Curio Cabinet / Nerdy Curio

When it comes to the severity of flu infections, it’s often a matter of what you have, not what you lack. It’s common knowledge that older people are more vulnerable to the flu, and according to a paper published in PNAS by an international team of researchers, the culprit isn’t just weak immune systems. According to Kin-Chow Chang, a co-author of the paper from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham, understanding the mechanism behind severe flu symptoms in the elderly is a matter that requires urgent attention. As he explains, "Aging is a leading risk factor in influenza-related deaths. Furthermore, the global population is aging at an unprecedented rate in human history, posing major issues for health care and the economy.” To get to the bottom of the issue, Chang and his colleagues used an aging mouse model and samples of human tissue to observe how the immune system of an older population responds to the influenza virus. They discovered that older people produce more apolipoprotein D (ApoD), a glycosylated protein associated with lipid metabolism and inflammation. Higher levels of ApoD lead to more mitophagy, or the destruction of mitochondria. In the context of a viral infection, this means two things. First, since mitochondria produce cellular energy, higher rates of mitophagy means a weakened immune response. Two, the mitochondria also induce protective interferons, which inhibit viral replication. These two factors combine to make the elderly much weaker to a variety of viral infections, including the flu. People who are 65 or older account for 90 percent of flu deaths and up to 70 percent of flu-related hospitalizations, making them by far the most vulnerable population. With flu season just around the corner, this new knowledge won’t exactly have anyone breathing easy. Here’s hoping that this insight can lead to some solutions for older folks facing the flu.

Fuzzy and fossorial…what’s not to love? With their torpedo-shaped bodies, enormous, stout feet, and eyes that are practically invisible, moles have to be one of the strangest looking animals on Earth. Yet, unlike other famously odd animals like platypuses and echidnas which live on only one continent, moles are common on every continent except South America and Antarctica. It isn’t just their looks that are strange, either—most female moles have intersex qualities, meaning that they have characteristics usually only found in males.
 
Moles come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from bizarre star-nosed moles to fairly plain Eastern moles. They all share one important trait, though: they’re fossorial, meaning that they spend most of their lives underground. A single molehill (the part of a mole’s tunnel system that can be seen aboveground) can signal a vast underground network of tunnels stretching up to 230 feet. A single Eastern mole can dig an 18-foot-long tunnel in an hour. That’s pretty impressive for an animal that only grows to be around eight inches long.
 
Despite living in cozy homemade tunnels, moles don’t spend a lot of time relaxing. Their constant digging requires them to have a high metabolism, which in turn requires them to eat constantly. Moles spend nearly all their time hunting for worms, grubs, and other insects that live underground. While moles are formidable predators in their chosen environment, things are very different when they’re forced aboveground by tunnel cave-ins, flooding, or a lack of food. Moles are extremely vulnerable aboveground due to their small size and poor eyesight. Because their large feet are made for digging rather than running, moles are slow aboveground and can easily be killed by foxes, snakes, or birds of prey.
 
Despite these vulnerabilities, moles have managed to thrive throughout most of the world for over 30 million years—and it’s not just because they stay underground. Moles have a unique approach to reproduction that helps both female moles and their offspring survive. In many mole species, female moles have both ovarian and testicular tissue, meaning that they produce egg cells along with large quantities of testosterone. This added testosterone makes female moles far more aggressive than those of most other mammalian species. After giving birth to two to seven pups in a specially-made underground nesting chamber, mother moles will viciously fight off any threat to their young, including large, aboveground predators like foxes, even when there’s little chance of success. Don’t poke the mama mole!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of a mole.] Credit & copyright: Dead Mole, Wenceslaus Hollar, 1646. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

