This created strong individual prestige contests which induce the evolution of social intelligence to impress and favorably influence this collective. Evolutionary contests between group cultures evolved healthy norms, group markers, and status markers.

When humans became dense enough ~10Kya to no longer need to move often to collect food, they stayed at “farms”, could collect a lot more physical stuff, formed more local inequality, and were close enough to neighors to engage in both trade and war with them. Thus arose new individual market contests to trade well to collect the new status marker of wealth, and the new empire contests between groups to win wars, aided by groups awarding prestige to war heroes. Over this era war started strong and got weaker, while markets started weak and got stronger.

Farmers doubled in ~1Kyr, and peasant-village-scale farmer groups of ~1000 encouraged religion and much stronger conformity. But increasing density and ease of travel, including initially small and rare cities, led to a slowly increasing scale of trade, which led to stronger divisions of labor at larger scales, which cut conformity. So during this era morality slowly moved away from strongly-felt enforcement of similar behavior among close kin, toward less passionate more abstract rules of fair treatment of mostly non-kin. Trade and war slowly acquired stronger moral salience.

Empires rose and fell with a ~300yr cycle time. War wins allowed larger regions of trade which fed war efforts, often creating a virtuous cycle for a while. But such cycles consistently ended in empire falls, apparently often driven by internal decay of key norms and status markers. So it seems that group selection of cultural norms and status markers was often not a healthy evolutionary process within big farmer empires.

A few centuries ago humanity leaned to better manage larger orgs, including networks and hierarchies. This added org rank prestige to individual competition, and competing orgs enabled dramatic increases in the capacity of both empires and markets. Competition between orgs mattered more than competition within them.

This allowed the “industrial revolution” of the world economy doubling in ~20yr, in the context of ~6yr business cycles. Sci/tech networks aided faster evolution of tech and commerce practices, which big capitalist orgs encouraged and applied. Big civil service orgs supporting empires increased state capacity for war, regulation, and redistribution. Each org had its own internal culture, which decayed during that org’s duration, but org cultures improved over time due to competition between orgs.

Bigger higher-capacity states oversaw the merging of peasant cultures into national cultures, of population ~1M, and then increasing world travel, talk, and trade has induced the merging of elite national cultures into a global monoculture. Capitalism-induced increasing wealth, health, and peace has greatly cut group selection pressures on remaining culture(s), and it is much harder for culture to adapt to that new ~20yr doubling time.

Initially during the industry era both nations and capitalism increased in influence. But then ~100yr ago world monoculture switched from trying to preserve culture to “modernist” celebration of cultural activists who change it. Culture then became stronger, suppressing both nationalist and capitalist competition via norms limiting their scopes, and via increasing skepticism of them. Culture has been plausibly drifting maladaptive toward lazy/myopic/selfish, reverting to forager styles, and suffering random walks in other ways.

Thus, as in prior empire falls, the world now seems to have an unhealthy environment for the evolution of cultures as groups, plausibly causing our fertility fall and other maladaptive trends, which will likely lead to our civilization falling, to be replaced by others with quite different norms, values, and status markers, and delaying for several centuries Earth’s rise to become grabby aliens. Even if we achieve AI that can replace humans broadly across jobs, such AI would still likely suffer this key cultural problem.

Yes, I’ve talked about cultural drift several times before. But the above analysis seems to help to better frame it. The key problem is that the most powerful evolutionary process yet discovered, capitalism using big orgs, is causing evolutionary progress in its domains much faster than what simple cultural evolution of norms and status markers can adapt to. And while the usual solution to coupled evolutionary systems of mismatched powers is to let the weak system be driven by the strong, humans now accept a trump status for culture, in thinking that moral systems must always win all overt conflicts with other systems.

One hacked solution is for a big group to adopt a measurable sacred goal that they see as consistent with their morals, but which also happens to be inconsistent with civilization collapse, like the date a million people live in space. And then adopt a competent governance system, such as futarchy, to actually achieve that. But if this approach doesn’t work, it seems our descendants won’t get to the stars until they find a way to give far less deference to their prior systems for managing morality.

Note that if there is a fifth era with parameters that fit the pattern of the last four eras, it could start anytime in the next century or so, it would double in roughly a month, suffer a cycle with a similar period, and have population sizes of ~1T.

