Ancient Beer, New Penguins, Headless Animals & More!
Scientists Recreated The Ocean Of An Alien Moon
Saturn's moon Enceladus is basically a giant frozen ball hiding a global ocean beneath kilometres of ice. And scientists have just done something brilliant.
They recreated conditions thought to exist on the bottom of that alien ocean in a laboratory.
The environment is horrible: extremely cold, oxygen-poor and chemically hostile. Yet researchers found that certain microorganisms from Earth. Methane-producing archaea could adapt and survive under simulated Enceladus conditions.
This does not mean they've found life on Enceladus. But it demonstrates that organisms we already know about can survive conditions similar to those scientists think exist there.
And Enceladus conveniently fires material from its ocean straight into space through gigantic plumes, meaning future spacecraft could potentially sample its ocean without drilling through the ice.
Scientists Have Identified The First New Penguin Species In More Than 100 Years
You'd think we'd have penguins figured out by now. Apparently not.
Genetic research into gentoo penguins has revealed that what we called one species actually contains several distinct species. And one population living on the remote Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean has now been recognised as a new species:
Pygoscelis kerguelensis.
It's reportedly the first newly recognised living penguin species in more than a century.
The Kerguelen Islands are themselves wild, isolated volcanic islands roughly 1,200 miles north of Antarctica.
Europeans May Have Been Brewing Beer 6,500 Years Ago
Humanity really does have its priorities. Archaeologists excavating Provadia-Solnitsata in Bulgaria have uncovered malted grain dating back approximately, 6,500 years.
Researchers believe the evidence could indicate beer production in prehistoric Europe. Provadia-Solnitsata was already an extraordinary settlement associated with prehistoric salt production.
But evidence of malting potentially gives us another glimpse into daily life there. People were building settlements. Trading valuable resources. Developing increasingly complex societies. And apparently...
brewing beer.
Scientists Just Mapped a Hidden World Beneath Greenland
Greenland looks relatively simple from above, Ice. Lots of ice.
Underneath is another world.
Scientists have produced an improved map of the landscape buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and connected hundreds of previously fragmented or unknown valleys beneath the ice.
These valleys matter because the hidden landscape underneath an ice sheet influences how ice moves toward the ocean. And that's important for understanding Greenland's future contribution to sea-level rise. But there's also just something spectacular about the premise.
Under kilometres of ice sits a buried landscape of:
mountains, canyons, valleys and ancient terrain that human eyes cannot simply walk out and see.
Which planet has the shortest day?
A) Mercury
B) Earth
C) Jupiter
D) Neptune
C — Jupiter.
Despite being the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter rotates incredibly quickly. One complete rotation takes only around 10 hours.
That rapid rotation is so extreme that Jupiter actually bulges around its equator. So on the biggest planet...
you'd get two sunrises before an Earth day was finished.
Which animal can survive for weeks without its head?
A) Cockroach
B) Scorpion
C) Ant
D) Beetle
A — Cockroach.
Cockroaches don't breathe through their mouths. Instead, oxygen enters through tiny openings called spiracles along their bodies.
Their circulatory system also doesn't depend on maintaining blood pressure in the same way ours does.
So decapitation isn't immediately fatal.
Eventually, however, the animal will die, commonly from dehydration because it can no longer drink.
Lovely.
How long would it take to fall through Earth if you could magically dig a tunnel straight through it?
A) About 5 minutes
B) About 20 minutes
C) About 40 minutes
D) About 3 hours
C — Around 40 minutes.
In an idealised Earth with no air resistance and simplified assumptions, you'd accelerate toward the centre before slowing as you approached the opposite side. Depending on the Earth model used, calculations put the journey at roughly 38–42 minutes.
You'd essentially become a gigantic human pendulum. Unfortunately, Earth's thousands-of-degrees-hot interior presents a slight engineering problem.
Legends !