It seems you can never breathe easy these days. According to a new study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published in ASTM International, air purifiers can sometimes release harmful byproducts into the air, and researchers have figured out a way to measure just how much. It seems paradoxical, but air purifiers aren’t always good for the air. They can use a variety of processes that create toxic byproducts. The most common of these is the ozone produced by UV lights meant to kill pathogens. Normally harmless in low concentrations, the ozone can sometimes accumulate enough to pose a threat to the user’s health. Other byproducts include formaldehyde and ultrafine particles, which are produced by an unintended interaction between the components of the air purifier. To test which air purifier models harm more than they help, the NIST developed a test to measure the pollutants. During the test, the air purifier is left running in a sealed room for four hours. Samples of the air are then taken. Then, a UV light is shone so that researchers can measure the amount of ozone and formaldehyde present in the samples, since both substances absorb UV radiation. To measure ultrafine particles, researchers use a method called scanning mobility particle sizing (SMPS), which passes the samples through an x-ray field. The x-ray imparts an electric charge on any particles that might be present, making it easier to sort ultrafine particles from larger ones, since they hold different amounts of charge. Once the ultrafine particles are isolated, they’re placed in a cool steam bath, which makes them swell in size. Then, lasers can be used to determine how much is present by measuring how much the particles scatter the light. It’s a lot of work to figure out how many impurities these purifiers are leaving behind, but there’s no doubt that it needs doing.

Would you believe that hypertension is all in your head? According to a new study published in Neuron by researchers at McGill University, the mechanism behind high blood pressure resulting from a high-salt diet might lie in the brain. High-salt or high-sodium diets have long been associated with an increased risk of heart disease as a consequence of high blood pressure. The longstanding theory was that high sodium acted directly on the kidneys and blood vessels, constricting them and leading to hypertension. Most treatments have been based on that assumption. Yet, around one-third of patients with salt-induced hypertension don’t respond to medication, and the reason was unclear—until now. Researchers conducted an experiment in which rats were given water with two percent salt, creating a diet containing comparable rates of sodium to a typical human diet. The diet triggered an immune response in the rats’ brains, leading to inflammation that in turn led to the brain releasing increased quantities of vasopressin, a hormone produced in the hypothalamus responsible for osmolality (the balance of salt and glucose). According to lead researcher Masha Prager-Khoutorsky, the brain is a particularly difficult organ to analyze, and this new study was only possible due to recently developed brain imaging and lab techniques. If the same mechanism can be confirmed in human subjects, future treatments of hypertension might focus on medications that act on the brain to reduce the inflammation or counteract the effects of vasopressin itself. Who knew that treating hypertension would be so-dium confusing?

[Image description: A glass salt shaker tipped on its side with salt spilling out.] Credit & copyright: Garitzko, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
 

They might howl in the night, but there’s no need for fright! Coyotes are often compared to wolves, yet while gray wolves (the most common North American species) remain endangered, coyotes are listed as a “species of least concern” with an increasing population. This difference is largely due to the fact that, despite looking like small, lean wolves, coyotes live very differently than their wolf brethren.
 
Native to central and North America, coyotes thrive in a variety of habitats, from deserts to forests to, surprisingly, suburban areas. They are larger than foxes but smaller than wolves, measuring up to 52 inches long and 26 inches tall. Live wolves, they live in packs consisting of a dominant, mated pair, and their children, including a mix of younger and older pups. Usually, there are only three to seven coyotes per pack, compared to gray wolf packs that often range between 10 to 20 individuals.
 
Smaller pack sizes seem to suit coyotes just fine, since they don’t prey on animals nearly as large as the caribou and bison that gray wolves do. Instead, coyotes hunt small mammals like rabbits and rodents…when they hunt at all. A key to coyotes’ survival, even in the face of climate change and habitat loss, is their highly adaptable diet. Coyotes can live off of a mix of freshly-hunted meat, carrion, wild fruit, and even garbage left behind by humans. In fact, coyotes that live near suburban areas are routinely caught raiding trash cans. They also employ other tricks to survive, like their unique howling style full of yips and changing notes. When these howls echo over long distances, they can easily make it sound like a coyote pack is much bigger than it actually is, thus scaring away potential threats. As scary as coyotes seem to some people, they actually have to worry about falling prey to larger animals like bears, mountain lions, and even wolves. Family resemblance won’t save you in the wild.

 
[Image description: A coyote walking in a desert landscape, looking back over one shoulder.] Credit & copyright: Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NPS, Asset ID:347d7710-ba38-4735-809b-9f82bc9c8437. Public domain: Full Granting Rights.

