Almost two miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, on a lonely outcrop of bare rock 100 miles from Costa Rica, researchers on a geological expedition found something odd. As their remotely controlled submersible sunk through the black waters toward the seafloor, they saw a collection of purple lumps dotting the rocky bottom. As they got closer, they resolved themselves into something resembling a bowling ball with suckers. It was a group of female octopuses, of the genus Muusoct ...read more

It's intuitive: We hear a message, think about it, and decide whether or not we believe it. We have to do it whenever we get a new piece of information in our lives, from politics to the news to gossip, so you’d think we’d be good at it by now. But studies constantly show that our squishy human brains don’t make it quite so easy. Presenting information in different ways — whether there’s a photo included, or changing the colors of the words — affects our inte ...read more

Earth has been taking a very slight breather this year from the seemingly unrelenting record-setting global temperatures observed in the previous two years. And this past month was no exception. By NASA's accounting, March 2018 was the sixth warmest such month in records dating back to 1880. In an independent analysis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pegged March as fifth warmest. And for the first quarter of the year (January through March), NOAA shows the pe ...read more

Would you get on a plane that didn’t have a human pilot in the cockpit? Half of air travelers surveyed in 2017 said they would not, even if the ticket was cheaper. Modern pilots do such a good job that almost any air accident is big news, such as the Southwest engine disintegration on Tuesday. But stories of pilot drunkenness, rants, fights and distraction, however rare, are reminders that pilots are only human. Not every plane can be flown by a disaster-averting pilot, like Southwest Cap ...read more

Beans, beans, the musical fruit! The more you eat, the more you toot! Well, not according to this oldie-but-goody study (published in 1984, doubleplusgood!). Here, scientists had 12 men eat kidney beans for 23 days and measured how much they farted. It turns out that the gas quantity didn't change during that time, no matter if the men typically ate a lot of beans or not. However, the longer they ate the beans, the better they felt (less discomfort). So let's eat beans for every meal! Inf ...read more

How long is the U.S. coastline? It's a straightforward question, and one that's important for scientists and government agencies alike. The U.S. Geological Survey could give you an answer, too, but I'm going to tell you right now that it's wrong. In fact, no one could give you the right answer, and if you look around, you'll find a number of estimations that differ by seemingly improbable amounts. One government report lists the number as 12,383 miles. The same report admits that a differ ...read more

Guest post by Steven Du Creamistry – n.  the science of creating ice cream using Liquid Nitrogen and not to be confused by the Ice Cream shop with the same name [4]. Ice cream does not seem complicated to make, but contrary to popular belief it is not as simple as just freezing cream and sugar; rather, this complex process requires slowly freezing cream to allow for small ice crystals to form, which results in a creamy ice cream texture.   While the ice cream making process ...read more

Diamonds found in meteorites on Earth may have come from an ancient long-dead planet the size of Mercury or Mars, the first potential known relics from these lost worlds, a new study finds. Scientists examined a ureilite, a kind of meteorite that is rich in carbon and sometimes even possesses diamonds. More than 480 ureilites have been discovered so far, says study lead author Farhang Nabiei, a materials scientist and electron microscopist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in L ...read more

Our first question upon hearing that someone has a new baby is usually "Is it a boy or a girl?" But our first question upon hearing that someone has gotten a new puppy is more often "What breed is it?" Breed is at the heart of how we perceive dogs. It affects many of our expectations of them - energy level, intelligence, friendliness - for better or for worse. With mutts, however, our urge to make breed-based assumptions can be stymied by the lack of a known breed to which to attach those assump ...read more

Jupiter may be one of the most recognizable sights in the solar system, but it still manages to surprise us. (And not just the everyday folks unfamiliar with its nighttime appearances.) With NASA’s Juno probe in orbit around the gas giant, we’re seeing a new side to the planet, answering some questions but raising others. The latest came out last week at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, where researchers showed off twisty patterns of the ...read more