Curio Cabinet / Daily Curio

The Earth is teeming with life and, apparantly, with “not-life” as well. Scientists have discovered a new type of organism that appears to defy the standard definition of “life.” All living things are organisms, but not all organisms are living. Take viruses, for instance. While viruses are capable of reproducing, they can’t do so on their own. They require a host organism to perform the biological functions necessary to reproduce. Viruses also can’t produce energy on their own or grow, unlike even simple living things, like bacteria. Now, there’s the matter of Sukunaarchaeum mirabile. The organism was discovered by accident by a team of Canadian and Japanese researchers who were looking into the DNA of Citharistes regius, a species of plankton. When they noticed a loop of DNA that didn’t belong to the plankton, they took a closer look and found Sukunaarchaeum. In some ways, this new organism resembles a virus. It can’t grow, produce energy, or reproduce on its own, but it has one distinct feature that sets it apart: it can produce its own ribosomes, messenger RNA, and transfer RNA. That latter part makes it more like a bacterium than a virus.
 
Then there’s the matter of its genetics. Sukunaarchaeum, it seems, is a genetic lightweight with only 238,000 base pairs of DNA. Compare that to a typical virus, which can range from 735,000 to 2.5 million base pairs, and the low number really stands out. Nearly all of Sukunaarchaeum’s genes are made to work toward the singular goal of replicating the organism. In a way, Sukunaarchaeum appears to be somewhere between a virus and a bacteria in terms of how “alive” it is, indicating that life itself exists on a spectrum. In science, nothing is as simple as it first appears.

Don’t hold your breath for moon dust. Long thought to be toxic, new research shows that moon dust may be relatively harmless compared to what’s already here on Earth. While the dusty surface of the moon looks beautiful and its name sounds like a whimsical ingredient in a fairy tale potion, it was a thorn in the side of lunar explorers during the Apollo missions. NASA astronauts who traversed the moon’s dusty surface reported symptoms like nasal congestion and sneezing, which they began calling “lunar hay fever.” They also reported that moon dust smelled like burnt gunpowder, and while an unpleasant smell isn’t necessarily bad for one’s health, it couldn’t have been comforting. These symptoms were likely caused by the abrasive nature of moon dust particles, which are never smoothed out by wind or water the way they would be on Earth. The particles are also small, so they’re very hard to keep out of spacesuits and away from equipment. Then there’s the matter of the moon’s low gravity, which allows moon dust to float around for longer than it would on Earth, making it more likely to penetrate spacesuit’s seals and be inhaled into the lungs. There, like asbestos, the dust can cause tiny cuts that can lead to respiratory problems and even cancer…at least, that’s what everyone thought until recently. Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) just published a paper claiming that moon dust might not be so dangerous after all. They believe that the dust will likely cause short-term symptoms without leading to long-term damage. Using simulated moon dust and real human lungs, they found that moon dust was less dangerous than many air pollutants found on Earth. For instance, silica (typically found on construction sites) is much more dangerous, as it can cause silicosis by lingering in the lungs, leading to scarring and lesions. Astronauts headed to the moon in the future can breathe a sigh of relief—but it may be safer to wait until they get there.

 
[Image description: A moon surrounded by orange-ish hazy clouds against a black sky.] Credit & copyright: Cbaile19, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

When the fungi kicked ash, the ash started fighting back. For over a decade, ash trees in the U.K. have been under threat from a deadly fungus. Now, the trees appear to be developing a resistance. No matter where they grow, ash trees just can’t seem to catch a break. Invasive emerald ash borers started devastating ash trees in North America in the 1990s. Then, around 30 years ago, the fungi Hymenoscyphus fraxineus arrived in Europe, making its way through the continent one forest at a time. Finally, it made its way into the U.K. in 2012. H. fraxineus is native to East Asia and is the cause of chalara, also called ash dieback. It’s particularly devastating to Fraxinus excelsior, better known as European ash, and it has already reshaped much of the U.K.’s landscape. While the fungus only directly kills ash trees, it presents a wider threat to the overall ecology of the affected areas. H. fraxineus also poses an economic threat, since ash lumber is used for everything from hand tools to furniture.
 
