KELT-11b, one of the physically largest objects known, is 40 percent wider than Jupiter and has the density of styrofoam. (Credit: Walter Robinson/Lehigh University)
Last week, a team of astronomers reported the first potential discovery of an exomoon–a satellite orbiting a planet around another star. Part of what is so striking about the report is the scale of this possible planet-moon system. In this case, the “moon” appears to be about the size of Neptune; the planet it or ...read more
(Credit: Irina Kozorog/Shutterstock)
An ant without a sense of smell is an ant that’s lost.
After creating ants that had been genetically modified to lack a sense of smell, scientists watched them wander away from their colonies, steal food, refuse to mate and fail to tend to eggs — antisocial behavior that contradicts the hive-mind mentality of most ant communities.
It’s likely not because of any sociopathic tendencies on the ant’s part, but because they’ve been ...read more
The solar eclipse seen from Gemini 12. NASA.
The Gemini program was sort of NASA’s overlooked middle child. It didn’t have the excitement of being the first time American astronauts flew in space like the Mercury did, and it didn’t have the glamour of going to the Moon like Apollo. Which means most people don’t know it happened. But the Gemini program was how NASA learned to fly in space, to perform rendezvous and docking maneuvers, change orbits, and test all ...read more
A genetic rescue project has restored the pink pigeon population from just 12 birds to over 400 today. (Vikash Tatayah/Mauritian Wildlife Foundation)
“Voldemort outlived Harry Potter,” Christelle Ferriere tells me as we walk around the small, uninhabited island of Ile aux Aigrettes, off the east coast of Mauritius. “Whoever bands them gets to name them,” she explains. Ferriere is a bird expert with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) and the fantastical beasts she w ...read more
An emperor scorpion. (Credit: By Vova Shevchuk/Shutterstock)
A scorpion’s sting doesn’t just impart venom — it uses a special acid to bring the pain.
In research published Wednesday in Science Advances, a team of researchers looked into why scorpion venom packs such a punch. The venom targets several pain receptors to warn away would-be predators, and it uses acid to make the sting all the more excruciating.
Packing A Punch
Scorpion venom is custom designed to hurt like ...read more
Smoke from wildfires blankets a large portion of the Pacific Northwest, as seen in this image from the GOES-16 weather satellite acquired on Aug. 2, 2017. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA)
The Pacific Northwest is sitting under a massive heat dome and a horrible pall of thick smoke from raging wildfires in British Columbia and Washington.
Source: RAMMB/CIRA
You can see the grayish smoke clearly in the image above from the GOES-16 weather satellite. Make sure to click on it to view it full-sized. Als ...read more
The transparent ceramic “window.” (Credit: David Baillot/UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering)
One of the biggest problems in neuroscience is very simple — access. The brain is encased in the bony cranium, and many regions are buried beneath layers of brain tissue, making any intrusion potentially dangerous. Physically probing into the brain is also extremely difficult, and because you can’t just cut it open and sew it back up afterward as you might another or ...read more
U.S. Astronaut Randy Bresnik took this photograph of Typhoon Noru from the International Space Station. (Source: Randy Bresnik/@AstroKomrade via Twitter)
After a very long and strange trip, powerful Typhoon Noru has turned toward Japan.
As of Wednesday afternoon in the U.S., the storm’s maximum sustained winds were pegged at about 115 miles per hour, putting it in Category 3 territory. It now looks like Noru will come ashore on Saturday in the northern reaches of the Ryukyu Islands, ...read more
