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science

SPACE: Are Buried Martian “Lakes” Just Frozen Clay?

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Mars

Bright reflections that radar detected beneath the south pole of Mars may not be underground lakes as previously thought but deposits of clay instead, a new study finds. For decades, scientists have suspected that water lurks below the polar ice caps of Mars, just as it does here on Earth. In 2018, researchers using the MARSIS radar sounder instrument on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft detected evidence for a lake hidden beneath the Red Planet’s south polar ice cap, and in 2020, they found signs of a number of super-salty lakes there. If these lakes were remnants of … Read more

Science Brings Us Super Bendy Ice!

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Super Bendy Ice

Ice is stiff and brittle — if you bend it, it will snap in two. Right? Not quite. Researchers just found that when grown in tiny strands, ice can defy its reputation for breakability, becoming so elastic it can even bend into a loop, according to a new study. These ice microfibers are so bendy that they are near the theoretical limit for ice elasticity. Perhaps even cooler, the scientists who grew the bendy ice think that their teensy ice strands could lead to both an avalanche of new ways to better understand ice in its natural state and more … Read more

NATURE: Attack of the (Bee) Clones

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Cape Honeybee - Deposit Photos

When hives of the African lowland honeybee (Apis mellifera scutella) collapse, they do so because of an invisible inner threat: the growing, immortal clone army of a rival bee subspecies. That army is possible because the female workers of the rival subspecies — the South African Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) — can create perfect copies of themselves, with one individual found to have done so millions of times in the past three decades. With this perpetual-cloning ability, the Cape honeybees sneak into the hives of their lowland honeybee rivals and churn out copy after copy (no need for a … Read more

What Happens When You Shoot a Water Bear Out of a Gun?

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tardigrade - deposit photos

Tardigrades, those adorable, chubby water bears, are notoriously hardy — they may even survive an apocalypse that wipes out humanity. But can these hardy water bears survive being shot from a gun? New research has found that yes, these hardy critters can make it out alive, but they also have a breaking point. The new study was inspired by uncertainty about the fate of tardigrades that were aboard Israel’s Beresheet probe when it crash-landed on the moon in 2019, according to Science magazine. Had the tardigrades, also called “water bears,” survived and contaminated Earth’s lifeless companion? After all, these teensy … Read more

Could We Build Jurassic Park?

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Tyrannosaurus Rex - pixabay

Welcome to Jurassic Park. As we open the gates to this zoo of previously extinct creatures, how would you expect the dinosaurs behind them to look? For those who have read or watched “Jurassic Park,” the image of a dinosaur may have already been planted in your mind. Your perception might be plagued by the gruesome scenes of park rangers becoming easy meals, or the film’s iconic theme tune might resonate in your head as you envision herds of long-necked beasts parading across the land. With great species diversity, the thrill of this dinosaur park cannot be denied. But can … Read more

SCIENCE: i Hope You Like Vanilla…

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Plastic Bottles - Pixabay

In the future, your vanilla ice cream may be made from plastic bottles. Scientists have figured out a way to convert plastic waste into vanilla flavoring with genetically engineered bacteria, according to a new study. Vanillin, the compound that carries most of the smell and taste of vanilla, can be extracted naturally from vanilla beans or made synthetically. About 85% of vanillin is currently made from chemicals taken from fossil fuels, according to The Guardian. Vanillin is found in a wide variety of food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, cleaning and herbicide products, and the demand is “growing rapidly,” the authors wrote in … Read more

SCIENCE: There’s Now a Bionic Vulture

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Bionic Vulture

A wild vulture recently had surgery in Vienna to implant a bionic leg. While still a nestling, Mia suffered a major injury to her right leg. Her parents had used sheep wool to hold the nest together, and some of the fibers became tangled around the young vulture’s ankle. With her strangled foot starved for oxygen, her toes began to die. Fortunately for Mia, a team of veterinarians treated her injury. However, the foot was beyond repair; an amputation left her with a right leg ending in a stump. For a bearded vulture, lacking a foot is a death sentence, … Read more

Rich People Destroyed Their Own feet With Pointy Shoes in Medieval England – All for Fashion

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Pointy Medieval Shoes - Deposit Photos

Being fashionable usually comes at a cost, and stylish people toward the end of the Middle Ages in Britain paid a steep price for wearing pointy shoes. Pointy-shoe wearers often developed bunions, a type of foot deformity in which a bony mass forms at the base of the big toe and pushes that toe inward at an angle. While many factors can cause bunions, known medically as hallux valgus, this condition was far less common in the 13th century and earlier, when footwear styles were less extreme, according to a new study. As these fashion victims grew older, they incurred … Read more

Are We Inching Closer to Quantum Internet?

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quantum internet - pixabay

When the precursor to today’s internet carried its first message in 1969, clunky but functional classical computers had already been around for decades. Now, physicists are designing the embryonic threads of a whole new internet for moving and manipulating a radically different type of information: the quantum bit, or “qubit.” And this time, they aren’t waiting for the corresponding computers to exist first. Two teams have now demonstrated an ensemble of technologies essential to building the backbone of such a network — devices known as quantum repeaters. The researchers managed, for the first time, to use light particles to bind … Read more

Stopping Time for Dummies

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Time - pixabay

The relentless march of time can be a source of anxiety. Who hasn’t sometimes wished for the ability to freeze themselves in a happy moment or even prevent a loved one from slipping away. Every once in a while, a science-fiction book, movie or TV show will feature characters who can do what we all wish: Stop time. But is such a thing possible? Answering that question requires a deep dive into the farthest corners of physics, philosophy and human perception. First, we have to define time. “To a physicist, it’s not that mysterious,” Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at … Read more