What do real estate planning and tree planting have in common? Both are all about location, location, location! It’s common knowledge that planting trees helps mitigate the effects of climate change, but a new study published in Nature by researchers at University of California, Riverside (UCR) shows that trees are actually more effective at helping in some locations than others. Trees can help lower temperatures in two ways: by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and sequestering it as biomass, and via a process called evapotranspiration, in which trees take water from the soil and release it as vapor. Evapotranspiration tends to have a greater impact on global temperatures because the process makes air more humid, which in turn leads to more clouds that reflect sunlight. The UCR researchers were looking into evapotranspiration’s effectiveness in different locations, and found that trees in the tropics, where the climate is warmer and more humid, are better at cooling the air. Using computer models, researchers compared the effects of additional trees planted globally to that of trees planted in the tropics. In the former, the mean cooling from the additional trees was 0.01 degrees Fahrenheit, and in the latter, the mean cooling was 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit. The effect could be even greater in more specific locations, with additional trees in central Africa reaching 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit of cooling. When accounting for the cooling effect of lowering atmospheric carbon, there was an additional 0.15 degrees Fahrenheit of difference. They also found that trees can reduce the risk of wildfires in grassy areas like savannas, since they’re more resistant to burning and limit the spread of fire. There are times that trees can raise ambient temperatures, though. In areas with snow, trees can absorb more heat than the surface around them due to their darker color, offsetting the effects of evapotranspiration. When it comes to cooling the atmosphere, green is usually (but not always) good.

[Image description: A dense tropical forest.] Credit & copyright: Gerda Arendt, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
 

There’s plenty of fish in the sea, but when it comes to manta rays, there’s only three! Scientists have recently discovered and described a brand new species of manta ray, which they’ve named Mobula yarae, after Yara, a water spirit of Brazilian myth. Also known as the Atlantic manta ray, this new species is similar in size to the giant oceanic manta ray, with a wingspan between 16 and 20 feet, its coloration is unique. The Atlantic manta ray has dark abdominal spots, a light-colored face, and V-shaped white patches on its shoulders, making it distinct from the reef manta, with which it shares a habitat. Atlantic manta rays are found in tropical, coastal Atlantic waters from the U.S. to Brazil.
 
Though they look a bit like underwater birds, manta rays are, in fact, a type of fish. Their powerful “wings” are actually fins designed to help them glide through the water at speeds of up to nine miles-per-hour. While that isn’t as fast as famous predators like sharks, it’s speedy enough to allow water to flow through manta rays’ open mouths so that they can filter-feed on plankton. Their speed also allows them to rush toward the water’s surface and leap into the open air, which they do en masse during yearly mating rituals. Manta rays only have one baby, called a pup, every one to two years. This low birth rate hasn’t helped their struggling numbers—the giant oceanic manta ray is endangered, while the reef manta is considered vulnerable.
 
Manta rays live mostly solitary lives, but when they get together, they really do it right. Giant manta rays sometimes group together in the hundreds to migrate in search of food. When a particularly dense patch of plankton appears, hundreds of manta rays can converge on one spot, moving together in a giant spiral to feed. Since a single giant oceanic manta ray can weigh up to 3,600 pounds, you could say that mantas rays’ parties carry a lot of weight.

 
[Image description: A manta ray swimming upside down underwater.] Credit & copyright: Thewaydu, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Is this as big as they can get? It’s hard to imagine otherwise. Astronomers at the University of Portsmouth have found what could be the largest black hole ever discovered, according to a paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Located around five billion light years away in the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy, the black hole is at least one of the top 10 largest ever discovered. It’s not such a surprise that one of the most massive black holes would be found within one of the most massive galaxies, but the sheer scale is still a bit jarring. The supermassive black hole located at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A*, contains the mass of 4.15 million suns. On the other hand, the new discovery is an ultramassive black hole and is estimated to have the mass of 36 billion suns. What might be even more surprising is how it was discovered. Unlike most known black holes, this one does not have an accretion disk. That means it’s not actively consuming the matter around it, and that it lacks the telltale x-ray emissions produced by accreting matter. Instead, the black hole was given away by its sheer mass, which warped the space-time around it enough to cause gravitational lensing, a phenomenon in which the light coming from behind an object is visible along its edges. Even the Cosmic Horseshoe itself gets its name as a result of this phenomenon, since it is framed by a horseshoe-shaped ring of light. It must run in the family.

[Image description: A starry sky with the milky way visible.] Credit & copyright: NPS/Patrick MYers, Asset ID: 707ecd39-53dd-47a2-8dad-33178eac3992, National Park Service Digital Asset Management System. Constraints Information: Public domain: Full Granting Rights.
 

