Popular Science

Concrete is everywhere, and that’s a problem. Manufacturing the essential material accounts for around eight percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, making it one of the single biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Researchers are investigating all types of creative solutions to the issue, often by replacing ingredients with more eco-friendly alternatives.

Recent propositions include adding coffee grounds, bacteria, and even recycled diapers into the mix.But engineers at Purdue University in Indiana think the answer can already be found in the natural world. According to a study recently published in the journal Chemistry of Materials, one solution may be swapping out the cement for shellfish.

“Oysters generate a natural cement. They use this material for attaching to each other when building reef structures,” chemist and study co-author Jonathan Wilker explained in a recent university profile.

Wilker has spent years examining the biological properties of oyster cement in hopes of recreating the sturdy adhesive for other applications. They have since learned that the bivalves bind together by producing the inorganic compound calcium carbonate—basically chalk. While calcium carbonate isn’t usually adhesive by itself, oysters also produce a small amount of stickier organic materials like phosphorylated proteins. This allows the shellfish to fuse together, even when saturated in water.

After breaking down the chemical composition of oyster cement, Wilker’s team recreated it in a laboratory. They then collected a bunch of limestone bathroom tiles, since their calcium carbonate is virtually identical to oyster shells. From there, they glued stacks of tiles together using their artificial, biomimetic cement. In nearly every stress test, the tiles broke before the bond itself.

Confident in their faux-oyster cement’s abilities, Wilker and colleagues finally tried combining a polymer from their creation into commercially available concrete mix. In lab tests, their oyster-inspired concrete was 10 times stronger while doubling its compressive strength. On top of all that, it also took less time to cure.

Wilker’s team plans to continue testing their patent-pending recipe. He notes that it’s not simply stronger. It’s even more eco-friendly when compared to most adhesives on the market.

“Most of the adhesives that you see at the hardware store are made of organic compounds, derived from petroleum,” he said. “There is so much more that we can learn from nature.

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Everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes its controlled detonations. Texas A&M University recently revealed what they say is the world’s largest controlled explosion lab, where researchers can fill a nearly 500-foot metal tube with gas and ignite it in the name of science. They are calling it The Detonation Research Test Facility (DRTF). By precisely measuring what it takes to turn a simple flame into a massive, deadly detonation, researchers hope to make discoveries that could better prepare engineers to prevent gas leaks, and potentially inform ways to build explosion-resistant infrastructure. And all of that will require lots and lots of yeehaw inducing bangs.

Located in Southeast Central Texas, the detonation tunnel is about six feet in diameter and stretches nearly the length of two football fields. Its metal exterior consists of three-quarter-inch steel walls and is covered in earth to muffle the sound—or try to, at least. Inside, the tube holds various sensors that can measure the explosion as it intensifies. By containing all the power within the facility, researchers can study explosions strong enough to level entire buildings. The shockwaves that form in the tunnel can apparently reach speeds of Mach 5—or roughly 3,800 miles per hour.

“The facility enables us to observe, measure and understand one of nature’s most extreme forces in ways that haven’t been scaled before, or even been possible until now,” Texas A&M Engineering professor Dr. Elaine Oran said in a statement. 

Measuring a detonation, from flame to boom 

The idea for the massive detonation tunnel began as an inquiry from the coal mining industry. Industry leaders sought to scientifically determine whether natural gas trapped in a coal mine could explode and detonate. The short answer is yes. It quickly became clear, however, that a facility capable of measuring that would prove useful for a number of other explosion-related questions as well.

To measure an explosion, researchers start by sending an electrical current through a long wire leading into the chamber. Eventually, the current leads to a spark, which creates a flame, not unlike a gunslinger  in a Western striking a match and watching a flame trickle its way to a stick of dynamite. 

Texas A&M University’s Detonation Research Test Facility is a nearly 500-foot detonation tube more than 6 feet in diameter, built with three-quarter-inch-thick steel walls and paired with a 90-meter earth-covered muffler. Image: Texas A&M University College of Engineering.

When the flame enters the chamber, it begins a violent journey. The chamber is lined with what researchers refer to as an “obstacle course” of metal beams that generate turbulence. As the flame travels, more surface area is created, which in turn causes it to burn faster and stronger.

Eventually, all of that power creates a shockwave in front of the flame. Once the shockwave is strong enough, it pushes forward and creates a second, much larger explosion. That second, earth-shaking boom is the detonation.

Video footage of the process occurring in real time is dramatic, to say the least. Everything is quiet except for a voice in the control room counting down three, two, one. That’s followed by what sounds like a muffled gunshot as the flame enters the tube’s first segment. Visually, the tunnel’s thick metal exterior quivers and soil shakes off it as each succeeding segment ignites. That all leads up to the detonation, which is a significantly larger  boom that shakes the entire facility and sends earth soaring into the air. Seconds later, amid smoky air, the soil can be heard raining back down, like an artillery scene from a war film.

And even though the facility is designed to withstand massive explosion level forces safety, it still leads some to check their heart rates. 

“There’s a lot of nervousness, [and] jitters,” Texas A&M Aerospace engineering student Zachary Wideman said in a video. “Because something on this scale with this type of energy, you can’t help but be nervous.”  

Though the facility’s controlled explosions will likely prove most useful for industrial safety initially, engineers involved believe its scientific findings could have broader appeal. The shockwaves it creates could prove important for future testing of hypersonic plane and space shuttle propulsion. On the more conceptual side, scientists interested in the history of the cosmos could use the tube’s controlled explosions to help build models of supernovas, which undergo a similar physical process, albeit on a much, much larger scale.

The post The world’s largest explosion lab is ready for big booms. And yes, it’s in Texas. appeared first on Popular Science.

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to Popular Science’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals our editors can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

FACT: This musical motif is works like an emotional cheat code 

By Jess Boddy

So I played a lot of Hollow Knight: Silksong last year. And if you’ve played or even watched some of that game, you’ll recognize the core motif that’s embedded in the game’s entire soundtrack. In fact, it might even sound familiar if you’ve never played Silksong at all. That’s because that motif is actually an 800-year-old Latin chant called the “Dies irae.”

After it made the rounds in the Catholic church as a part of funeral requiems, it jumped to secular music and eventually movies. Most memorably, the opening of The Shining copies the exact melody of this ancient church song. But composers also sneak it into less obviously menacing movie scores like Star Wars, The Lion King, Shrek, and hundreds more. (Another more recent example is Frozen 2.)

Of course, it’s also trickled into video games like Silksong—and Elden Ring, The Witcher 3, and many others. I was curious why this often four-note motif is so prevalent, so I interviewed a musicology professor at the Berklee College of Music. He helped me break down why this motif sounds so sad, both contextually, psychologically, and sonically. Listen to the full episode to hear the motif and see for yourself just how sad it is! (And keep an eye out for my upcoming YouTube video essay on the topic, too!)

FACT: A roller coaster ‘thoosie’ on the latest advances in amusement park tech

By Grant O’Brien

This week’s episode features special guest Grant O’Brien, who you’ve probably seen on the streaming network Dropout. 

The last time Grant joined us on Weirdest Thing, we broke format to quiz him on weird historical gossip:

This time, we let Grant go wild on his favorite nerdy hyperfixation: roller coasters. Check out this week’s episode to learn about the hottest new technological features in coaster design—and why he has a few notes for the folks who designed Falcon’s Flight.