When not being felled by fungus or bugs, ash trees are capable of growing in a wide range of conditions, creating a loose canopy that allows sunlight to reach the forest floor. That, in turn, encourages the growth of other vegetation. A variety of insect species and lichen also depend on ash trees for survival. Luckily, for the past few years, researchers have been seeing a light at the end of the fungus-infested tunnel. Some ash trees have started showing signs of fungal resistance, and a genetic analysis has now revealed that the trees are adapting at a faster rate than previously thought. If even a small percentage of ash trees become fully immune to the fungus, it may be just a matter of time before their population is replenished. Ash trees are great at reproducing, as they’re each capable of producing around 10,000 seeds that are genetically distinct from each other. That also means that ash trees may be able to avoid creating a genetic bottleneck, even though their population has sharply declined due to dieback. Still, scientists estimate around 85 percent of the remaining non-immune ash trees will be gone by the time all is said and done. It’s darkest before the dawn, especially in an ash forest.

 
[Image description: An upward shot of ash tree limbs affected with dieback disease against a blue sky. Some limbs still have green leaves, others are bare.] Credit & copyright: Sarang, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

They’re turning greenhouse gases into rocky masses. A London-based startup has developed a device that can not only reduce emissions from cargo ships, but turn them into something useful. Cargo ships, as efficient as they are in some ways, still produce an enormous amount of emissions. In fact, they account for roughly three percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally. Reducing their emissions even a little could have a big environmental impact, and there have been efforts to develop wind-based technology to reduce fuel consumption as well as alternative fuel. In the case of the startup Seabound, their approach is to scrub as much of the carbon from cargo ship exhaust as possible. Their device is the shape and size of a standard shipping container and can be retrofitted onto existing ships. Once in place, it’s filled with quicklime pellets which soak up carbon from the ship’s exhaust. By the time the exhaust makes it out to the atmosphere, 78 percent of the carbon and 90 percent of the sulfur is removed from it. The process also converts quicklime back into limestone, sequestering the carbon.
 
Similar carbon scrubbing technology is already in use in some factories, so the concept is sound, but there are some downsides. The most common method of quicklime production involves heating limestone to high temperatures, which releases carbon from the limestone and creates emissions from the energy required to heat it. There are greener methods to produce quicklime, but supply is highly limited for the time being. In addition, the process requires an enormous quantity of quicklime, reducing the overall cargo capacity of the ships. Meanwhile, some critics believe that such devices might delay the development and adoption of alternatives that could lead to net zero emissions for the shipping industry. It’s not easy charting a course for a greener future.

 
[Image description: A gray limestone formation in grass photographed from above.] Credit & copyright: Northernhenge, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Beware the pharaoh’s… cure? A deadly fungus that once “cursed” those who entered the tomb of King Tutankhamun has been engineered into a treatment for cancer by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. When a team of archaeologists opened up King Tutankhamun’s fabled tomb back in 1922, they couldn’t have known about the terrible fate they had been dealt. One by one, those who entered the tomb died from an unknown illness. Then, in the 1970s, a similar string of tragedies befell those who entered the 15th century tomb of King Casimir IV in Poland. One such incident might have been dismissed as an unfortunate accident, but two meant that there was something else at play. Despite speculation about ancient curses, the likely culprit was found to be a fungus called Aspergillus flavus. It’s capable of producing spores that can stay alive seemingly indefinitely, and the spores contain toxins that are deadly when inhaled by humans. As they say, though, it’s the dose that makes the poison. In this case, the proper dose can instead be a cure. Researchers studying the deadly toxins within the fungal spores found a class of compounds called RiPPs (ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides) which are capable of killing cancer cells. Moreover, the compounds seem to be able to target only cancer cells without affecting healthy ones. That’s a huge improvement over conventional treatments like chemotherapy, which can harm a variety of healthy cells as much as they harm cancer. Another interesting fact is that the compounds can be enhanced by combining them with lipid molecules like those found in royal jelly (the special honey that is fed exclusively to queen bees), making it easier for them to pass through cell membranes. Fungus and honey coming together to cure cancer? Sounds like a sweet (and savory) deal.