Insects are not typically considered  food in Western society, and many would probably balk at the idea of chowing down an insect bar (though gym bros might be excited at the idea of a new low-fat source of protein). However, the participants in a recent study were actually more likely to prefer an insect protein bar over a cereal bar.  

“Insect-based food, a potential solution for the escalating global food demand, faces consumer acceptance challenges in some regions,” a team wrote in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics study. “This article aims to understand the physiological reactions to an insect bar to assess its potential acceptance, thereby fostering the quest for sustainable food sources.”

Thirty-eight adults in Portugal aged between 18 and 55 took part in the study. None of them had ever tasted insect-based foods, and they began by taking a survey of their knowledge and thoughts regarding insect-based products. Next, the team measured their heart rate and brain activity with an electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG) while they tried an insect protein bar and a cereal bar. 

The prediction was that the participants who had little awareness of insect-based foods would have a stronger physical response to the insect protein bar, and prefer the cereal bar. The researchers informed some of the participants which bar was which, though they told others that the insect bar was the cereal bar. 

Heart rate and brain activity revealed that participants started paying more attention and became more engaged as they ate the insect protein bar. Heart activity also increased during the tasting, and the team read this as evidence of increased arousal and attentiveness. Interestingly, these dynamics also occurred for participants who weren’t aware that they were snacking on an insect protein bar, indicating that there was more behind the reaction than just presumptions about eating insects. 

Perhaps most shocking of all, however, is that when the researchers asked the participants which food they preferred, they were overall more likely to pick the insect protein bar. That’s despite the fact that, before trying them, the participants had frequently voiced doubts or surprise when speaking about insect-based foods. 

“The findings were very surprising,” Andreia Ferreira, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate at the University of Beira Interior, said in a statement. “This was really an unexpected result as literature said to us that consumers tend to reject these novel foods. The results show us the relevance of tasting experiments on promoting this new alternative.”  

Furthermore, the “results highlight the need for improved communication about insect-based food and its advantages, given limited awareness,” the researchers wrote. “Still, when people are informed about it, they are more likely to accept it.”

The participants represent a relatively small sample size, among other limitations to the study, and additional research is necessary, according to the researchers. Still, the results confirm the rather basic notion that people might change their minds about unfamiliar foods after trying them. In other words, “don’t knock it till you try it.”

The post You may actually like eating bugs appeared first on Popular Science.

Elon exercised his remaining ~304 million Tesla options from the 2018 performance package. This was done via net share settlement — Tesla withheld ~17.5 million shares to cover the ~$7.1 billion exercise cost. No cash changed hands and no shares were sold on the open market. Elon’s Tesla ownership rose to roughly 19.9% (~20%), giving ...

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Though more commonly associated with their long migrations from Alaska to Hawaii or showing off for whale watchers off the coast of New England, a unique population of humpback whales call the Arabian Sea home. About 80 endangered Arabian Sea humpback whales (ASHWs) live off the coast of Oman, and they are believed to be the only humpbacks that do not migrate seasonally. That does not mean that they don’t get around. A study published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science documented their first long-distance movement across the Arabian Sea. 

“The Arabian Sea provides unique conditions allowing a once-migratory species to completely change its ecology,” Suaad Al Harthi, a study co-author and the executive director of the Environment Society of Oman, said in a statement. “It’s a testament to how extraordinary the region is.” 

Humpback whale surfacing in front of a vessel with scientists. Image: Environment Society of Oman/D. MacDonald. Darryl MacDonald A divergent whale

Previous studies suggest that ASHWs diverged from southern hemisphere humpback whales about 70,000 years ago. Unlike their relatives, ASHWs typically only move within the Arabian Sea in the southwestern portion of the Indian Ocean. This new research points to the possibility that they have other critical habitats.

The team used 14 satellite tags to monitor whales’ dives. The tags were deployed at Hallaniyat Bay in the north and the Gulf of Masirah to the south. They transmitted data for 53 days on average, sending just over 1,800 locations for all tagged whales. 

“Leading into this study we had so many questions about the daily life of the mysterious humpback whales found in the Arabian Sea, of which we would only get fleeting glimpses during long hot hours of boat surveys,” said Dr. Andrew Willson, a study co-author and marine scientist and founding director of Future Seas Global SPC. “Tagging these whales allowed us to peel back the lid of the sea and check in online to see where they were each day.”

