We have a few interesting animal tales this week, talking about fat bears, perfume-loving tigers, and butt-dialing geckos. There are also a couple of compelling space stories, an auction with an unexpected finale, and an ill-advised game of hide-and-seek.
10 Giant Ice Spikes On Europa
Photo credit: Javier G. Corripia
Future missions to Europa just got more difficult, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. Researchers from Cardiff University assert that the surface of the moon is covered in giant, jagged “ice spikes.”
Scientists believe Europa has the right conditions to create penitentes like those found on Earth. These are bladelike ice formations made in regions that are very cold and dry, like the Andes. The main difference is that while Earth penitentes grow up to 5 meters (16 ft), the ones on Europa are expected to be up to 15 meters (50 ft) tall.[1]
The ice spikes haven’t actually been seen, though. The Europa Clipper mission is set to launch sometime between 2022 and 2025, with the goal of studying Jupiter’s moon in detail. It will likely be the one to confirm or deny the presence of these penitentes.
9 Fat, Furry, And Fabulous
Fat Bear Week is over at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. A female named 409 Beadnose won the contest and was crowned this season’s most bodacious beefy bear.
It is the time of the year when these animals gorge on salmon to fatten up as much as possible for the winter. It’s not uncommon for some bears to gain 130 kilograms (285 lb) or more in weight over the summer. Over the last four years, Katmai has held an annual contest to determine which is the most beloved rotund animal by posting photographs on Facebook. The competition is single-round elimination where fans vote on two different bears pitted against each other.[2]
This year, Beadnose trumped heavy favorite and two-time champ 480 Otis in her first round. In the finals, she defeated another bear simply known as 747, described at times as a “jelly-bellied jumbo jet” and a “Macy’s Thanksgiving parade balloon.”
Beadnose actually won the first contest back in 2015. However, in 2016, she had two cubs, so she spent the next two feeding seasons sharing the spoils. This year, though, the kids were out of the house, so Beadnose was free to pack on the blubber.
8 Time Travel Tricks Your Brain
Researchers at Caltech have developed two time-traveling illusions that illustrate postdiction—a phenomenon where a stimulus affects our perception of an event that occurred before it.
How does this work? Basically, all of the stimuli come one after another very fast in under a fifth of a second. The brain is bombarded with noisy, conflicting information. It uses inferences to make sense of it all and, in doing so, creates something that was never there.
The first experiment is called the Rabbit Illusion, and you can try it at home.[3] Simply focus on the cross and count the number of flashes accompanied by beeps at the bottom of the screen. Most people will perceive three flashes but, in reality, there were only two. The middle part only has a beep but the brain analyzes the stimuli presented before, during, and after it and adds a third flash.
The second illusion is called the Invisible Rabbit and works opposite of the first. This time, there are three flashes, but the middle one has no beep, so the brain removes it.
Beadnose actually won the first contest back in 2015. However, in 2016, she had two cubs, so she spent the next two feeding seasons sharing the spoils. This year, though, the kids were out of the house, so Beadnose was free to pack on the blubber.
8 Time Travel Tricks Your Brain
Researchers at Caltech have developed two time-traveling illusions that illustrate postdiction—a phenomenon where a stimulus affects our perception of an event that occurred before it.
How does this work? Basically, all of the stimuli come one after another very fast in under a fifth of a second. The brain is bombarded with noisy, conflicting information. It uses inferences to make sense of it all and, in doing so, creates something that was never there.
The first experiment is called the Rabbit Illusion, and you can try it at home.[3] Simply focus on the cross and count the number of flashes accompanied by beeps at the bottom of the screen. Most people will perceive three flashes but, in reality, there were only two. The middle part only has a beep but the brain analyzes the stimuli presented before, during, and after it and adds a third flash.
The second illusion is called the Invisible Rabbit and works opposite of the first. This time, there are three flashes, but the middle one has no beep, so the brain removes it.
7 Where Is Voyager 2 ?
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
New clues suggest that Voyager 2 might soon become the second man-made object to enter interstellar space. Voyager 1 left our star system in August 2012. Now it seems that the spacecraft’s twin will do the same.
Both probes were launched back in 1977. Voyager 2 was actually launched first, 16 days prior to Voyager 1. However, the probe took a different trajectory that lengthened its journey to Jupiter and Saturn but also allowed it to fly by Uranus and Neptune.
Two of the spacecraft’s onboard instruments have detected about a five-percent increase in the number of cosmic rays hitting it over the last month. This could be an indication that Voyager 2 is reaching the outer boundary of the heliosphere, called the heliopause.[4]
Voyager 1 experienced a similar change in its environment in May 2012, a few months before entering interstellar space. However, it is not a guarantee that Voyager 2 is in the same situation. The changes could have occurred because the craft is located in a different part of the heliosphere during a different period of the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle.
6 Geyser Garbage
If you ever visit a geyser, you will see signs warning you not to throw anything inside. Unsurprisingly, people do it anyway and have been doing so for decades. Ear Spring geyser had a particularly powerful eruption in late September, shooting water over 9 meters (30 ft) into the air. It hasn’t experienced a blast this strong in over 60 years.
This time, alongside water, rocks and other expected materials, the geyser also discarded a lot of the trash that people have been dumping inside it for almost a century. This includes common garbage like empty soda cans and cigarette butts, but also about 100 coins, a giant piece of a cement block, and a baby pacifier from the 1930s.[5]
Since Ear Spring erupted, there has been an increase in thermal activity on Geyser Hill. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) points out that this is a normal occurrence and has no connection with Yellowstone’s dormant supervolcano. Meanwhile, park officials consider the trash “clearly historic” and plan to catalogue it and store it in their archives. However, they stress that this should not encourage people to continue throwing trash in the geysers in the name of posterity.
5 Cops And Bank Robbers
Birmingham armed police responded to a possible bank robbery only to discover that...
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