That’s not an enormous bird blotting out the sun…it’s a mammal! Flying foxes, specifically the 60 or species in the genus Pteropus, are the largest bats in the world. Those suffering from a bit of a bat phobia have nothing to fear, though. These high-flying mammals don’t drink blood or even eat insects; they feast on fruit.
 
Flying foxes mainly live in tropical regions of Asia, Australia, Madagascar, and some Pacific islands. There, they have abundant, year-long access to all sorts of fruits, and they certainly make the most of it. Many species of flying foxes eat up to half their body weight in fruit, pollen, and nectar each day. All that food helps fuel their impressively large bodies. The biggest species of flying fox, the giant golden-crowned flying fox, has an average wingspan of around 4.9 to 5.6 feet and can weigh up to three pounds.
 
A flying fox’s environment must have enough food to support not just a few individual bats, but entire colonies. Most flying foxes are social, living in groups that can range from a few dozen bats to several hundred. Unlike many, smaller bats, which remain in a fixed location each year, flying foxes are nomadic. Each year, they can fly thousands of miles in search of food. Luckily, flying foxes help maintain the very fruit they depend on to live, spreading pollen via their fur and seeds via their droppings.
 
Like most bat species, flying foxes are nocturnal. During the day, they hang upside down, high in the forest canopy (with young bats clinging to their mothers until they’re ready to fly on their own.) There, they sleep and groom one another while waiting for nightfall. Flying foxes’ entire lives revolve around trees, which means that habitat destruction, especially as part of the logging industry, is particularly devastating to them. Sadly, nearly half of all flying foxes are either threatened or endangered. Here’s hoping that intensifying conservation efforts can keep these gentle giants airborne.

 
[Image description: A large, brown-colored bat flying against a blue sky.] Credit & copyright: Map9994, Wikimedia Commons. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Map9994, at English Wikipedia. This applies worldwide.

Whether you’re a human being or a cockroach, pregnancy is draining. According to a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, researchers at the University of Cincinnati have discovered that some species of cockroaches need more sleep when they’re pregnant, just like people. The Pacific beetle-mimic cockroach (Diploptera punctata) is something of an oddball among insects. Instead of laying eggs like most roaches, they give live birth, but that’s not all. During the three-month gestation period, these roaches feed their young from a broodsac using milk protein. This is called viviparity, and it’s somewhat similar to the way mammals use a placenta to nourish their young during gestation. The similarities to mammals don’t end there: just like human mothers need to get plenty of sleep, these roaches also require sleep for healthier gestation and offspring. The need for rest is so important that, according to the research, pregnant D. punctata don’t travel as far in search of food, indicating an aversion to risk-taking behavior. The relationship between sleep and pregnancy complications in humans are poorly understood, which is why the roaches are of such interest to researchers. In humans and mammals in general, sleep disturbances can significantly impact embryo development, and if similar issues affect D. punctata, studying the roaches might give some clues as to why. No matter the species, being a mom is hard work.

[Image description: A close-up photo of a brown cockroach.] Credit & copyright: Junkyardsparkle, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
 

Even two dozen limbs can’t help you outrun a pandemic. Since 2013, billions of sea stars, also known as starfish, have died due to a mysterious wasting disease. Now, scientists have finally pinpointed the bacteria responsible for the plague, giving hope that conservation and disease-management programs can save these unique ocean creatures. No species was hit harder by the disease than the sunflower sea star, whose population has decreased by a whopping 90 percent since the plague was first noticed.
 
Sunflower sea stars come in a variety of colors, from reds, yellows, and oranges, to various shades of purple. Unlike sea stars that resemble a traditional five-pointed star, sunflower sea stars have between 16 and 24 limbs, making them look more like sunflowers. They differ from other sea stars on the inside, too. Their skeletons aren’t solid, like most sea stars’. Instead, it’s made of disjointed, bone-like discs, or ossicles. This makes sunflower sea stars extremely flexible, which comes in handy when hiding from predators and while hunting. Though they may not look much like predators, sunflower sea stars are just that. Their arms are covered in eye spots which help them discern light from dark and allow them to locate potential prey. The bottoms of their limbs boast up to 15,000 thin, almost hair-like tube feet, allowing them to crawl across the ocean floor at speeds of up to 3.3 feet per minute. For sea stars, that’s pretty fast! It’s certainly speedy enough to hunt down their favorite prey: other invertebrates. Sunflower sea stars are completely carnivorous, dining on sea urchins, clams, and crustaceans.
 