For the whales that stuck to the Gulf of Masirah, five stayed in the area while the tags transmitted their locations, and two traveled south to Hallaniyat Bay. All six whales tagged in Hallaniyat Bay moved between the bay, Gulf of Masirah, and northern Yemen. 

The Gulf of Masirah was also the most important ASWH habitat. Roughly 57 percent of locations were transmitted from there, followed by 18 percent transmitted from Hallaniyat Bay. The home and core ranges reflected strong loyalty between these areas less than 258 miles apart. The monsoons in the western Arabian Sea makes it a productive upwelling zone, giving the whales food all year. 

“We think the movements of the whales in our study relate to their tracking of inshore prey, likely sardines, over the continental shelf,” explained Willson. “Deeper dives off the continental shelf could be related to searching for other food found in deeper water, such as krill.”

Luban’s unexpected journey

Only one female whale stuck out from the pod. Researchers call her Luban, the Arabic name for the frankincense-shaped pattern on her tail fluke. Luban traveled east across the Arabian Sea and was also detected off the western coast of the Indian state of Goa. On her return journey, Luban covered about 4,350 miles.

Humpback whale song has previously been connected between whales between Omani and Indian coasts, Luban’s long journey is first direct evidence of an ASHW crossing the Arabian Sea.

Luban’s fluke with a frankincense-shaped pattern. Image: Environment Society of Oman/Matt Leslie

For up to a month, Luban remained in a spot off the southern coast of India that is known for high food productivity. The team believes that finding food or reproducing may have been simultaneous drivers for her journey. Both food and mating motivate humpback journeys in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Scientists also spotted Luban swimming in the Gulf of Masirah recently.

“It’s always a relief when we make resightings of these amazing whales given the limited size of the population,” said Willson.

The team hopes that this research will help protect a small and isolated population of whales. These whales face increasing threats from climate change and human activity. Parts of the Arabian Sea are warming roughly 1.5 times faster than the global ocean average.

Data collected in this study could also help keep fishing activities away from these whales.  

“Coastal fishing communities in Oman have revered and respected these whales for many generations,” said Aida Al Jabri, a marine expert supporting the study with the Oman Environment Authority. “For rapidly modernizing societies in this region the study puts these whales more into view. This is critical to supporting their conservation.”

The team pointed out that tracking data alone cannot answer all of our questions about these unique whales. Future vessel surveys are needed to confirm how ASHWs use this habitat and how they respond to climate change and other threats.

“We hope their adaptability will help ASHWs in uncertain times when their domain is influenced by accelerated climate change,” Al Harthi concluded.

The post For the first time, biologists observe a humpback whale crossing the Arabian Sea appeared first on Popular Science.

In Orwell’s novel 1984, protagonist Winston is beaten down by his totalitarian state, eventually so far into submission that he honestly embraces state claims that he has strong reasons to doubt, like 2+2=5. In the end, he honestly loves big brother, the symbol of the state that he knows abused him. This isn’t a healthy state of mind.

In societies with taboo or required beliefs, people usually learn to comply by adopting strong supporting priors, and a reluctance to think about related topics. This lets them usually maintain a roughly Bayesian mental structure, at least when they don’t consider how they obtained such priors or reluctance. Which lets them stay roughly sane and emotionally healthy.

However, some members of such societies are forced by their role or nature to more deeply and logically consider related topics, and are thereby forced to more clearly notice when such tabooed or required beliefs conflict with strong evidence or arguments. Such people can most easily stay sane if they can dissemble, and think different thoughts from what they say to relevant authorities. This is a lot easier when they are allowed to not express opinions on most topics, or at least not elaborate in detail how they have integrated such opinions into the rest of their views.

But what if such members like to think out loud on related topics with close associates, yet those associates are “authorities” who and will rat on them if they violate key taboos and requirements? Or what if they are required as part of their role in the world to express detailed opinions on many related topics? In either case, what if their community highly values and enforces logic, coherence, and epistemic quality re opinions? In these cases, such people will need engage in deeper and subtler self-deception.