 
[Image description: A petri dish containing a culture of the fungus Aspergillus flavus against a black background. The fungus appears as a white-ish circle.] Credit & copyright: CDC Public Health Image Library, Dr. Hardin. This image is in the public domain and thus free of any copyright restrictions.

Here’s a look at everything, near and far. Astronomers at the newly-operational Vera C. Rubin Observatory just released the first batch of images from the state-of-the-art facility, and it’s revealing new things about the solar system while giving a clearer view of the greater universe. Named after American astronomer Dr. Vera C. Rubin, the observatory was designed to push the boundaries of what is possible with ground-based telescopes. That’s fitting, considering that Rubin herself pushed the envelope of astrophysics during her lifetime. Her most significant achievement was finding unequivocal evidence for the existence of dark matter.
 
Located in Cerro Pachón in Chile, the Rubin Observatory is equipped with the largest camera ever built and is capable of capturing images at 3,200-megapixels. Its main purpose—for now—is to take a survey of the sky continuously for the next ten years. Its decade-long mission is off to a strong start with an initial batch of images featuring distant galaxies and Milky Way stars in unprecedented clarity. Its first ten hours of observation alone revealed 2,104 asteroids within the Solar System that have never been seen before (thankfully, none of them are on their way to crash into Earth anytime soon). When all is said and done, the observatory will gather around 500 petabytes worth of images, a veritable treasure trove of space imagery. It also has one other purpose. Its ability to observe dim and distant objects could prove useful in the search for the fabled “Planet Nine,” which (if it exists) orbits the sun every 10,000 to 20,000 years. It seems that the more you can see, the more there is to find out.

 
[Image description: A starry night sky with a line of dark trees in the foreground.] Credit & copyright: tommy haugsveen, Pexels

You just can’t beat this heat. This year’s summer is getting off to a brutal start for much of the U.S. as a heat dome stretches over multiple states. Heat domes are defined by suffocating heat and humidity which have a synergistic effect and make it feel even hotter than it actually is. While heat domes can cause heat waves, the two meteorological phenomena are not the same. The source of a heat dome’s elevated temperatures and humidity is a lingering high-pressure system in the atmosphere that prevents heat on Earth’s surface from rising. The high pressure comes from the jet stream after it weakens and deviates beyond its normal course. Until the jet stream corrects itself, the heat dome will continue to persist, and the longer it lasts, the worse it gets. Because the high pressure also prevents cloud formation, the sun’s rays beat down on the ground, making the heat dome hotter over time. Temperatures can easily exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can feel tens of degrees hotter. Sometimes, a heat dome will dissipate after just a few days, but they can last for weeks.
 
In 1995, a particularly devastating heat dome claimed over 700 lives in the Chicago area in less than a week. Even worse, a heat dome over the southern Plains back in 1980 claimed around 10,000 lives. Part of what makes a heat dome so dangerous isn’t just the heat itself, but the humidity, which makes it impossible for sweat to effectively wick excess heat away from our bodies. When a heat dome forms over a given area, it’s best to avoid venturing outside. The best policy is to stay in a climate-controlled area and drink plenty of water until the heat dome dissipates. Some problems are better avoided than faced head on.

 
[Image description: The sun shining above a treetop in a clear blue sky.] Credit & copyright: TheUltimateGrass, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Chromosomes are fundamental to creating life, but you can have too much of a good thing. Just one extra copy of chromosome 21 is responsible for causing Down syndrome, which itself causes many different health problems. Now, scientists at Mie University in Japan have developed a way to remove the extra chromosome using CRISPR technology. The chromosome responsible for down syndrome is called trisomy 21. When someone is born with this chromosome, they end up with 47 total chromosomes, rather than the usual 46. This results in a range of health effects, including congenital heart problems and cognitive issues.
 