FACT: This disabled bird is the alpha male of his flock 

By Rachel Feltman

Here’s a riddle for you: What do you call a bird with a busted beak? An alpha male, apparently.

This is the story of a kea—which is a species of alpine parrot from New Zealand—named Bruce. Bruce made the media rounds a few years ago because of his unique methods for adapting to a lack of top beak. After losing this seemingly necessary chunk of himself, researchers found, he found new ways to incorporate tools into his grooming and eating routine. Bruce was thriving! What a wholesome tale.

A new study sheds light on some arguably less adorable, but to my mind no less inspiring, behaviors from Bruce. To make a long story short, this disabled parrot uses his half-beak to stab his adversaries. And it works really, really well. In fact, the researchers studying Bruce say he serves as the alpha male of his flock (or “circus,” to use the correct term for a group of cheeky kea) by just about every metric they could measure. Far from being shunted aside due to his undeniable handicap, Bruce has basically invented a method of fighting that’s so foreign to his peers that they can’t figure out how to beat him. 

You can read more about Bruce’s innovative fisticuffs here. 

The post Movies use this one musical trick to make you feel miserable  appeared first on Popular Science.

Today, extensive tooth repair or replacement often requires the installation of a dental bridge made from durable resin and metal. That said, the procedure is nothing new. Archaeological examples of dental bridges date back thousands of years across cultures around the world. Recently, researchers discovered the oldest variant ever found in Scotland, but it’s anything but inconspicuous. According to a study recently published in the British Dental Journal, the medieval dental bridge excavated in Aberdeen was crafted using 20-carat gold.

Simplified bridges made from silver or gold wire called dental ligatures date back to at least 2,500 BCE in ancient Egypt. In some cases, funerary preparers installed them in the recently deceased to make their bodies appear more “complete” for the afterlife. However, it took until the Middle Ages before more complicated dentistry spread throughout Europe. Even then, primary texts suggest tooth maintenance likely wasn’t performed by doctors or surgeons.

“During the Middle Ages, teeth were often treated by barbers, or dentatores, who were individuals that specialized in teeth.”University of Aberdeen archaeologists wrote in their study.

Few dental ligature artifacts exist from England prior to the 17th century, and none of them were found in Scotland before the team’s analysis. That is until 2006. A team digging on the grounds of East Kirk of St. Nicholas Kirk in Aberdeen (“kirk” is Scottish for “church”) uncovered a trove of skeletal remains including the skull in this study.. The team recently reexamined 100 of the roughly 900 individuals in the collection—only one of which featured a dental ligature.

35x magnification of the knotted end of the ligature. Credit: Dittmar, et al.

X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and radiocarbon dating filled in many gaps about the person’s identity. Based on their findings, the researchers believe the remains belonged to a middle-aged man who died in Aberdeen sometime between 1460 and 1670. Dental evidence also revealed his bridge had been installed long before his death.

The 20-carat gold alloy ligature’s existence and composition suggests that the man was not only wealthy, but well connected in his community. Although they can’t definitively know if he received care in Aberdeen, records show around 22 goldsmiths worked in the area during that era. These artisans were likely skilled enough to craft and securely knot the wiring.

The reasons for receiving the implant were probably “multifaceted,” according to the study’s authors. Physical appearance during the Late Medieval and Early Modern eras was often culturally tied to one’s character.

“The appearance of a person and their perceived health was linked to one’s sins,” they explained. “As such, the social importance of an individual’s smile encouraged those who were able to afford such treatments to seek them out.”

Apart from being the first dental discovery of its kind in Scotland, the artifact underscores just how long humans have balanced the complex interplay between wealth, beauty standards, and personal health.

The post A medieval Scot rocked a 20-carat gold dental bridge appeared first on Popular Science.

Four words: sled dog puppy cam. The Puppy Cam at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska is back for the season, and viewers can now watch five future canine rangers in action. Named after various national parks, sled dogs Sequoia, Mammoth, Rainier, Teton, and Mesa were born on March 30. Another pup named Acadia will soon join the team from a partner kennel. Viewers can watch them grow, play, learn, and bond with their human ranger counterparts.

Denali’s sled dogs are actual working rangers, carrying on a tradition of helping protect the park’s wilderness that goes back 104 years. They haul supplies and patrol two million acres of land in one of the most wild places in the United States. Denali Sled Dog Kennels is also one of the oldest sled dog kennels in the country. 

The puppies are freight-style Alaskan huskies. Freight-style huskies have long legs to help them break a trail through the snow, compact paws that resist ice build-up between the toes, in addition to sturdy coats and puffy tails to keep them warm when temperatures plummet well below zero. As far as personality, it’s important that canine rangers are tenacious, have an “unbridled love to pull and run as part of a team,” and good social skills. The kennels receive thousands of admirers every summer, so it’s important that they are not afraid of us humans. 

The mother—or dam—of this new litter is named Spark. She was born in 2023 and is already a Denali Kennels canine ranger. The father–or sire—named Trapper is from Sage Mountain Kennel in Fairbanks, Alaska. Later in May, the Sage Mountain kennel will select two of the puppies from this litter who will stay in Denali for a few more weeks and then return them to Fairbanks to join their teams. Denali will also acquire one puppy from a litter that was born at Middle Earth Mushing Kennels in Fairbanks on April 3.

“Arranged breeding and splitting litters with partners strengthens the health of the kennel’s lineage, as well as the health of all freight-style Alaskan huskies,” Denali National Park and Preserve rangers wrote in a statement.

If the Puppy Cam isn’t enough, visitors to the park can experience the kennels on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning on May 15, the kennels will be open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a free sled dog program at 2 p.m.

The post Denali’s adorable Sled Dog Puppy Cam is back for 2026 appeared first on Popular Science.

Red means stop. Red means danger. Red means passion. The color conjures up a whole range of emotions and associations. It inspired an entire Taylor Swift album. And yet if someone asked you to describe what red actually looks like, without pointing at something red, you’d hit a wall almost immediately. 

So why is it that a color so evocative and distinctive as red (or any color, for that matter) still manages to elude our attempts to nail it down with words? 

If you just now said, “It’s because color doesn’t exist,” well played!  If you’re like me and your face just turned an indescribable shade of red, welcome to the club. 

“There is no color in the world,” says American neuroscientist Christof Koch. “There are photons of a particular wavelength emitted by the sun that strike an object, and then get reflected into the eye of the viewer. The electrical activity that’s generated there then travels up into the cortex of the brain, and gets processed into something we call color.”

In other words, red isn’t something out there in the world waiting to be objectively and uniformly experienced. It’s something your brain makes up. So does color even actually exist? Neuroscientists think maybe not. At least not in the way we think it does. 

Does color even exist? Short answer: Not really.

Koch, a Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, discusses the subjective experience of color using a famous thought experiment called Mary’s Room. Introduced in the 1980s by the philosopher Frank Jackson, the experiment involves a hypothetical neuroscientist, Mary, who lives in a black-and-white room. Mary knows everything there is to know about color: the wavelengths, the photoreceptors, the way color is processed within the visual cortex. She has read every paper and has conducted every experiment. But Mary has never actually seen color.

One day, Mary leaves the black-and-white room. And for the first time in her life, she sees a red tomato.  

