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Science

What Are California’s “Dark Watchers”?

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Dark Watcher - deposit photos

For hundreds of years, people have looked up at the hazy peaks of California’s Santa Lucia Mountains at sunset and seen tall, cloaked figures staring back. Then, within moments, the eerie silhouettes disappear. These twilight apparitions are known as the Dark Watchers — shady, sometimes 10-foot-tall (3 meters) men bedecked in sinister hats and capes. They primarily appear in the afternoon, and according to a recent article on SFGate.com, visitors to California have seen them perched ominously on the mountaintops for more than 300 years. “When the Spanish arrived in the 1700s, they began calling the apparitions los Vigilantes Oscuros … Read more

What Is Ice 19?

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ice - pixabay

Scientists have identified the 19th form of water ice. The exotic, four-sided crystals of this rare ice variety, now dubbed ice XIX, form at ultra-low temperatures and ultra-high pressures. It only exists in laboratory experiments, but researchers say it reveals more about other forms of ice, which can be found deep in the Earth’s mantle and on very cold planets and moons. “To name a new ice form, one needs to elucidate exactly what the crystal structure is,” said lead researcher Thomas Loerting, a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. That means figuring out the … Read more

SPACE: MOXIE Will Soon Make Oxygen – On Mars

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MOXIE - Nasa

Having safely landed on Mars on Feb. 18, NASA’s newest rover, Perseverance, is just beginning its scientific exploration of the Red Planet. But sometime in the next few weeks, the car-size robot will also help pave the way for future humans to travel to our neighboring world with a small instrument known as the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). MOXIE, which will soon be pulling precious oxygen out of Mars’ poisonous atmosphere, is gold-colored and about the size of a bread box. It sits tucked away inside Perseverance’s chassis, where it will conduct the first demonstration on another … Read more

Storing DNA on the Moon

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earth from moon - deposit photo

A “lunar ark” hidden inside the moon’s lava tubes could preserve the sperm, eggs and seeds of millions of Earth’s species, a group of scientists has proposed. The ark, or gene bank, would be safely hidden in these hollowed-out tunnels and caves sculpted by lava more than 3 billion years ago and would be powered by solar panels above. It would hold the cryogenically preserved genetic material of all 6.7 million known species of plants, animals and fungi on Earth, which would require at least 250 rocket launches to transport to the moon, according to the researchers. Scientists believe the … Read more

PHYSICS: Meet the Swirlon

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school of fish - swirlon - Yay Images

Fish school, insects swarm and birds fly in murmurations. Now, new research finds that on the most basic level, this kind of group behavior forms a new kind of active matter, called a swirlonic state. Physical laws such as Newton’s second law of motion — which states that as a force applied to an object increases, its acceleration increases, and that as the object’s mass increases, its acceleration decreases — apply to passive, nonliving matter, ranging from atoms to planets. But much of the matter in the world is active matter and moves under its own, self-directed, force, said Nikolai … Read more

What if Earth’s Magnetic Field Flips Again?

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Earth's magnetic field - NASA

A reversal in Earth’s magnetic field thousands of years ago plunged the planet into an environmental crisis that may have resembled “a disaster movie,” scientists recently discovered. Our planet’s magnetic field is dynamic and, numerous times, it has flipped — when the magnetic North and South Poles swap places. In our electronics-dependent world, such a reversal could seriously disrupt communication networks. But the impact could be even more serious than that, according to the new study. For the first time, scientists have found evidence that a polar flip could have serious ecological repercussions. Their investigation connects a magnetic field reversal … Read more

Identical Twins Aren’t Actually Identical

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twins - pixabay

Identical twins form from the same egg and get the same genetic material from their parents — but that doesn’t mean they’re genetically identical by the time they’re born. That’s because so-called identical twins pick up genetic mutations in the womb, as their cells weave new strands of DNA and then split into more and more cells. On average, pairs of twins have genomes that differ by an average of 5.2 mutations that occur early in development, according to a new study. “One particularly surprising observation is that in many twin pairs, some mutations are carried by nearly all cells … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Dire

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Dire wolf in the snow.

So, I learned something cool the other day. Which, to no one’s surprise, lead me down an even cooler rabbit hole of information. Facts and tidbits I’m stoked to have as I plot a pretty big (for me) series that involve extra-dimensional beings and evolution. In a war where magic and biological advantage is supreme, this is the stuff which awesome details are made of. Convergent evolution is a known thing in the word of biological science. Two, or more, species that look and act the same but are genetically different. What I didn’t know about was the massive reclassification … Read more

SCIENCE: What if humans had photosynthetic skin?

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green man - deposit photos

The series “Imaginary Earths” speculates what the world might be like if one key aspect of life changed, whether related to the planet or humanity. Green skin is common in science fiction, from little green men to Hera Syndulla from “Star Wars Rebels” to Gamora from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” But what if green skin were not just for fictional aliens? If humans had green skin, for instance, what if it granted us the ability to perform photosynthesis, which plants use to live off of sunlight? Let’s analyze what science says about similar abilities in other animals and ask award-winning … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Asymmetry

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Cute cartoon spider on a web.

Not gonna lie, spiders are both really curious to me and creepy as hell. Just my opinion and I’m not making a judgement on anyone who likes these little guys. They aren’t my jam, that’s all. However, they’re very interesting once I get past the makes-my-scalp-crawl part. So, here’s a content warning for anyone who doesn’t like spiders: the links have spiders. You’re warned. When the news piece that spawned this little post came across my feed, I scrolled down quick because spider! But then my brain kicked in and I remembered seeing space in the headline. What I found … Read more