These many-armed critters have a large range across the Northeast Pacific Ocean, from the coastal waters of Alaska to Mexico. Unfortunately, in recent years their population has dwindled due to a devastating, worldwide plague of sea star wasting disease. The mysterious illness causes sea stars’ bodies to break out in lesions and completely disintegrate. Since 2013, over five billion sea stars have died from the disease. Now, researchers have finally discovered the cause of the illness: a bacteria called Vibrio pectenicida. With this knowledge, steps can finally be taken to save the sea stars. That might involve breeding sea stars that are immune to the bacteria and then releasing them into the ocean, or feeding wild sea stars probiotics to help them fight the bacteria off. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we see of these sunflowers of the sea.

 
[Image description: A group of reddish-colored sunflower starfish in shallow water.] Credit & copyright: NPS Digital Asset Management system. Asset ID: 2D7F9806-A3B5-ABD1-9B952DA866AA90E2. Constraints Information: Public domain.

Some voices can be heard for a country mile. According to a paper published in JASA Express Letters, researchers at Indiana University have found that twangy voices are the easiest to hear over loud noises. Apparently, twangy, female voices are the easiest to understand in an environment filled with neutral noise. However, “twangy” doesn’t just refer to the stereotypical country accent, but includes those found in major U.S. cities like New York and Chicago. These voices have what the researchers called “bright” and “brassy” qualities. In the study, researchers took four male and four female participants with twangy voices and had them record speech samples. When played along with background noises like plane or train sounds, listeners were able to understand the twangy voices better than ones with a “neutral” accent. Although the reason for this isn’t clear, it may have to do with the fact that twangy voices tend to have a higher pitch than neutral ones. High-pitched sounds are perceived more clearly than low-pitch sounds, especially when ambient noise is also low pitched, which it often is. They also believe that a twangy timbre might have applications in voice therapy, which allows the speaker to “maximize acoustic output while minimizing effort.” You could call it a different kind of talk therapy.

[Image description: A digital illustration of a word bubble with three exclamation points inside, with four curved lines representing soundwaves.] Credit & copyright: Author-created image. Public domain.
 

These mermaids are a bit chunkier than the fairy tales claimed. Famously mistaken for mermaids at various points in history, manatees have managed to remain humble, drifting through warm, shallow waters at a leisurely pace of around five miles per hour. These friendly aquatic mammals are often compared to seals, but their true lineage is much more surprising.
 
Manatees have earned their distinction as gentle giants. They can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh up to 1,200 pounds, on average. They’re friendly enough to be tourist attractions, floating alongside snorkeling travelers. They’re not the only giants in their family tree, either. Manatees’ closest living relatives are elephants, though the two species obviously evolved in very different directions after splitting from their common ancestor around 60 million years ago. Their interesting lineage and general appearance, from their cow-like faces (from which they get their nickname “sea cow”) to their pudgy bodies, makes it all the more intriguing that they were once mistaken for mermaids. It does make some sense, considering that early Europeans often painted animals from the “new world” without ever having seen them in person, which could lead to discrepancies when one actually came across them. After seeing manatees for the first time in 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote, “Yesterday, when I was going to the Rio del Oro, I saw three sirens that came up very high out of the sea. They were not as beautiful as they are painted since, in some ways, they have a face like a man.” Despite Columbus’s scathing assessment, Manatees (along with dugongs) are part of the order Sirenia, named after mythical sirens, or mermaids.
 
Manatees frequent coastal waters in certain areas of North America, South America, the Caribbean, and West Africa, where they live mostly solitary lives, feeding on aquatic vegetation like algae and kelp. Although West Indian Manatees (which includes those sometimes called “Florida manatees”) haven’t been listed as endangered since 2017, they still face plenty of threats. They’re too big to be harmed by most natural predators, but habitat loss, dangerous pollution, and collisions with boats have all taken a toll on global manatee populations. Boat collisions can be especially deadly, and conservationists suggest that boaters avoid shallow waters and wear polarized sunglasses to better spot manatees beneath the surface. Crashing into a mermaid has got to bring bad luck.