The question Jackson posed is deceptively simple: When Mary sees the red tomato, does she learn something new?

Jackson’s answer was yes. Despite knowing everything science could conceivably tell her about color, Mary is confronted by something that no textbook could convey—the actual experience of seeing red. 

“The feeling, the phenomenal quality, whatever you call it—the experience is subjective,” Koch says. “People have invented a dozen words or more to describe it. It remains inexplicable.”

That “it,” Koch says, is the experience itself—the felt sensation of seeing red that no amount of scientific language has ever quite managed to pin down.

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Philosophers call that experience a quale (pronounced KWAH-LAY) the felt, first-person experience of something: the redness of red, the sharpness of pain, the taste of coffee. Unlike the wavelength of red, which can be measured precisely, a quale can’t be objectively measured. It’s entirely an inside job.

Koch says the Mary’s Room thought experiment argues against materialism—the philosophical view that everything in the universe, including human experience, can be explained by physics. If materialism is right, there’s nothing science can’t eventually account for. Mary’s Room suggests otherwise: There are some things that science simply can’t explain.

Everyone see colors differently, but not that differently

For the most part, we go about our days equipped with this surprisingly loose consensus on our shared reality. If your blue isn’t quite the same as my blue, it’s close enough not to cause trouble most of the time. But every once in a while, something happens that reminds us how differently our brains can construct the same reality. 

In 2015, a photograph of a striped dress went viral for a reason that had nothing to do with fashion. The dress appeared blue and black to many, but millions of people looking at the same image saw white and gold, and couldn’t fathom how anyone could see it differently. In what now seems like a quaint public rift, the internet divided around the hotly debated reality of blue/black versus white/gold.

“It’s as though they were looking at the same screen,” says Koch. But “half the population saw one movie and the other half saw a different movie.” 

The explanation, says Koch, has to do with how the brain handles ambiguous lighting. Every time you look at an image, your brain makes an automatic, unconscious calculation about the overall brightness of it. This calculation is based on your habits and life experience. 

Research by NYU neuroscientist Pascal Wallisch, drawing on more than 13,000 participants, found that early risers were significantly more likely to see the dress as white and gold, while night owls tended to see blue and black

Because early risers spend more waking hours in natural daylight, their brains are calibrated to filter out blue light, leaving white and gold. Night owls, accustomed to warmer artificial light, filter that out instead and land on blue and black. 

“You get up early in the morning and see a lot of sunlight, or you get up very late and are primarily up at night with artificial light,” Koch says. “So depending on that implicit assumption, your brain gives rise to these two different percepts: white and gold, or blue and black.” It’s not a conscious, deliberate decision you take to view the dress one way or the other. 

Does this dress look blue and black or white and gold? Your answer might have to do with whether you’re an early riser or night owl. Video: What Colour Is This Dress? (SOLVED with SCIENCE), AsapSCIENCE

For Koch, the dress is a window into something fundamental about human perception.

“There is input from the world, but then your particular brain might make a set of assumptions, and my brain might make a different set of assumptions,” he adds. “We obviously agree most of the time, though, or else we wouldn’t have evolved.”

And for the most part, we do agree. A species that couldn’t agree on some basic shared realities wouldn’t have gotten very far. So don’t worry: Your understanding of red is probably pretty similar to my understanding of red.

We all have unique, built-in filters that change how we see the world

The dress, it turns out, is just the beginning. Koch cites the concept of the “perception box.” Writer and researcher Elizabeth R. Koch (no relation) coined the term in 2021 to describe the hidden forces that shape how we see the world. 

According to this theory, we each have our own unique perception box. Think of two people standing in front of the same abstract painting. One sees something beautiful and moving: The other sees a mess. Same painting, completely different experience. That’s your perception box at work. It’s shaped by your genes, your upbringing, and every experience you’ve ever had. 

“We all live in slightly different perception boxes,” he says. “The walls are invisible, and they can expand or shrink, driven by our genes, our neural wiring, our experience.”

Those walls, Koch says, determine far more than which colors we see. They shape how we interpret relationships, how we process emotions, and even how we react to the evening news. Two people can look at the same event and come away with completely different realities, not because one of them is lying, but because their perception boxes are simply built differently.

When it comes to the color red, you can measure its wavelength. You can map exactly what happens in the brain when the eye encounters it. But the actual experience of redness—that felt, interior, indescribable thing—lives inside your perception box, and nowhere else.

“This applies to any conscious experience,” he says. “It applies to pain, say, due to an infected tooth, or the distress you experience when someone leaves you. It’s true for taste, for boredom, for mystical experience, and for psychedelic experience. It has the same ineffable quality.”

Which brings us back to red. You’ve always known it when you’ve seen it. But that color you see? It’s yours and yours alone.

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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If you’re one of the roughly 1.6 million people who took a cruise in Alaska last year, chances are you sailed through the Tracy Arm fjord. The picturesque, narrow fjord is a popular sightseeing area and is part of the Tongass National Forest, about 40 to 50 miles south of the capital city of Juneau.

In the early hours of August 10, 2025, an enormous landslide triggered a massive tsunami down the fjord. The tsunami was 1,578-feet-tall, or one-and-a-half times the height of the Eiffel Tower. Fortunately, no one was caught in the wave since it hit around 5:30 a.m. local time. If the tsunami hit later that day, about 20 cruise ships and numerous recreational boaters and kayakers could have been impacted by the giant wave.

In a study published today in the journal Science, researchers studied this “near miss” event, finding that the continued effects of climate change were likely the cause. 

The team studied several eyewitness stories from that day. In one account, a group of kayakers reported waking around 5:45 a.m. to water flowing past their campsite and carrying away a kayak and much of their gear. Another observer aboard a cruise ship near the mouth of the fjord saw currents and white water with no wave, while another eyewitness described a six-foot wave along the beach.

The team of researchers also studied satellite data with NASA’s new Surface Water Ocean Topography satellite before and after the event, in addition to seismic data and numerical modelling to understand exactly what happened that August morning.

Field photos from reconnaissance trip for 2025 Tracy Arm landslide on August 13, 2025. Image: U.S. Geological Survey

“Until now, we simply didn’t have a way to observe these waves directly, but our study has demonstrated that using data from the new Surface Water Ocean Topography satellite can reveal the full sea-surface structure of these events, even if no one witnesses them directly,” Dr. Thomas Monahan, a study co-author and engineer at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. 

Monahan and the other study authors also found that there was not much warning before the landslide hit. 

“Normally with these gigantic rock avalanches, they often give some sort of warning signs in the weeks, months, years prior, when the slope is slowly moving down the mountain. It’s sagging and then it catastrophically gives way in a rock avalanche,” said Dr. Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary in Canada. “In this case, that didn’t happen.”

Instead, there was some minor seismic noise that was so slight it went completely undetected

“This one was truly a surprise,” Shugar added, noting that this presents some challenges for disaster reduction in high-risk areas.

Importantly, they found that the glacial retreat in the Alaska fjord led to the tsunami. From 1985 to 2020, glacier-covered areas in Alaska decreased by 13 percent. As temperatures continue to rise, glaciers will melt more and begin to retreat or shrink. These frosty mountainsides then can become unstable if the ice that has been in place for centuries melts away.

