Plastic pollution has been a problem for years now, and its undesirable effects are still felt today in ecosystems across the globe. It is most destructive for aquatic species like fish and turtles. But it seems the problem does not stop there. A team of scientists led by Linsey Haram has recently found that, in the open ocean, plastic debris could serve as a makeshift habitat for coastal species. Scientists also found that they live side by side in the plastic debris with open-ocean animals. They worry that this unprecedented scenario could increase the odds of biological invasions that will disrupt surrounding ecosystems. Worse, there have been signs that these coastal species were reproducing.

"If you can reproduce, then you can spread. And if you can spread, you can invade," says marine microbiologist Linda Amaral-Zettler, who was not involved in the study.

The study, which analyzed plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, found that nearly all of this debris contained "pelagic" or open-ocean species. About 70% of the debris, however, contained at least one coastal species (like bryozoans, jellyfish, sponges, and worms).

Martin Thiel, another marine biologist not involved in the study, says this finding is another warning call for us to take action on the plastic problem.

(Image Credit: RosZie/ Pixabay)

Spanish athlete Beatriz Flamini thought she had only stayed in the cave for 160-170 days. Almost half a year ago, she agreed to participate in a study attempting to understand the effects of isolation in humans, and her estimate meant that she still had over 300 days to go. Only it wasn't half a year ago. When the support team came to retrieve her, she was surprised to hear that her time was up. She had already spent over 500 days. On April 14, 2023, Flamini finally went out of the cave with a smile (although her mind was still stuck on November 21, 2021). Imagine enduring a year and a half inside a cave with almost no contact with the outside world.

Flamini explains that she quickly lost her sense of time during her stay in the cave. But how could one lose sense of time?

We keep track of time using environmental and social cues like the rising and setting of the sun and our daily routine like work. Flamini lost these cues during her time in the cave alone, and she may have relied more on her psychological processes, specifically her memory.

As it turns out, the memories we create during certain events become our reference in tracking time. The more memories created during an event, the more we perceive said event to have lasted longer. We perceive busy days as longer compared to days when nothing significant happens.

Because Flamini had no social interaction and no schedule to follow except her own, Flamini was free to do whatever she wanted anytime. This situation may have made the passing of time irrelevant.

But we can only let go of our sense of time when we believe we have control over our own time and behavior. Prisoners who serve sentences, for example, report becoming obsessed with monitoring time.

Flamini's 500 days inside the cave provide many insights into how we perceive time. The full story is told over at ScienceAlert.

(Image Credit: Jorge Guerrero/ AFP)

On land, when it spends its time mating and molting, the northern elephant seal sleeps for nearly 11 hours a day. But when it’s time to forage for food and it has to swim out to sea for months, the seal’s sleep pattern changes significantly.

But how does the seal sleep while in the water? Scientists also asked the same question, as these seals were always seen diving almost all the time. Could it be that they sleep while they dive?

To find the answer, scientists equipped 13 young female seals with a watertight EEG cap and sensors to monitor their brain waves, heart rates, and 3-D motion. The team, led by ecophysiologist Jessica Kendall-Bar, found that these seals do sleep while diving.

The seals first dive 60 to 100 meters below the surface. For a few minutes, they try to maintain themselves upright before REM and sleep paralysis kick in. Then they unconsciously flip upside down and gently descend in a spiral motion to depths where their natural predators do not normally go. After 5 to 10 minutes, the seals wake up from their power naps and swim back to the surface.

Scientists found that northern elephant seals sleep around two hours a day on average when they forage for food at sea.

It is worth noting that the sleeping habits of northern elephant seals are different from other marine animals like dolphins and fur seals who sleep only with half of their brains (one-sided sleep). Unlike other marine animals who try to be alert at all times, these seals leave themselves completely vulnerable.

The study of sleep behaviors across the animal kingdom is an essential step to understanding the function of sleep for all animals (including us humans).

(Image Credit: Jerry Kirkhart/ Wikimedia Commons)

On April 20, 8:33 AM (Local Texas Time), SpaceX’s first-ever integrated Starship rocket — currently the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — left the ground and soared high in the Texas sky. The rocket’s flight was short-lived, however, lasting only under four minutes before meeting an explosive end. During its short journey, Starship was able to reach a max altitude of 24 miles (39 kilometers).

Starship’s explosion seems to be a failure for us not involved in the project. But for the SpaceX staff, the first test flight was a huge success. While the goal is to get Starship outside and back into the Earth’s atmosphere, and finally land on the Pacific Ocean, this test flight was more “about gathering data and responding properly to whatever ended up happening,” according to SpaceX representatives.

Kate Tice, for example, remarked during the webcast that “everything after clearing the tower was icing on the cake.”

John Insprucker, the company’s Principal Integration Engineer, described the test as “incredible.”

The Starship’s upper stage was supposed to separate from the Super Heavy first stage three minutes after liftoff. Unfortunately, the two remained connected, so the rocket was ordered to self-destruct. (Yep. The explosion was intentional.)