Until recently, genetic disorders like Down syndrome were considered untreatable, but medical advancements have been changing things. Back in 2023, the FDA approved Casgevy and Lyfgenia, both of which are cell-based gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease (SCD) in patients over age 12. The treatments were developed using CRISPR-Cas9, which utilizes enzymes to accurately target parts of the DNA strand responsible for the disease. It’s the same technology used by the scientists at Mie University, who targeted trisomy 21 in a process called allele-specific editing, or, as one of the researchers described, “Trisomic rescue via allele-specific multiple chromosome cleavage using CRISPR-Cas9 in trisomy 21 cells.” The process was performed on lab-grown cells which quickly recovered and began functioning like any other cells. It’s unlikely that this new development will signal an immediate reversal of Down syndrome, as it will be a while before the treatment can undergo human trials. One particular hurdle is that the treatment can sometimes target healthy chromosomes. Still, it shows that CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to remove entire chromosomes and that cells affected by trisomy 21 can make a full recovery with treatment. That’s a lot of medical advancement in one crisp swoop.

 
[Image description: A diagram of a DNA strand with a key for each labeled part. The key from top to bottom reads: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Guanine, and phosphate backbone.] Credit & copyright: Forluvoft, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

Telling people apart is as easy as breathing. Researchers recently found that the pattern of a person’s breathing may be unique to the individual, much like their fingerprints. Currently, there are only a few surefire ways to identify someone: fingerprints, eye scans, and DNA tests. Soon, another option might be available in the form of breathing. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel hypothesized that a person’s breathing pattern might be unique to them, and tested the idea with the help of 100 participants. The participants were equipped with special devices that tracked their breathing throughout the day, measuring the frequency and duration of each breath, along with the amount of air passing through their nasal cavities. Over the course of two years, the researchers entered the data they collected into a machine learning program, which learned to positively identify a person through their breathing alone with an accuracy of 96.8 percent.
 
There may be another use for this type of analysis besides identification. Researchers found that a person’s breathing revealed not only their identity, but information about their physical and mental health. People of similar body mass indexes share similarities in the way they breath, and so do those who suffer from depression or anxiety. Those with depression tend to exhale quickly, while those with anxiety have shorter inhales and pause their breathing more frequently during sleep. According to the researchers, their next step is to find out if and how breathing can be used as a diagnostics tool. In the future, they hope that it may even be possible to change peoples’ breathing patterns for the better. As Noam Sobel, a co-author of the study said in a statement, “We intuitively assume that how depressed or anxious you are changes the way you breathe. But it might be the other way around. Perhaps the way you breathe makes you anxious or depressed. If that’s true, we might be able to change the way you breathe to change those conditions.” We’ll be able to breathe easy, then.

 
[Image description: The black nose of a dog with brown fur. The rest of the dog’s face is not visible.] Credit & copyright: HTO, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

Well, at least you can’t accuse these legislators of being boring. Several states in the U.S. have introduced legislation to ban fabled “chemtrails.” This is a name used by those who believe that the white, cloud-like lines left by airplanes contain deadly chemicals. The true nature of these streaks in the sky is not nearly that insidious, but they’re not completely harmless either.
 
The latest state to hop on the anti-chemtrail bandwagon is Louisiana, where a state legislator introduced a bill to outlaw the lines left in the wake of airplanes. A decades-old conspiracy theory holds that these are actually the result of a shadowy effort to disperse harmful chemicals to the general populace, but the proper term for them is “contrails,” short for condensation trails. Contrails generally form at altitudes between 32,000 and 42,000 feet due to the water vapor released from jet engines. At those altitudes, the hot water vapor cools rapidly after exiting the engine and condenses, leaving visible streaks in the sky. Of course, the conditions for this to occur have to be just right, or else the sky would be covered in an endless criss-crossing of airplane flightpaths. Aside from the altitude of the plane, the air has to be cold and humid enough for the contrails to form.
 