As cold regions continue to warm, glacier retreat increases the risk of hazards like this landslide, the study argues. Landslide-generated tsunamis like this can produce extreme, localized water inundation that is even bigger than those caused by the tsunamis generated by earthquakes. The size of the waves and narrowness of the fjords can be a recipe for disaster. 

However, carefully monitoring glaciers could help catch these kinds of tsunamis before they happen. This is especially important as climate change continues to affect these regions. The Tracy Arm fjord alone sees upwards of 500,000 visitors per year, so catching tsunamis early is crucial for public safety

“Ultimately what we hope is that coastal municipalities, the cruise ship industry, and other stakeholders take these threats seriously,” said Shugar.

At least six cruise lines, including Carnival Cruise Line, have altered their itineraries in Alaska for 2026 due to the hazards that remain in the Tracy Arm fjord. Additionally, the United States Geological Survey warns that steep, mountainous landslide areas are “inherently unstable.”  The Tracy Arm fjord tsunami will likely continue to change the landscape for years to come.

The post A 1,578-foot tsunami struck a popular Alaskan cruise destination. Now we know why. appeared first on Popular Science.

Convincing, uncannily humanoid robots are no longer the stuff of Star Wars. Sure, you may not have a protocol droid at your ready like the iconic (if neurotic) C-3PO,but you can certainly construct a computer model that imitates Luke Skywalker’s mechanical pal. Combine that with a voice generator and the ability to parse text inputs, and you have a conversational bot ready to accompany you on your next Kessel Run.

Need proof? Sam Potozkin, a Chapman University business analyst and robot enthusiast in Orange County, California, spent dozens of hours designing and assembling his own C-3PO conversation buddy. It may only be limited to one form of communication, but the results are undeniably accurate.

As Interesting Engineering explained, Potozkin first 3D-printed a hollow, plastic model of the robot’s head. From there, he committed himself to hours of sanding to eliminate any obvious seams and rough textures. This was followed by multiple layers of shiny spray paint topped off with the droid’s recognizable gold sheen. Potozkin’s construction culminated with a glossy coating that both protected his creation and gave it that extra bit of realism.

To be truly successful, the faux-3PO’s underlying program needed to convert audio to text, analyze the resultant script, generate a personality-accurate response, and then translate the answer into audio once again. All that work may sound like a tall order,but Potozkin built his entire AI workflow using a Raspberry Pi 5 without external assistance like remote servers.

However, the most impressive aspect to Potozkin’s project may be how C-3PO “talks.” Although the droid needs a microphone to analyze human vocal input, its own voice isn’t channeled through a speaker. Instead, a mechanical exciter vibrates the plastic head itself while additional, overlaid robotic effects bring the whole experience to life.

It’s wild stuff—and it may only be the beginning. Potozkin made all of his computer code and 3D files available for free on GitHub, including instructional documentation. It might take a while before C-3PO’s head gets attached to a functional, bipedal body, but he’s ready to pass the time in idle conversation until then.

In The Workshop, Popular Science highlights the ingenious, delightful, and often surprising projects people build in their spare time. If you or someone you know is working on a hobbyist project that fits the bill, we’d love to hear about it—fill out this form to tell us more.

The post Man 3D prints a chatty C-3PO head powered by AI appeared first on Popular Science.

Pope Leo XIV receives gifts from visitors from all over the world every year, but a newly identified insect may be the first papal tribute of its kind. In the journal Nota Lepidopterologica, entomologists describe a striking moth species recently discovered on the rocky Mediterranean island of Crete. With its royal color scheme and ecological significance, the winged insect lives up to its scientific name—Pyralis papaleonei, or the Pope Leo moth.

“The Pontiff is a strong advocate of climate and environmental protection, and we hope that his voice may serve as an example for humanity,” the study’s authors wrote.

P. papaleonei is the latest in a series of taxonomic revisions within the Peralis regalis species group. Although common across Europe, their widespread presence has proven a liability for entomologists. Recent re-evaluations have uncovered multiple unique subspecies among these often overlooked moths. P. papaleoni represents the newest addition to the family, after researchers from Austria’s Tyrolean State Museum, the Finnish Museum of Natural History, and the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology analyzed numerous specimens from the White Mountains located in the western region of the Greek island of Crete.

With a roughly 0.75 inch wingspan, the Pope Leo moth is a moderately sized insect within its group. Its particularly distinctive features include purple forewings accented by multiple white bands and deep orange spots. Molecular analysis showed about a six percent genetic divergence from the next closest relative—more than enough to earn it a new species classification.

For now, researchers know little else about the Pope Leo moth’s lifecycle and biology, although they seem most active around the month of June and appear endemic to Crete. That said, a single specimen observed in October suggests either a prolonged flight season or possible multiple generations over the course of a few months.

About 700 moth species are discovered every year, although most are located in tropical habitats. This makes the Pope Leo moth’s identification particularly noteworthy, but also serves as a vital reminder of the planet’s precarious ecological health.

“We are facing a global biodiversity crisis, yet only a fraction of the world’s species has been scientifically documented,” explained Peter Heumer, the former head of Tyrolean State Museums’ natural science collections and a study co-author. “Effective conservation of biodiversity requires that species are first recognized, described, and named.”

Heumer’s comments echo the Pope Leo moth’s namesake. While speaking at a global church summit on climate change last year, the pope urged a societal transition, “from collecting data to caring, and from environmental discourse to an ecological conversion that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles.”

The post New moth species named for Pope Leo appeared first on Popular Science.

This colorful cloud over Jonggol, Indonesia, is not a portal to the land of Oz. Or the rainbow road into Asgard from Norse mythology. Or even an AI-generated image. They are iridescent clouds, a rare type of cloud that appear when raindrops interact with sunlight. 

According to WABC meteorologist Lee Goldberg, the small water droplets or ice crystals inside of the cloud scatter sunlight, diffracting the light into a spectrum of colors. The rainbow effect is most visible when the sun is partially blocked by something like a mountain or thicker clouds.  

“These vibrant displays usually appear near the sun and can last for only a few moments—making them a truly magical sight for anyone lucky enough to catch them,” Goldberg writes.

Ida Pramuwardani, Acting Director of Public Meteorology at the Indonesian climate agency BKMG, told Detik News that the cloud in the video taken over the city southeast of Jakarta is a towering cumulus cloud blocking part of the rainbow.

“At the same time, there are towering cumulus clouds that can cover part of the rainbow, so that the shape looks incomplete or looks like a ‘rainbow cloud’,” Pramuwardani said in a translated interview. 

These clouds are also not a direct sign that a storm is coming in. Instead, rainbow clouds indicate that convective clouds are growing and that there is the possibility that rain will start to fall soon. 

Understandably, the beautiful sight reportedly stopped traffic, as onlookers rushed to capture footage of these candy colored clouds.  

The post No, these rainbow clouds over Indonesia are not AI appeared first on Popular Science.

We all know the feeling—a throbbing in your throat that won’t go away. Coughing offers only a momentary respite as your sore throat worsens throughout the day. At times like these, many of us reach for a soothing lozenge to calm the irritation and provide some relief, at least for a short while.

But what about when the tickle comes back and you reach for another throat lozenge? How many cough drops is too many cough drops? And what’s the worst that can happen if you go overboard?

Dr. Kait Brown, clinical managing director at America’s Poison Centers, assures that dangerous cough drop overdoses are extremely rare. But that doesn’t mean we should pop them like candy.