 
[Image description: A manatee floating underwater surrounded by small fish.] Credit & copyright: Ramos, Keith, USFWS. USFWS National Digital Library. Public Domain.

When playing the genetic lottery, your odds may be worse than a coin flip. A recent paper published in Science Advances by researchers from Harvard University shows that the odds of a couple giving birth to a male or female baby might not be quite as even as previously thought. Aside from intersex conditions like extra chromosomes, androgen insensitivity syndrome, and other cases where a person’s gender doesn’t necessarily match up neatly with their chromosomes, the formula for a male or female person is simple. Two X chromosomes, one from each parent, results in a girl. One X chromosome from the mother and one Y chromosome from the father results in a boy. And since each sperm has a 50/50 chance of carrying either an X or Y chromosome, it would seem that the birth rate for each sex would be the same. Not really, though. Researchers looked at data regarding 58,007 women in the U.S. who collectively gave birth to 146,064 children between 1956 and 2015. Instead of finding a simple binomial distribution of the sexes, they found a beta-binomial distribution, meaning that families could tend to skew toward producing one sex more than the other. The researchers compared it to a weighted coin toss, where the odds weren’t completely random. One of the telltale signs was that it was much more common than it should have been for some families to have all boys or all girls. A possible factor appears to be the age of the mother, as women 28 and older had an elevated chance of giving birth to multiple children of one sex over another. Researchers noted that the data might be affected by a behavior they call “coupon collecting,” which is when a couple continues to have children until they have a child of their desired sex. Compared to actual coupon collecting, that sure sounds expensive.

[Image description: The symbols for “female” and “male” with a pink-and-blue background.] Credit & copyright: Author-created image. Public domain.
 

Are those raindrops on the water’s surface? Or something far more lively? Water striders are some of summer’s most common insects, but that doesn’t mean that their incredible ability to “walk” on water should be taken for granted. These insects are masters of physics. In fact, they’re so good at what they do that some even live in the open ocean.
 
There are nearly 2,000 species of water striders, all in the family Gerridae. Most are less than an inch long, as they must be light enough to stand on the surface of water. They do this by utilizing water’s natural surface tension. Surface tension happens because water molecules like to stick close together. Below the surface, these molecules are evenly spaced because of the push and pull of other, nearby water molecules. At the surface, however, there are no water molecules to push down from above. Thus, molecules group more closely together there, forming an extremely thin, film-like barrier. It’s this “film” that water striders have evolved to walk on. The secret is in the long, water-repellent hairs called hydrofuge hairpiles that cover their bodies. These hairpiles contain even smaller microhairs that are grooved to trap tiny pockets of air. This makes them hydrophobic, or water-repellent. This, combined with water’s surface tension and their small body size, allows water striders to lift themselves into a standing position on the surface of water. They can then move forward in a gliding motion by pumping their three sets of legs.
 
Water striders are found on every continent except Antarctica, and some species in the Halobates genus, commonly called sea skaters, even live in the open ocean. They are both predators and scavengers, mostly eating terrestrial insects that fall into the water. They’ll also stalk and eat other aquatic bugs, like water beetles and snails. Their specialized jaws are designed to pierce the exoskeletons of insects and suck out the juices inside, yet the vast majority of water striders pose no threat to humans. Their jaws are too small to pierce human skin, but they are perfectly able to eat harmful, disease-spreading insects like mosquitos. Who knew these aquatic ballerinas were performing a public service?

 
[Image description: A close-up photo of a brown water strider “walking” on top of water.] Credit & copyright: TimVickers, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

How granular do you like your clock to be? When it comes to timekeeping, it doesn’t get nittier or grittier than the aluminum ion atomic clock developed by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), according to a paper published in Physical Review Letters. Far from their pendulum or spring-based predecessors, atomic clocks, first invented in 1947, used atoms to keep track of time. Atomic clocks mostly use cesium atoms today, and they work by energizing the atoms with laser light tuned to its resonant frequency to make them “tick.” Early atomic clocks weren’t particularly accurate because the instruments used to measure the frequencies and deliver the light weren’t accurate themselves. Today, though, atomic clocks are so accurate that if they had existed since the beginning of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, they would still be accurate to within one second. The newest atomic clock developed by NIST goes even further using aluminum ions. Despite having the potential to be more accurate, aluminum ions weren’t used before because they don’t react much to lasers. The solution was to pair them with magnesium ions, which don’t have the steady ticking rate of either cesium or aluminum. What they can do is be controlled by lasers and cool down aluminum ions, allowing the laser to interact with the aluminum ions in a process called quantum logic spectroscopy. The result is a clock that can measure time with 19 decimal places of accuracy. Try that with a vintage grandfather clock!