While contrails aren’t the product of nefarious intentions, that doesn’t mean that they’re beyond reproach. According to some studies, contrails might actually be contributing to global warming in an unexpected way by trapping excess heat in the atmosphere, especially if they form at night or last until nighttime. Ironically, efforts to reduce carbon emissions and save money might be making it worse. Modern airliners are designed to fly at altitudes of 38,000 feet to save on fuel by reducing drag in the thinner atmosphere, and while that certainly saves on fuel, it means that contrails are much more likely to form. The warming effect of contrails is so pronounced that they may be contributing more to atmospheric warming than the carbon emissions from the engines themselves. It’s a matter worth looking into for legislators, but they might want to familiarize themselves with the science around contrails first.

 
[Image description: A white plane with four contrails against a blue sky.] Credit & copyright: Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone), Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

It’s the comeback of the century. The European beaver has made its triumphant return to Portugal for the first time in centuries, and it’s not the only place where the endangered builder is reclaiming its old range. Like its counterpart in North America, the European beaver is a keystone species, reshaping its environment by building dams in waterways and digging channels to direct the flow of water. Yet for all its mighty endeavors, the beaver was, for centuries, at the mercy of a greater power: human hunters. The beavers were hunted to near extinction in most of Europe for their meat, fur and castoreum, an aromatic substance that comes from internal sacs near the base of beavers’ tails. Beavers were even eaten during Lent after the Catholic Church classified the mammals as fish.
 
Beavers had a lot going against them when it came to their relationship with humans. Their fur happens to be ideal for making felt, and has been considered a valuable commodity for centuries. Although castoreum has a distinctly unpleasant odor in its raw form (beavers mix it with their urine to mark their territory), it can be processed into an effective fixative agent to be used in the production of perfumes. Thus, the beavers were trapped and hunted until they became extinct in many European locales, including Portugal, where they were last seen around the end of the 15th century. Then, over 500 years later in 2023, one of the beavers was sighted less than 500 feet from the border, giving hope to conservationists. Indeed, the presence of European beavers in Portugal has been confirmed now, with telltale signs like dams and gnawing marks on trees. It’s a long overdue arrival for Portugal, and it’s also the result of a century and a half of conservation efforts around Europe. While their numbers are still much lower than they once were, they are now found in most countries on the continent, and conservation efforts continue to help bring back the creature that once helped shape the very land. It’s time for these endangered engineers to get back to being busy beavers.

 
[Image description: A close-up photo of a beaver with wet fur.] Credit & copyright: National Park Service photo, Asset ID: d34648d9-10ec-44bb-bfce-9d4c2b20ee18. Public domain:Full Granting Rights.

These dinosaurs might have been impressive to look at, but their table manners were awful. While most animals have to chew their food thoroughly, it seems that wasn’t the case for sauropods, some of the largest dinosaurs ever to walk the Earth. Based on a recently discovered fossil, scientists now believe that sauropods hardly chewed their food at all.
 
Sauropods were members of Sauropoda, a clade of enormous, long-necked, vegetarian dinosaurs. Yet, for a long time, scientists didn’t know many specifics about sauropod diets. Paleontologists made the assumption that they ate plants based on two factors: they had flat teeth, which are good for processing plant matter, and sauropods were huge, meaning that there was no feasible way for them to have depended on anything other than plants, much like large herbivores today. Besides, their gigantic bodies, long necks, and long tails would have made them clumsy hunters. Now, not only do we have confirmation that sauropods ate plants, we know quite a bit about how they did it.
 
Researchers discovered a cololite—fossilized intestinal contents—that belonged to Diamantinasaurus matildae, a species of sauropod that lived around 100 million years ago. By performing a CT scan on the cololite, they found that the remains were composed entirely of plant matter. The leaves of the fern-like plant were largely intact, suggesting that the sauropod barely chewed them before swallowing. This means that sauropods were probably bulk feeders, ingesting as much plant matter as possible and relying on the natural fermentation process inside their digestive systems to break down their food. It’s a more extreme version of what many herbivores do today. Cows and other ruminants rely on fermentation to digest their food, and they also spend much of their time ruminating, which means they regurgitate their food to chew it again. You really needed a strong stomach to live in the Cretaceous period.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of a long-necked sauropod dinosaur.] Credit & copyright: Pearson Scott Foresman, Wikimedia Commons. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.