“What we get concerned about is the menthol within the cough drops, and rarely there may be some that have benzocaine, which is a local anaesthetic,” she says. In very high doses, these ingredients can cause symptoms, including vomiting, dizziness, and even seizures.

Menthol-based cough drops can soothe but also irritate

Menthol is an organic compound derived from peppermint or eucalyptus oils. In moderate doses, it acts as a counterirritant, producing a cooling and numbing effect on the inner throat. But if used to excess, the same compound can start to irritate the body’s mucus membranes.

One study by the Wisconsin Research and Education Network found that high menthol consumption was associated with longer-lasting coughs. Although more research is needed, this could suggest that irritation from cough drop overuse can prevent a cough from healing.

Extreme menthol overuse can also produce acute symptoms. “With larger doses, which is rare, we can see early symptoms that are more gastrointestinal in nature, so some nausea or vomiting,” Dr Brown says. “That’s from irritation of the stomach mucus membrane when you swallow those cough drops.

If these early symptoms are ignored, menthol’s pleasant numbing sensation can become dangerous.

“At really high doses it can affect neural transmission from those receptors, which could then result in neurological symptoms,” Brown explains. “Severe symptoms of a large menthol overdose would include things like confusion or changes in mental state, getting a little more sleepy or dizzy. And really severe cases would be things like seizures.”

It’s very, very hard to overdose on cough drops

Thankfully, it is not easy to consume enough cough drops to put you at risk of menthol toxicity.

A typical cough drop contains five to 10 mg of menthol. Toxicologists consider a lethal dose of menthol to be 50 to 150 mg per kilogram of body weight, although some estimates put the figure as high as 1,000 mg per kilogram.

This means that an adult weighing 170 pounds would have to eat 400 menthol-rich cough drops in a sitting to reach even the lowest threshold for a lethal dose. Considering that there’s usually only 20 to 30 cough drops in a standard bag, that’d be the equivalent of going through at least 13 full bags of lozenges.

Most cough drops, including Ricola, contain menthol. Menthol can be lethal at extremely high doses, but that doesn’t mean you have to likely curb your cough drop use. Image: MaxBaumann / Getty Images MaxBaumann

Reported deaths from menthol overdose are extremely rare. One of the only cases in the medical literature involved a worker in India who died suffering from seizures and kidney failure ten days after cleaning a tank in a peppermint factory. 

Another extreme case involved an 86-year-old man who was found unconscious by neighbors and rushed to the emergency room suffering from weakness, muscle ache, disorientation, ulcers, and heartburn. He admitted to consuming two bags of cough drops a day for twenty years, suggesting potential risks from chronic overuse.

Although some unpleasant side effects could be expected at much less excessive doses, most adults are unlikely to reach this level just to get them through a cold or flu.

“There’s a relative margin of safety with the menthol-based cough drops,” Brown says. She prefers not to estimate a safe quantity, for fear of promoting unhealthy usage, but stresses that “if you follow the instructions on the packet, you’re going to be within a window of safety.”

Why benzocaine makes cough drops more dangerous

Brown cautions that particular care is necessary if using cough drops containing benzocaine or other local anaesthetics.

“We don’t largely see benzocaine in these preparations anymore because of the risk of overdose associated with it,” she says. 

“You can get a condition called methemoglobinemia, which changes the capacity of your blood to carry oxygen. You can end up having too little oxygen delivered to your cells and that can result in things like bluing of the lips and hands and can be life-threatening.”

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What to do for a cough drop overdose

If anyone is worried that they’ve overused cough drops, Brown recommends contacting the America’s Poison Centers helpline at 1-800-22-1222. This is a national nonprofit service that advises Americans worried about exposure to common toxins. 

“There are healthcare professionals with extra toxicology training that can walk you through that specific scenario,” Dr Brown explains. “They can recommend that you stay home, or they’ll let you know if you need to seek a higher level of care.”

During her work at America’s Poison Centers, she says she has received many calls about cough drops, mostly from people reporting mild symptoms or just wanting to discuss incidents of potential overuse.

“It’s children we get most concerns about, because they’re most likely to use the product inadvertently,” she says. Although it is rare for children to consume enough cough drops to cause acute symptoms, she advises always leaving the product out of reach of children—and sometimes adults as well.

“When people are sick, maybe they don’t have the energy to think as clearly as they normally would,” she says. 

“We caution people that if you know you’re going to be using cough drops all day, take out the allotted amount that the package says you can have. That way you know you’re not exceeding the quantity you can safely use.”

But if you do have a few extra drops, there’s no need to panic—you’ll probably be just fine.

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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Life at high altitudes is unforgiving. The thin air and atmosphere make breathing and other bodily functions difficult—especially for humans. However, a cave over 7,000 feet above sea level in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain is forcing archaeologists to rethink how often our prehistoric ancestors made use of these heights. 

A team found a cave in Spain full of hearths, jewelry, and human remains, indicating that people may have been living at this incredibly high altitude as long as 5,500 years ago. A child’s finger bone and a baby tooth discovered among the rock also means this cave may have been a burial site. The cave and its findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.

For decades, archeologists believed that high-mountain environments like these were places that prehistoric communities only passed through occasionally. Cave 338 is 7,332 feet above sea level in Spain’s Núria Valley. The team dug through four distinct rock layers, with the oldest dating back 6,000 years ago. The most recent layer was thin, indicating that it was not frequently used. 

But layers two and three had plenty of surprises. The team found 23 hearths, all with crushed, burned green mineral fragments. The green fragments resemble malachite, a mineral that is rich in copper. From these preliminary clues, the team suspects that Cave 338 was a high-altitude mining camp between 3,000 and 5,500 years ago. 

Fragments of malachite, a mineral rich in copper, recovered during the excavations at Cave 338. Image: Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA.

“Many of these fragments are thermally altered, while other materials in the cave are not, which clearly suggests that fire played an important role in their processing and that there was a deliberate intention behind it,” Dr. Julia Montes-Landa, a study co-author and archaeologist and archaeometallurgist at the University of Granada in Spain, said in a statement. “In other words, they weren’t burned by accident.” 

The hearths also cut across each other, indicating that the visitors to the cave reused it frequently. They are also distinct, showing their visits were separated by a good chunk of time.

In the third rock layer, the team found a finger bone and a baby tooth belonging to at least one child who died around the age of 11. This could mean that more human remains are buried deeper within the cave, but there is currently not enough evidence to determine a cause of death or if the bone and tooth belong to the same child. 

However, two pendants found in the second layer offered more information about the possible remains. One pendant is made from a shell and the other a brown bear tooth and dates to around the second millennium BCE. 

A pendant made from a bear incisor was recovered during the excavations at Cave 338. Image: IPHES-CERCA.

“The shell pendant is interesting because it has parallels in other sites in Catalonia, which suggests shared traditions or connections between different communities,” Dr. Carlos Tornero, a study co-author and zooarcheologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, said in a statement. “The bear tooth pendant is much less common. That might point to something more specific or symbolic, possibly linked to the local environment.” 

While Cave 338 was not a full-time home, those who came here must have found their trips up the mountain valuable enough to keep returning for thousands of years. 

“We can’t say exactly how long people stayed each time, but the repeated use of the space and the density of remains suggest occupations that were short to medium in duration, but happening again and again over long periods of time,” Torneo added. 