[Image description: A clock face with Roman numerals inside a glass dome atop a wooden stand.] Credit & copyright: Simon Willard, American, 1825–30. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mary B. Walton, in memory of her husband, John S. Walton, 1991. Public Domain.
 

Stroll by a stream this summer, and you’ll almost certainly see these colorful sunbathers…even in places they’re not supposed to be. Red-eared sliders are some of the most common freshwater turtles on the planet, both in the wild and in pet stores, but they’re native only to the southeastern U.S. and northern Mexico. Beloved as they are in many places as a sign of sunny weather, these beautiful turtles wreak havoc as an invasive species in places as far away as Australia.
 
Red-eared sliders are medium-sized, freshwater aquatic turtles. Females are slightly bigger than males, growing to around 12 inches long while males reach average lengths of just nine inches. Like many turtle species, they’re fairly long-lived, with a lifespan of around 30 years in the wild and up to 40 years in captivity. While baby red-eared sliders eat mostly insects, adults eat mostly aquatic plants, but they won’t pass up a chance to eat small fish or scavenge meat if the opportunity arises. Their varied diets make them adaptable to any environment with plentiful water and sunlight. In places with cold winters (including parts of their natural range) they can go into a semi-dormant state called brumation to survive the lower temperatures.
 
As for how these seemingly harmless turtles became worldwide pests, the problem isn’t them—it’s us. Red-eared sliders are named for the bright red stripes on their heads, and they also have bright yellow stripes on the rest of their green bodies, making them attractive pets. In the 1950s and 60s, baby red-eared sliders were sold at many American dime stores en masse as a novelty, and were even shipped through the mail in some places to be cheap pets. While hatchlings are just a few inches long, they quickly grow into adult turtles who need plenty of space and a specialized diet. Rather than adapt to their pet’s needs, some owners instead released them into the wild, even in areas far removed from red-eared sliders’ natural habitats. Today, invasive red-eared sliders can be found on every continent except Antarctica. In places like Japan and Australia, red-eared sliders’ adaptability makes them extremely dangerous, as they upend fragile ecosystems by gobbling up the plants, fish, and insects that native species need to survive. Although conservationists the world over are working to remove the invasive turtles from places they don’t belong, they’ve got a long road ahead of them…and turtles aren’t exactly known for their speed.

 
[Image description: A red-eared slider swimming with its head out of water, surrounded by duckweed.] Credit & copyright: Vassil, Wikimedia Commons.

These mountains look cool, but they can be real hotheads. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison have presented a study at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague suggesting that dormant volcanoes around the world may become more active as a result of melting glaciers. First, some clarification: there are three main volcano classifications depending on their level of activity. “Active” means that the volcano has erupted during the Holocene epoch (the last 11,650 years or so) and has the potential to erupt again in the future. “Extinct” means that, as far as anyone can tell, the volcano is unlikely to ever erupt again (though it happens from time to time). “Dormant”, on the other hand, means “potentially active,” as in, it’s an active volcano (the first classification) that’s just not erupting presently, as opposed to “actively erupting,” which means magma is currently coming out of the ground.
 
A lot of factors contribute to a volcano’s dormancy, and scientists have found that glaciers are one of them. Researchers tracked volcanic activity by measuring the radioactive decay of argon in crystals formed in magmatic rock. They then compared that to the level of ice cover during the peak of the last ice age. What the data seems to suggest is that the ice cover acted as a lid, inhibiting eruptions. As the ice melted, volcanoes became more active. Currently, there are an estimated 245 dormant volcanoes buried under three miles of ice, and many of them are in Antarctica. Once these begin to erupt due to the reduction in ice cover, it may create a feedback loop as the eruptions themselves further melt the ice. It seems there will be an icy reception before things really heat up.