SpaceX explained that the rocket experienced multiple engines out, which caused it to lose altitude and tumble, thus the command for a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (their term for the self-destruction process).

(Image Credit: SpaceX)

Paleontologist Michael D'Emic found something interesting when he cut the bones of the Majungasaurus. He found that the dinosaur that measured up to 7 meters high grew "really, really slowly." The prevalent idea amongst paleontologists was that big dinosaurs became big through rapid growth spurts, so what D'emic found through his investigation was rather surprising, which prompted him to look further into other dinosaur bones to see if there are different growth strategies in them. What followed was a decade-long study, and with the time that passed came new knowledge of the distant past. As it turns out, the strategy of carnivorous dinosaurs to get big fast was less predominant than what paleontologists previously assumed.

Understanding an animal's growth strategy may seem trivial at first, but it is essential in understanding a creature's life and environment. Did the animal grow in a competitive environment? Was it a hot environment or a cold one?

Growth strategy also has a correlation to an animal's lifespan and number of offspring.

More about this over at Quanta Magazine.

(Image Credit: Skye McDavid/ Wikimedia Commons)

There had been previous attempts to extract genetic material from Beethoven's skull fragments in the past but to no avail. But thanks to modern advancements in DNA sequencing, we now have a better understanding of the composer's cause of death. A recent study suggested that the composer died from liver disease caused by several factors. Found in his DNA are two copies of a gene called PNPLA3, which is linked to liver cirrhosis. Also found are two variants of the HFE gene, which is a gene that can cause hereditary haemochromatosis. Finally, traces of Hepatitis B virus were found in his DNA. It also didn't help that Beethoven became a heavy drinker, especially in the year before his eventual demise.

Historical accounts of the composer's death seem to strengthen the findings from the recent DNA analysis. It is said that he developed jaundice, and his limbs swelled months before he passed away. Both conditions are telling signs of liver failure.

The loss of Beethoven's hearing remains a mystery, however. Perhaps a mystery that will probably be solved sometime in the future.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Animals are individuals. And because they are individuals, they also have personalities distinct from one another. Some animals are reckless, and others are shy.

Similar to how our personality affects the way we function and perform in daily life, the innate personality of an animal also affects its performance in an experiment.

If this is truly the case, does this imply that the findings from numerous animal behavioral studies are inaccurate and biased? For many scientists in the field, the answer is yes. Christian Rutz realized this problem years ago when he conducted a study on New Caledonian crows. Knowing this problem, how can we solve it?

Rutz and his colleague Michael Webster suggest this new framework in animal behavioral research: the STRANGE approach.

STRANGE is an acronym for factors that behavioral researchers should consider when they conduct studies. These factors are:

• Social background
• Trappability and self-selection
• Rearing history
• Acclimation
• Natural changes in responsiveness
• Genetic makeup, and
• Experience

While Rutz acknowledges that removing all biases in a study could be impossible, he still encourages his fellow researchers to ponder how these factors affect their studies. He also calls on them to be transparent with these said factors. In this way, the findings of animal behavioral studies can be more meaningful and reliable.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

How do we know how hot our Sun is? How do we know the internal structure of stars and the type of fusion processes occurring inside them, despite not taking a single step into them? Believe it or not, the answer is seismology, the study of earthquakes.

The story begins with the development of the seismograph, which allowed us to record ground oscillations. With the power of science and mathematics, these oscillations became the key to mapping our planet's interior.

Fast forward to the 1960s, the decade of powerful telescopes. These tools not only allowed us to zoom in on the heavenly bodies, but they also allowed us to see them in finer detail. And with this advancement, scientists realized that the Sun oscillated, too. This gave them the revelation that the methods of seismology might also apply to our Sun. This gave birth to helioseismology. And if seismology applies to our Sun, then it would also work for other stars out there. This realization gave rise to asteroseismology.

Big Think tells more details about this fascinating story.

(Image Credit: Hinode JAXA/ NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)

In early September 2022, curious fishermen took a video of two megamouth sharks swimming together off the coast of San Diego. Little did they know that they were very fortunate to spot the shark species and how significant their footage is in the study of megamouth sharks.

Megamouth sharks are a very elusive species. Since its discovery some five decades ago, there have only been 273 sightings of the species, most of them spotted because they were caught in fishing gear. Of these sightings, only five are sightings of megamouth sharks swimming freely, so this new footage is a truly rare opportunity.

The footage in question was analyzed by a team of scientists led by Zachary Skelton, who described the video as humanity's only knowledge of the social lives of megamouth sharks.

Analysis of the footage suggests that one of the sharks was male and the other female, implying that the two were "engaging in courtship or mating behaviors." Furthermore, neither shark was seen attempting to feed, strengthening the claim that this was indeed a mating ritual. However, Skelton admits they heavily relied on other studies and species to make sense of the short footage.

This only shows how much we still don't know about megamouth sharks. As the director of the Shark Research & Conservation Program at the University of Miami — Neil Hammerschlag — puts it, the topic is a "black box to scientists."