The team still has numerous questions about how and when humans used the cave and hope to get a definitive answer on the chemical composition of the mysterious green mineral during upcoming field work this summer. 

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In a world first, Apple’s commercially lackluster Vision Pro virtual reality headset was successfully used to help perform a cataract surgery. New England-based surgeon Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD claims he used the $3,499 device alongside a custom-built app called ScopeXR to assist with a surgery in October 2025. Dr. Rosenberg claims he’s used the device to help with hundreds of other patients ever since. The app allows for remote collaboration, so  additional doctors, consultants, or even medical students in other rooms or cities can beam in and observe every cut and stitch, as if through his eyes.

“We are now able to bring the world’s best surgeon into any operating room, at any hour, from anywhere on the planet,” Dr. Rosenberg said in a press release. “From residents performing their first cases to surgeons facing unexpected complications, this technology democratizes access to expertise and that will save vision.”

Tuning into a surgery 

Apple’s Vision Pro headset is officially considered to be mixed reality because it incorporates elements of both virtual and augmented reality. That makes it a particularly attractive option for medical applications, where there’s a wealth of important contextual information relevant to surgeries or observation that could benefit from a visual representation. And while medical professionals previously tried to use older headsets like Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens in medical settings, those reportedly fell short due to their limited resolution. Apple’s headset, by contrast, has a best-in-class resolution.

But the hardware is only half of the equation. In order for this to work in real-world surgeries, Dr. Rosenberg had to co-develop specially designed software, which he refers to as a “mixed reality surgical platform.” The app takes data feeds from 3D digital microscopes and other equipment in the operating room and sends it directly to the Vision Pro. The surgeon can then view their operating area in stereoscopic 3D. The headset’s augmented reality feature lets the surgeon overlay relevant data directly on the patient or workstation.

3D imaging is useful, but the most important benefit provided by the system lies in its potential for collaboration. In theory, multiple surgeons  could all tap into the same first-person video feed and provide assistance for a surgery from anywhere in the world with internet access. Apprentices or medical students could also review footage from operations and use that to provide a more first-hand visual aid for their training.

“This isn’t just about a new device, it’s about reimagining what the operating room of the future looks like,” Rosenberg added.

Vision Pro gets a new life in medicine 

Apple released its first Vision Pro in February 2024 to much fanfare, but the device has largely failed to meet those expectations. Sales for the Vision Pro were meager compared to other groundbreaking Apple products, and some once excited owners reportedly expressed a feeling of “total regret” after watching their expensive toys gather dust. More recent reports suggest that Apple teams once dedicated to  the headset are now moving away from it to focus on other devices. 

But despite that commercial flop, the Vision Pro has seen some surprise success among a handful of professional industries. In September 2024, Dr. Santiago Horgan, a surgeon at UC San Diego Health in California, was reportedly the first person to complete an operation using the headset. He completed the initial paraesophageal hernia repair, and went on to use the device in dozens of more surgeries in the following weeks. Since then, the Vision Pro has been used in hundreds of different operations, including some intended to treat acid reflux and obesity.

Ironically, part of its growing appeal in medicine is the price. While the $3,500 price tag sounds unattainable for most consumers, it’s actually quite affordable compared to other medical equipment. The price point and its adaptability and ease of connecting to devices, has made the Vision Pro  increasingly attractive for medical professionals, especially those in regional or community hospitals where budgets are tighter.

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It traditionally takes years of training and apprenticeship before shipbuilders truly master the art of handcrafting wooden vessels. However, that doesn’t mean all that time is necessary. Kentucky-based YouTuber Nick Kroehnke, aka Cumberland Rover, has spent the past few months documenting his progress on constructing a simple, 12-foot-long sailboat using everyday materials from the local hardware store. As he demonstrates across multiple videos, sometimes all you need is basic carpentry skills and a bit of creativity to take to the water yourself.

According to Hackaday’s recent rundown, Kroehnke began his journey by building a rowboat using two pieces of 1×12 lumber that he bent and attached to a basic wooden frame. From there, it was only a matter of fastening a plywood bottom and installing a couple seats, along with waterproofing the entire boat.

But why stop there? More recently, Kroehnke added accessories like a mast and sail using additional hardware store lumber. The boat is gaff-rigged, meaning it relies on a square sail hoisted to the mast using a spar. The choices make for both a fast setup and a quick breakdown. When winds aren’t favorable, Kroehnke can still use a pair of oars to paddle along in his tiny ride.

Anyone truly interested in giving the project a shot can order his exact plans through his website. But if that seems like biting off more than you can chew, Kroehnke offers multiple other wooden boat designs, including a kayak and a pirogue.

Of course, just because you can build it doesn’t make you a master seafarer.  Make sure to learn the basics of sailing and always use proper safety precautions when on the water. The goal is to sail the boat, not go down with the ship.

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The king has returned. Maintenance workers at Katmai National Park in Alaska spotted 2025 Fat Bear Week champion Chunk. In a video shared by Katmai Conservancy, National Park Service (NPS) maintenance crews spotted the roughly large adult male brown bear (Ursus arctos) walking along on a patch of ice in the park. 

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Bears are not seen as frequently during the spring, so this early glimpse of Chunk is exciting. Katmai is a home and hunting ground for some of the largest brown bears in the world. They bulk up every summer on the salmon running up the Brooks River. Fatter bears are more likely to survive hibernation and the long winter ahead. To celebrate and raise funds and awareness, Katmai hosts Fat Bear Week, an annual tournament every fall where nature enthusiasts can vote online for Katmai’s fattest bear. Chunk was crowned last year’s winner, receiving 96,350 votes. The runner up— Bear 856—received 63,725 votes. 

Chunk—aka Bear 32—is known for his dominance and size, but also narrow-set eyes, dark fur, a prominent brow ridge, and a distinctive scar across his muzzle. He weighed roughly 1,200 pounds after gorging on salmon last summer.

The complete 2025 Fat Bear Week bracket. Image: Explore.org/National Park Service/Katmai Conservancy.

Bears like Chunk return to Brooks River every June when the salmon run begins. Last year, he was spotted with a freshly broken jaw. As it was also mating season, Chunk was likely injured while fighting with another bear for a mate. Even with his injury, Chunk managed to catch the salmon swimming in the river. 

“Chunk proved immediately adaptable,” explore.org writes. “He adjusted his behavior to avoid most direct confrontations with other large male bears. He quickly learned to eat salmon without the full use of his mandible. Additionally, his large body size still gave him easy access to many productive fishing spots. He remains one of the largest bears at Brooks River.”

Mating season generally begins in May, with peak mating in June. The males will sometimes pursue the females for up to one week before mating even occurs. The salmon run in Brooks River begins in late June, and the bears will spend the summer gorging on salmon. The largest number of bears are typically seen during the middle of July. 

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May 1Full Flower MoonMay 4One Last Chance to Catch Comet C/2025 R3 (Possibly)May 5Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower Predicted PeakMay 14May’s Lāhainā Noon BeginsMay 31Full Blue Micromoon

It’s spring! All is beautiful and full of life, and apart from that one weird smell, all is well in the great outdoors. Along with flowers and seasonal allergies, this month brings us plenty of opportunities for stargazing, from not one but two full moons to a meteor shower and the year’s first Lāhainā noon.