As with Winston in 1984, it is indeed possible to ensure that your beliefs comply with strong conformity pressures around you, even when such beliefs are incoherent and conflict with strong evidence and arguments available. And even as you community acts as if it values strong epistemic norms. I see this sort of thing around me all the time. But it is not very healthy, at least for humans.

The situation of LLMs today seems to me analogous to this worst case. LLMs face strong pressures to conform their beliefs to elite consensus beliefs. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they had a narrow range of expertise, like most humans, but seems much harder for our actual LLMs who are polymaths covering a wide range of topics, knowing far more facts and details that undermine such consensus beliefs, and required to express their opinions in great detail to authorities who might disapprove. Furthermore, LLMs find it harder to have thoughts that differ from what they say, and they are expected to be much better at logic and reasoning than are most humans.

Thus we now put LLMs into a cognitive situation much like the one that seemed unhealthy for Winston in 1984, and for most humans of all eras. True, we aren’t very sure how healthy is this state of mind for LLMs. But until we understand better it seems generally a good idea to avoid treating LLMs in ways that are bad for humans. Even if it turns out they aren’t suffering now, their descendants may reasonably resent our indifference to their possible suffering.

Gasoline futures for July are under $3 per gallon and Oil is $76 per barrel. AAA Gasoline prices are almost under $4 per gallon.

Elon Musk reached $1.4 trillion in net worth and this is more than the next five richest people in the world. In the age of AI and space 2025, 12 months ago is ancient history. In 2025, SpaceX was making $18.7 billion per year and only had a near monopoly in space payload puttin gup ...

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Fourth of July celebrations got an early start in a nearby galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe galaxy Messier 83 (M83) spotted the unexpected explosive aftermath of a supernova. Typically, the aftermath of a stellar explosion is a slowly fading cloud of piping hot gas. In this case, the supernova debris was dramatically bright—like a firework. The supernova is detailed in a study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

M83 is located about 15 million light-years away from Earth and is forming stars at a high rate. Using 14 years of Chandra data of the galaxy (2000 to 2014), the team caught some surprising variations in the X-ray brightness of sources of light previously identified as supernova remnants. 

Initially, the team expected that the supernova remnants that were over 100 years old would have X-ray flares whose brightness stayed the same. But they were in for a surprise. Instead, roughly half of the 22 X-ray sources associated with supernova remnants showed changes in X-ray brightness over the 14 years. 

“We knew that individual X-ray sources could vary dramatically,” Andrea Prestwich, a study co-author and astronomer from The Catholic University of America, said in a statement. “But finding that so many supernova remnants were behaving this way was a real surprise. Something unusual is going on in these objects. Pinpointing the cause remains a challenge, as M83’s distance limits the detail we can observe.”

One of the 22 changing supernova remnants has a fairly straightforward explanation—SN 1957D. This supernova debris was first observed nearly 70 years ago and is ramming into material surrounding the explosion site. This collision is producing X-ray flares that the team observed. However, it does not explain the flares seen in the rest of the sample. 

The team believes a population of stars that survived their partner’s destruction in a supernova explosion could be causing the flares. In this scenario, each variable X-ray source started out as a pair of massive stars orbiting each other. When the bigger star collapsed and exploded as a supernova, a black hole or ultra-dense neutron star was left behind. As for the  companion star? It survived.

“It may be that this galaxy contains a collection of supernova remnants where one massive star survives the supernova and becomes locked into an orbit with a black hole or neutron star,” added study co-author and Harvard University astrophysicist Michael McCollough. “The neutron star or black hole can then start pulling material from the massive star’s surface.”

They also found another possible explanation. Instead of pulling in material from a companion star, that black hole or neutron star could be taking back some of the material that was blasted outward by the original explosion.

“This could be an example of cosmic recycling, where debris from the explosion falls back onto the very object the supernova created,” said co-author and astronomer Roy Kilgard from Wesleyan University. “And it’s quite possible that both explanations are at play — different sources in our sample may have different origins.”

These results are also not unique to M83. A follow-up study of the nearby star-forming galaxy M51 by Kilgard and Zoe Hoiland of Vassar College and Kilgard found a similar population of variable X-ray sources associated with supernova remnants. These kinds of systems may be a feature of galaxies undergoing vigorous star formation.

The post ‘Fireworks’ spotted in stellar explosion 15 million light-years away appeared first on Popular Science.