406mph, HoTD Lizards, New Shape Magnetism & More!
01. The World's Fastest Hydrogen Car Just Hit 406 MPH
Twenty years after setting a diesel land-speed record, British driver Andy Green returned to Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats with a very different machine. This time, it ran on hydrogen.
The 9.75-metre-long JCB Hydromax is less car and more land-based missile. Powered by two hydrogen combustion engines producing around 1,600 bhp, it was built by a British engineering collaboration involving JCB, Prodrive and Ricardo. Green, the same man who became the first person to break the sound barrier on land in ThrustSSC in 1997 climbed behind the wheel.
The result?
That was the official two-way average, establishing a new FIA world land-speed record for a hydrogen-powered vehicle. Perhaps the coolest part is that this isn't a battery-powered electric prototype. The Hydromax actually burns hydrogen inside internal-combustion engines, demonstrating another possible route for reducing fossil-fuel use in heavy machinery and transport.
406 mph. Powered by hydrogen. Driven across a salt desert by the fastest man on Earth. British engineering hasn't completely lost its mind just yet.
02. Scientists Discovered A Real-Life "Dragon" And Named It After House Of The Dragon
Scientists exploring mountainous evergreen forest in Thailand have discovered a new species of horned lizard, and it genuinely looks a little like a miniature dragon.
The animal has been named Acanthosaura syrax. After Syrax, the dragon ridden by Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon. Genetic analysis confirmed that it is a distinct species, becoming the 23rd recognised member of its genus.
The creature has yellow-green colouring, prominent spines and horns, and appears to inhabit a relatively narrow high-altitude range in Thailand's Mae Wong National Park. That limited habitat also means scientists are already concerned about its vulnerability.
03. Scientists Just Learned How to Switch On a Strange New Kind of Magnetism
Researchers have demonstrated a way of inducing an unusual magnetic state in an ultrathin material. The phenomenon relates to a recently recognised class of magnetism called altermagnetism, which combines unusual characteristics associated with traditional ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials. The researchers found that the magnetic behaviour could potentially be manipulated in extremely thin materials.
Why care?
Because controlling magnetism at microscopic scales is hugely important for things such as, computer memory, spintronics and future electronics.
It's essentially another strange physical property engineers might eventually learn to turn into technology.
04. Scientists Are Reading the DNA of Giant Tortoises Lost to Time
Scientists at Yale have developed a way to extract more information from ancient giant-tortoise DNA. Using new computational techniques, researchers identified two extinct populations of giant tortoise from ancient genetic material.
Ancient DNA research is becoming extraordinary because bones aren't merely telling us what an animal looked like anymore.
They're becoming biological archives.
Scientists can potentially reconstruct relationships, populations, migrations and extinctions from tiny fragments of genetic material left behind thousands of years ago.
How deep is the deepest known cave on Earth?
A) 480 metres
B) 970 metres
C) 1.4 kilometres
D) More than 2 kilometres
Answer: D — More than 2 kilometres.
Veryovkina Cave in the Caucasus reaches approximately 2,204 metres deep from its highest entrance to its lowest explored point.
That's over two kilometres straight down into the Earth, deeper than stacking more than six Shards on top of one another.
Which place experiences thunderstorms on roughly 300 days a year?
A) The Amazon Rainforest
B) Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela
C) The Congo Basin
D) Singapore
Answer: B — Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.
The area is famous for Catatumbo lightning, one of the most extraordinary weather phenomena on Earth.
Research found that conditions around Lake Maracaibo can produce deep storm convection on around 297 days per year, particularly at night. The phenomenon is so persistent that it has been nicknamed the “Never-Ending Storm.”
Where would you find the longest mountain range on Earth?
A) South America
B) Asia
C) Under the ocean
D) Antarctica
Answer: C — Under the ocean.
Earth's mid-ocean ridge system stretches for nearly 65,000 km (40,000 miles) around the planet, making it by far the world's longest mountain range.
More than 90% of it is underwater. It's essentially an enormous chain of underwater mountains and volcanoes wrapping around Earth like the seams of a baseball.
Happy Sunday!