(Image Credit: David Stabile/ Live Science)

Salt deserts around the world are created differently. For some reason, however, they all seem to share a similarity — they form honeycomb-like patterns of ridges. This peculiar feature of salt deserts has baffled scientists for quite some time. Over the years, two theories have been offered in an attempt to explain the phenomenon. The first theory attributed the honeycomb shapes to cracks that formed as the ground surface dried. The second theory proposed that the edges of the cracks might have pushed upward to form the honeycomb ridges. Neither was able to explain the pattern's ubiquity and regularity. But this new theory, proposed by a team of researchers from Germany and England, could probably be the key to the truth.

The secret of the phenomenon lies beneath the dry crust. The process involves constant evaporation and turnover of salty and freshwater. This explains the regularity of the honeycomb-like patterns of the ridges. This property also seems to be present in all deserts.

While the study does not have an immediate application in the world, Jana Lasser, the physicist who led the study, says that she feels accomplished. She describes the study as "the purest form of research" and a "very, very satisfying experience."

(Image Credit: Anouchka Unel/ Wikimedia Commons)

One requirement when taking care of cats is keeping them occupied so they won't be bored. One solution to this is giving them toys to play with. Another is buying them catnip to make them relaxed and happy. Or maybe you can do both using the Meownooker Cat Toy Set.

The set includes a miniature table with a felt top and felted billiard balls filled with catnip. It's very likely your cats won't be able to stop playing pool all day (if you can count it as a game of pool, that is).

The Meownooker Cat Toy Set is created by pet goods shop Vetreska and is available over at their site.

Via Technabob

(Image Credit: Vetreska via Technabob)

Many fish can achieve an iridescent glow through the tiny crystals in their skin or through their scales that can reflect light. The Kryptoterus vitreolus, however, achieves its iridescent glow using its muscles. A team of scientists led by physicist Qibin Zhao discovered the fish's characteristics in their recent investigation.

Zhao's interest in the fish began one day in an aquarium store when he noticed it in front of him. Then the freshwater fish became iridescent. Intrigued, Zhao decided to investigate the fish in the lab, examining it under different lighting conditions. Using a white laser to illuminate the animal's muscles and skin separately, the team found out that its muscles — specifically, its sarcomeres — were the ones responsible for its rainbow glow.

As light passes through the muscles, the sarcomeres' repeating bands bend it, separating and enhancing the light's wavelengths, which creates the rainbow look.

While the iridescent glow is pleasing to the eyes, scientists are unsure about its purpose, but they have a few theories. For one, the iridescence could help the fish visually coordinate movements when they travel in groups (as they live in murky water). It might also help them blend in shimmering water to avoid predators like birds.

(Image Credit: Nan Xi, Xiujun Fan and Genbao Wu via Science News)

You hear the alarm ring amid your dream, and you realize it's time to wake up. Your hands fumble as you search blindly for your phone so you can free yourself from the annoying sound that signals the start of your day.

"Opening" is the iPhone's default ringtone, but you can also use it as an alarm sound.

Canadian pianist Tony Ann takes four notes from the ringtone's motif and repurposes them to create a stunningly beautiful ballad. The result is an inspirational and heartwarming melody.

Tony Ann is known for re-imagining familiar melodies. He also creates songs inspired by everyday life.

Via ClassicFM

(Video Credit: Tony Ann/ YouTube)

Gashapon capsules are meant to be opened. After all, you won't even know the toy inside the toy capsule unless you open it. But Bandai challenges us with their new capsule series called Zettai ni Akanai Gashapon (translated as "Gashapon Capsules That Absolutely Won't Open"). It seems the company wants to know how far their consumers will go just to open their capsule toys. And if there's a will, there's a way, and fortunately, you can open these Gashapon capsules, but only if you can solve it. The capsules can be disassembled by moving its part in the correct sequence.

Bandai's new Gashapon capsules has three levels of difficulty, with level one being the easiest and level three being the hardest to solve. But what is inside these capsules, you may ask? Well... there's nothing inside. Your prize is "the satisfaction of solving the puzzle." Yup. These are not really capsule toys but puzzle toys.

(Image Credit: Bandai via IT Media/ SoraNews24)

If you could instantly name a movie theme just by hearing the first two notes, that theme would most likely be the theme of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, composed by none other than the legend John Williams.

These two notes could now easily be associated with the film. It is one of the most memorable themes in movie history, after all. However, when Williams played it for Spielberg for the first time, the latter thought it was all a joke. But Williams was serious. And as it turned out, these two notes alone were powerful enough to announce the shark's presence, even when the large fish wasn't on screen. The theme also proved a helpful substitute for Bruce (the mechanical shark), as the latter wasn't working all the time.

For Spielberg, Williams became the shark, and the music made the film "a hell of a lot scarier and more suspenseful." Music, indeed, is a powerful tool.

Aside from the Jaws theme, Spielberg and Williams talk about other films and topics in music in this interview with Stephen Colbert.

Via Laughing Squid

(Video Credit: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/ YouTube)