 
[Image description: A portion of the Andes mountain range between Chile and Argentina, photographed from far above.] Credit & copyright: Jorge Morales Piderit, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
 

These critters are as American as apple pie, but a whole lot bigger! North American bison, also called buffalo, are the largest land animals in North America and some of the most historically significant. Yet, we almost lost them altogether. Overhunted throughout the 19th century, there were fewer than 600 bison left in the U.S. by 1889. Today, their numbers have recovered drastically, but these gentle giants still have a long way to go.
 
There are two species of bison: The North American bison and the European bison. North American bison are often called buffalo, but they aren’t actually buffalo at all. Real buffalo, like cape buffalo and anoa, live in Africa and Asia. However, bison are closely related to buffalo and share many traits with them, since they’re all bovines—members of the family Bovidae’s subfamily, Bovinae. As such, they share many attributes with buffalo, including their large size, horns, and hooves, as well as behavioral traits like living in herds. Bison are famous for their fluffy winter coats, which help them survive harsh, blizzardy winters in places like the Northern Great Plains. That’s not to say that bison are sweet and cuddly, though. They are massive, powerful animals; males can stand up to six feet tall and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Like any wild animal, they can become aggressive if approached, especially during mating and calving season. It’s a fact that tourists sometimes learn the hard way when they don’t obey rules in places like Yellowstone National Park, where the largest bison population in North America roams free.
 
Bison first appeared in North America during the late Middle Pleistocene epoch, between 195,000 and 135,000 years ago. Before European colonists began settling in North America en masse in the late 15th century, there were around 30 million bison roaming in what is now the United States. Many native tribes relied on bison meat and hides, with some, like the Plains Indians, focusing many parts of their lives around the movements of bison herds. However, as colonist aggression toward native tribes increased and native peoples lost control of more and more land, the bison population dwindled. During the American Indian Wars of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, bison were deliberately killed by colonists as a means of harming native peoples and to feed colonial soldiers. By the 1880s, there were as few as 300 bison left in what is now the United States. The species was on the brink of extinction.
 
Luckily, private organizations and ranchers stepped in to save North American buffalo, keeping herds on private land where they couldn’t be hunted. In 1902, 21 bison from private owners were placed in a designated area at Yellowstone National Park. Eventually, they were reintroduced to the wild, and began breeding with Yellowstone’s existing wild population. In 1905, the American Bison Society started a bison breeding program that also helped spread awareness about the importance of wild bison. Theodore Roosevelt aligned himself closely with the organization and even served as its honorary president for a time. Today, thanks to over a century of conservation efforts, there are roughly 31,000 wild bison in the United States. It’s a far cry from the millions that once roamed here, but it’s a whole lot better than extinction, and that’s no bison hockey!

 
[Image description: An adult and baby bison standing on a shrubby plain.] Credit & copyright: Anna Weyers Blades/USFWS. Public Domain.

Getting rid of plastic is a pain, but what if it was a painkiller? According to a paper published in Nature Chemistry, scientists at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. have genetically engineered a strain of E. coli that is capable of breaking down plastic and turning it into acetaminophen. It sounds outlandish, but it’s not as crazy as it seems. The E. coli in question isn’t the same type that makes people ill. This strain is capable of carrying out a chemical reaction called a Lossen rearrangement. It’s a phenomenon that has never been observed in nature before, and until now was only seen in harsh laboratory conditions previously thought to be incompatible with life. Yet, when chemists added polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a type of plastic commonly used in food packaging, into a culture of their specially-engineered E. coli, the bacteria used a Lossen rearrangement to turn plastic molecules into acetaminophen.
 
Also known as paracetamol, Acetaminophen is an over-the-counter painkiller that most people have taken at some point, though they might not know that it, too, is a petroleum derivative. Just as it takes a lengthy process to turn crude oil into helpful pills, researchers had to take several steps to get their E coli to produce something useful. First, they took E. coli that could turn PET into para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), and added genes from mushrooms and soil bacteria that could turn PABA into acetaminophen. The result was a strain of E. coli that could create acetaminophen from PET in less than 24 hours. That’s one headache solved!

 
[Image description: Plastic bottles and other plastic trash in a yellow waste bin.] Credit & copyright: Hyena, Wikimedia Commons. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Hyena. This applies worldwide.