May 1: Full Flower Moon

The full Flower Moon on May Day? How much more spring-y can spring get? Unsurprisingly, the Flower Moon gets its name from the blooms that burst into life as winter releases its hold on the land. The Farmer’s Almanac attributes the name to several possible North American sources, including the Algonquin peoples of the continent’s northeast and/or the Dakota people of the Midwest. The moon will reach its peak illumination at 1:23 p.m. EDT on May 1.

May 4: One Last Chance to Catch Comet C/2025 R3 (Possibly)

If you missed Comet C/2025 R3 last month, or you just want another chance to look at it before it departs, you might be able to catch a glimpse depending on where you are. In the Northern Hemisphere, the combination of the (almost) full moon and the comet’s proximity to the sun will make it all but impossible to spot before it disappears over the horizon and moves into southern skies.

If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, you’ll have a little longer to try to take a look. The comet’s brightness will be decreasing, so you’ll need at least a good pair of binoculars, or ideally a small telescope, to see it. As per Starwalk, the comet will trace a line over the course of the month, starting in the constellation Eridanus on May 4, and moving up through Orion toward the Red Rectangle nebula.

If you miss out this time, well, that’s basically it. The comet’s orbital period is notionally around 170,000 years, but the latest models suggest that it ain’t coming back at all, predicting that it will be ejected from our Solar System entirely after this journey around the sun.

May 5: Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower Predicted Peak

The Southern Hemisphere also gets the lion’s share of this month’s only notable meteor shower, the Eta Aquarids. May’s annual meteor shower is predicted to peak on the morning of May 5. But never fear, because the shower is also visible from the Northern Hemisphere, albeit in reduced volumes. Southern skies are predicted to get up to 60 meteors per hour, with the north getting about half that number. As per EarthSky, the best time to look is just before dawn, when the moon is sinking toward the horizon. Look south toward the constellation Aquarius and enjoy the show!

The other notable fact about the Eta Aquarids is their source: Halley’s Comet. The famous space rock last visited in 1985 and makes an appearance in the Bayeux Tapestry, where it features as a harbinger of doom.

May 14: May’s Lāhainā Noon Begins

This month will bring the first of this year’s two Lāhainā noons for those living between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. If you live in the United States, that basically means people in Hawai’i, because the continental U.S. lies entirely north of the Tropic of Cancer. On May 14, the sun at noon will be directly overhead, which means that for a few moments, vertically standing objects—telephone poles, flagpoles, people—will not cast any shadows. For those of us non-tropical types unused to the phenomenon, it’s very strange—and not a little disconcerting—to behold.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever wondered, this is what defines the tropics: the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn demarcate the boundaries of the region of the earth from which the sun can be seen directly overhead. The more you know!

May 31: Full Blue Micromoon

I’ve been writing this column for a little over a year, and this is my first time writing about… a blue moon! This is the name given to the second full moon in a month, an occasion rare enough to have given rise to the expression “once in a blue moon.” In fairness, it turns out that they’re not that rare. Blue moons happen about once every two-and-a-half years—but still, they’re unusual enough to be exciting.

This month’s blue moon is also a micromoon.It’s smaller than usual because it occurs while the moon is near its furthest distance from the Earth. You can see it reach its peak illumination at 4:45 a.m. EDT on May 31. And just to be clear, it will not in fact be blue.  

Also, if you’re wondering whether we can ever go through a month without a full moon, the answer is yes—but only in February.

Anyway, whatever you choose to gaze upon this month, remember that you’ll get the best experience gazing at the cosmos if you get away from any sources of light pollution, give your eyeballs some time to adjust to the darkness, and review our stargazing tips before setting out into the night.

Until next time! 

The post May skygazing: A blue moon, fading comet, and a lot of meteors appeared first on Popular Science.

Renovations on government buildings in the coastal Belgian town of Nieuwpoort are currently on hold after surveyors discovered an impressive archaeological trove: dozens of carefully crafted stone cannonballs dating as far back as the 14th century. However, the medieval ammunition backstock wasn’t the only weaponry buried roughly 70 miles west of Brussels. According to city officials, experts also excavated an unexploded artillery shell from World War I.

“What has been exposed here in recent weeks proves that Nieuwpoort is a city where history is literally everywhere. Even a few meters under our feet,” Nieuwpoort Mayor Kris Vandecasteele said in a statement.

Investigations into the small plot of land began in February, after preliminary test digs indicated promising archaeological relics in the area. Since then, excavations have yielded numerous stone cannonballs near the site of what was once the city’s southern fortification wall. Researchers say that the carefully assembled stockpile and its location suggest it was an intentional store of ammunition dedicated to the town’s defense. This is further supported by the dig’s location near the city’s historic Stadshalle civic center and belfry, but this is not a definitive confirmation.

Stone cannonballs like those uncovered in Nieuwpoort represent an important transitional phase in medieval military technology. Popular across Europe between roughly 1350 and 1600, the ballistics could be fired from not only mechanical catapults and trebuchets, but explosive cannons. As Arkeonews highlights, the variations in cannonball size also suggest a mixed arsenal stocked for multiple types of weapons.

One additional discovery provides a poetic—if eerie—symbol of Nieuwpoort’s military and technological history. In a more recent soil layer, archaeologists also located an unexploded artillery shell that crashed into the ground during World War I. While Belgium’s explosive ordinance team safely removed the potentially volatile artifact, the shell serves as a reminder of the city’s longstanding strategic importance, due to its location on the English Channel. Nieuwpoort functioned as a front-line European city during WWI, and experienced widespread damage as a result of its location.

“What we find here exceeds our expectations: from medieval building structures and an exceptional depot of cannonballs to military relics that point to our past as a front city,” said Nieuwpoort Heritage Alderman Ann Gheeraert. “These excavations confirm that every construction phase in Nieuwpoort is also a journey of discovery into our own history, a past that has not yet revealed all its secrets.”

The post Medieval cannonballs and WWI bomb discovered under construction site appeared first on Popular Science.

An exclusive dance party is raging in the coastal marshes along southern Texas—and it’s coming to an end. However, to score an invite to this event, you have to be an Attwater’s prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido attwateri). From February through May, the males of this colorful bird species do a quick-stomping dance and make a low booming sound to attract a mate. 

Beginning in late January and into February, male prairie-chickens begin to gather in low grass to start this elaborate courtship display. These “booming grounds” will be the male’s stage for the next few months to show off for the females. Booming grounds are typically found in naturally occurring short grass flats or sometimes artificially maintained areas like dirt roads.

The real fun happens from February to May. Every morning, male prairie-chickens grab their spot on a booming ground and dance for hours. They drop their heads to inflate the two large orange sacks on the sides of their face to make a low booming sound. The chickens stomp with swift feet like an Irish step dancer, keeping their tails erect and wings drooped. They will even jump and charge at each other while dancing—pretty much whatever it takes to attract a mate. Unlike the club scene, this ritual is more of an older male’s game. Most of the females only choose two to three of the older and more experienced males, leaving most of the younger males out.

Once a female chooses a mate and breeds with him, she will leave the booming ground. Prairie-chickens build their nests in shallow depressions on the open prairie, typically about one mile away from the booming ground. Hens lay eight to 13 eggs that will hatch roughly 26 days later—if she’s lucky. Only about 30 percent of all nests evade their many predators, including skunks, opossums, raccoons, coyotes, snakes, and even domestic dogs and cats.

