Cool Science
Photos from Mars, deep sea microbes, severed hands in Egypt and a bit about sex, we have so super cool stories in science for you this week.
1. Curiosity Lands on Mars!
A stunning new video shot by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity captures the huge robot's nail-biting journey to the Red Planet's surface Sunday (Aug. 5).
The Curiosity rover's landing video was taken by the Mars Descent Imager camera, or MARDI, which snapped hundreds of photos while the six-wheeled robot was barrelling through the Martian atmosphere during its "seven minutes of terror" landing attempt late Sunday night (Aug. 5 PDT; Aug. 6 EDT).
2. Floating Pumice 'Island' Spotted in Pacific
An "island" of floating pumice rocks bigger in area than Israel has been spotted in the South Pacific, New Zealand's Royal Navy said.
Officers on a Royal New Zealand Air Force ship saw the rock raft southwest of Raoul Island yesterday (Aug. 9). It measures an astounding 300 miles (482 kilometres) in length and more than 30 miles (48 km) in width, the Navy said.
3. Severed Hands Found in Ancient Egypt Palace
A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery.
The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands.
4. Bizarre Crystal Zipped Here From Space
A sample of a bizarre crystal once considered unnatural may have arrived on Earth 15,000 years ago, having hitched a ride on a meteorite, a new study suggests.
The research strengthens the evidence that this strange "quasicrystal" is extraterrestrial in origin.
5. Sleep Deprivation Is Sexy to Sandpipers
The early bird may get the worm, but the sleepless sandpiper gets the chicks.
Male pectoral sandpipers that sleep less than their counterparts during the bird's intense three-week breeding season mate with more females and sire more offspring - and don't appear to be impaired whatsoever by their sleeplessness, according to a study published today (Aug. 9) in the journal Science.
6. New Human Species Discovered?
New fossils from the dawn of the human lineage suggest our ancestors may have lived alongside a diversity of extinct human species, researchers say.
Although modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only human species alive today, the world has seen a number of human species come and go. Other members perhaps include the recently discovered "hobbit" Homo floresiensis.
7. Media Sensationalizes Animal Sex
Media reports on animal sex are often sensationalistic, with many humanizing our wild-animal friends "in the sack," for instance. The result can lead to a misunderstanding about the nature of human sexuality, two biologists write this week in the journal Nature.
University of London researcher Mark Brown and his colleague Andrew Barron of Macquarie University in Australia surveyed 48 newspaper articles written about animal sexual behaviour in recent years and found what Brown called "some fairly egregious headlines."
8. Spider Lives in Woman's Ear for 5 Days!
That old urban legend about spiders crawling into your orifices while you sleep has come true. A woman who checked into China's Changsha Central Hospital Wednesday (Aug. 8) with an itchy ear learned she had a small spider dwelling in her ear canal, according to news reports. It had crawled inside five days earlier while she slept.
At the hospital, heebie-jeebie-inducing pictures of the patient's ear canal revealed a stocky, hairy, four-eyed arachnid peering out at the camera, much to doctors' and the patient's surprise.
9. Stressed-Out Guys Prefer Larger Women
Men under stress find overweight and obese women to be more attractive than do guys in a relaxed state of mind, new research finds.
The findings complement previous studies that have shown when resources are scarce, people prefer heavier partners, presumably because fatness is a sign that the person has access to food and is healthy. In women, for example, being underweight can make it more difficult to get and stay pregnant.
10. Extreme Microbes Key to Finding Alien Life
The region beneath Earth's surface may be crawling with diverse organisms, and now researchers reveal the lives of just one group of bizarre beasties: methane-spewing microbes that hide out in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes.
Called high-temperature methanogens, these microbes rely on the hydrogen and carbon dioxide in their superheated deep-sea vents for growth, excreting waste products like methane.
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