Moon AI, Fat Squids, Feet Tasting & More!
01. Meet the Fattest Jurassic Squid We've Ever Found
Two extraordinarily rare fossils found in Wyoming have revealed a previously unknown species of belemnite, an ancient relative of modern squid, cuttlefish and octopuses. It lived around 160 million years ago. Researchers named it:
Wyoteuthis linsterorum.
But there's something unusual about it. Its internal skeleton is exceptionally short, thick and barrel-shaped compared with other known belemnites.
Researchers describe it as effectively the “chunkiest” belemnite ever discovered. These creatures were once enormously successful, swimming through prehistoric oceans while dinosaurs walked on land.
Now, 160 million years later, two fossils have revealed an entirely new version.
02. NASA Just Found 84 Objects in Space We Can't Properly Explain
Astronomers digging through archival observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have identified 84 strange objects across six galaxies. The problem?
They don't behave quite like anything astronomers have previously grouped together. The newly identified objects emit unusually weak, low-energy X-rays while simultaneously producing intense ultraviolet radiation. Researchers have given them the wonderfully mysterious name: “Hypersoft X-ray sources.” And NASA says they appear to represent an entirely new class of cosmic object.
Scientists suspect they involve something extreme, perhaps a black hole, neutron star or white dwarf ripping material from a companion star. But they don't yet know exactly what they are. Even better, they could potentially help solve another mystery: where some of the intense ultraviolet radiation that ionises gas inside galaxies comes from.
The reason we missed them until now is fascinating too. The radiation they produce is extremely difficult for our telescopes to detect because intervening hydrogen and helium effectively create a barrier. Astronomers essentially found them by searching through a previously overlooked window in old telescope data.
03. Construction Workers Accidentally Found a 20-Metre Dinosaur
Imagine turning up to build a railway terminal and finding this. Fossils uncovered during construction work in northeastern Brazil have now been identified as a completely new species of giant dinosaur. Its name is:
Dasosaurus tocantinensis.
Researchers estimate the animal reached approximately 20 metres long and lived around 120 million years ago. But there's an even more intriguing part. Its closest known relative comes from what is now Spain. That connection gives scientists clues about how enormous dinosaurs dispersed around the world when today's continents looked completely different.
The researchers think its ancestors may have travelled from Europe through North Africa and into South America before the continents became fully separated. The Atlantic Ocean now separates Brazil and Spain by thousands of kilometres. But 120+ million years ago...
The world was a very different place.
04. NASA Just Built an AI for the Moon
AI is heading to the Moon. NASA and IBM have released an open-source AI foundation model specifically trained to understand lunar data.
Rather than training it on internet text, the model was trained using 30+ layers of lunar information from nine instruments aboard four NASA missions. Its jobs include:
Finding possible lunar ice.
Mapping craters.
Identifying volcanic features.
Helping scientists select potential landing areas.
And the water-ice part is particularly important. Ice trapped inside permanently shadowed lunar craters could eventually provide water and oxygen, and potentially contribute to making rocket propellant for missions deeper into space. In benchmark testing, the AI identified important lunar features up to 23% more accurately than commonly used approaches.
We spent thousands of years staring at the Moon. Then we sent humans there, maybe. Then robots. Now we're sending artificial intelligence to help us understand it.
Which animal can taste using its feet?
A) Butterfly
B) Owl
C) Rabbit
D) Gecko
A — Butterfly.
Butterflies possess chemoreceptors on their feet. When they land on a plant, these receptors can help them determine what they're standing on.
This is especially important for females searching for suitable plants on which to lay their eggs. So when a butterfly lands on something...
it's essentially having a taste with its feet.
What would happen if you somehow placed Saturn in a gigantic bathtub filled with water?
A) It would sink
B) It would float
C) It would dissolve
D) It would immediately freeze the water
B — It would float.
Saturn's average density is around 0.69 grams per cubic centimetre.
Water's is roughly 1.
That means Saturn is, on average, less dense than water. Obviously there's the minor engineering challenge of finding a bathtub approximately 120,000 kilometres wide.
Which animal has the largest eyes of any known living animal?
A) Blue whale
B) Colossal squid
C) Ostrich
D) Great white shark
B — Colossal squid.
Colossal squid can possess eyes around 27 cm across, approximately the size of a dinner plate.
Gigantic eyes are incredibly useful hundreds or thousands of metres beneath the ocean, where almost no sunlight penetrates.
They may even help squid detect disturbances caused by one of their major predators:
sperm whales.