This mating dance is more than just an annual ritual for the birds. Attwater’s prairie chickens are among the rarest birds in the Lonestar State and are highly-endangered. According to Nature Conservancy working lands program director Kirk Feuerbacher, 98 percent of their habitat in coastal marshes has been redeveloped or altered. 

Roughly 200 exist in the wild, down from over 400 in 1993. They live in two isolated colonies in Texas—the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado County, and a parcel of privately owned ranch land. This important ranch land is part of the Nature Conservancy’s Refugio-Goliad Prairie Project, a protected 660,000 acres along the Gulf Coast between Houston and Corpus Christi. According to Feuerbacher, the population here has been increasing about 20 percent every year. In 2025, the Nature Conservancy counted 102 males on the booming grounds. This year, the team counted 138 males. 

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Scorpions are optimized hunters, whose skills have been honed through millions of years of evolution. An armored exoskeleton, strong pincers, a poisonous stinger—almost everything about their anatomy aids in either hunting insects, small mammals, and reptiles, or defending themselves from snakes and birds. But for years, entomologists were aware of a potential secret weapon in the arthropods’ biology: metallic reinforcements.

Researchers previously detected trace metals in the exoskeletons of at least some of the estimated 3,000 known scorpion species. At the same time, experts were unsure about the distribution and concentration of these metals.

“We knew that metals strengthen the weapons in some species’ arsenals, [but] we don’t know if all scorpions’ weapons contain metal,” Sam Campbell, an environmental scientist at Australia’s University of Queensland, explained in a statement.

Back-scatter electron (BSE) scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the telson of The yellow-fat tailed scorpion (Androctonus australis). Similar contrast of enrichment is present in the telson (stinger), highlighting the presence of metal. Also present is a clear line, we are terming the enrichment transition zone, where metal enrichment abruptly ends. Stingers in both msueum and wild specimens have been shown to snap break at, or near, this region. Credit: Sam Campbell/Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute JEOL

The answer might come in how they rely on their stingers and pincers. Some scorpion species wield their poisonous barbs more than their claws, while others deploy the opposite strategy. Campbell and colleagues theorized that the trace metal distributions might correspond to whether or not a species prefers its stingers or pincers.. 

While pursuing a Smithsonian fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C., the team used microanalytical methods like high-resolution electron microscopy and X-ray analysis to examine specimens from 18 separate scorpion species. Their results published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface found pincers and stingers do contain concentrations of metal.

“The National Museum of Natural History’s large scorpion collection allowed us to analyze metal enrichment in a wide range of scorpion species, more than have ever been studied before using these techniques,” said Museum Conservation Institute research scientist and study co-author Edward Vincenzi.

The results revealed a pair of distinct metal layers in scorpions. Stingers reliably featured high amounts of zinc in their needle-like tips, followed by a layer of manganese. The distribution is similar in pincers, as well. In the movable portion known as the tarsus, Campbell’s team pinpointed either zinc or a combination of zinc and iron along the claw’s cutting edge.

An X-ray spectral image superimposed on a scanning electron microscope image of the denticles (claw “teeth”) on the pincers of a giant hairy scorpion (Hadrurus arizonensis). The spectral image shows selective enrichment of zinc (red) in the denticles, in addition to phosphorous (green), and carbon (blue). Credit: Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute

However, each metal’s purpose isn’t quite what researchers hypothesized. Although they predicted stronger, crushing pincers to feature more zinc, they saw higher zinc levels in thinner, longer claws typically used in conjunction with stingers.

“This points to a role for zinc beyond hardness, perhaps playing a bigger role in durability,” said Campbell. “After all, long claws need to grasp prey and prevent it from escaping before being injected by venom. This is an interesting finding because it suggests an evolutionary relationship between how a weapon is used and the specific properties of the metal that reinforces it.”

The team’s findings have major ramifications for understanding the wider world of arthropods and insects. Scorpions are far from the only creatures to incorporate trace metals into their anatomy. By laying a clear foundation for future analysis, researchers can study how these evolutionary adaptations may appear across bees, wasps, spiders, and other animals.

“The microscopic-scale methods we used allowed us to identify individual transition metals in extremely high detail, showing us how nature skillfully engineered these metals in the scorpion’s weapons,” added Vincenzi.

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Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) go deep. They can dive 1,300 to 4,000 feet-deep and also travel as much as 15,000 miles per year. These depths and distances make sperm whales and other whale species particularly difficult for scientists to follow and study. 

A new autonomous underwater glider system aims to make that trek a little easier. The glider from Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), detailed in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, follows sperm whale vocalizations without getting in their way. AI is embedded directly into the glider, which allows it to react in real-time to the whale’s sounds while underwater.

Why gliders?

In addition to their long journeys and impressive diving, collecting long-term acoustic data has been difficult because traditional tags typically remain attached to the whales for only one to three days.  

Autonomous underwater gliders are a more recent addition to whale tracking. They can detect the presence of  whales while disturbing them as little as possible. According to the team, the new glider can actively follow whales based on their sounds. It could potentially monitor sperm whale populations and collect data for months at a time.

“This technology opens an entirely new dimension to studying whales underwater in their natural environment,” said David Gruber, the Founder and President of Project CETI. “We can now collect long-term communication information never before dreamed possible—like how a baby whale learns its clan-specific dialects as we can now listen to individual whales for extended periods.”

An actually helpful ‘backseat driver’

All underwater gliders have a navigation computer that controls its movement. In CETI’s new system, the team developed a custom “backseat driver” and acoustic sensing system with French ocean robotics company Alseamar. A second onboard computer is also equipped with a back seat driver. This computer processes acoustic data and runs detection algorithms that can recognize sperm whale vocalizations.

“With the new glider, we significantly extend ‘backseat driver’ capabilities by enabling complete mission changes (such as different dive plans),” Roee Diamant, Project CETI’s Underwater Acoustics Lead, tells Popular Science. “This allows fully autonomous control by the glider for tracking whales—a first for underwater gliders, like the Waymo of the underwater world.”

The glider also has four custom hydrophones so that researchers can find the source of underwater calls. Project CETI developed whale-detection and angle-of-arrival estimation algorithms that analyze the sounds in real time. This way, the system can pinpoint the source of the vocalizing whales and adjust the glider’s path. The individual navigation commands can also be updated via satellite every two to four hours when the vehicle surfaces. When the glider emerges above water, the computer transmits data, recalibrates onboard sensors, and can then receive new mission instructions before diving again.

Do not disturb

According to Diamant, the glider also limits the impact on the whales, a critical part of CETI’s mission of conducting “minimally invasive marine biology.” The glider is programmed to ascend once whale vocalizations are detected and then reposition itself to stay close to the vocalizing whales. 

“On-whale biosensors are deployed by gentle tap-and-go methods via drones rather than approaching the whales with vessels,” he explains. “Here, we extend this minimally-invasive approach by using a self-guided underwater glider that operates quietly and with less disturbance.”

Currently, Project CETI conducts most of its fieldwork within a roughly 12-by-12-mile study area off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean. There, they have witnessed a sperm whale birth, and also begun to decode the sperm whale alphabet and dialects. The new glider system may help the project expand monitoring beyond this one region, as the whales swim across broader ocean areas. 

The post The ‘Waymo of the sea’ tracks sperm whale conversations appeared first on Popular Science.