This ancient predator had two spiny appendages sticking out of its face. This creature Anomalocaris canadensis may have been the freakiest thing to ever haunt the sea. For decades, scientists thought it used those strange limbs to snatch trilobites off the seafloor. The beast could then crush and eat these crunchy snacks. But a new study hints that A. canadensis instead used its spiny limbs to swiftly hunt soft prey. 



Researchers shared their new findings on July 12. The work appeared in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.





A. canadensis means the abnormal shrimp from Canada. It prowled the seas roughly 500 million years ago. Only about as long as a housecat, it still was one of the biggest animals of the Cambrian Period. (The Cambrian ran from about 540 million to 485 million years ago.) That makes A. canadensis one of the earliest top predators.





These sea monsters were like the orcas or great white sharks of their time, says Jakob Vinther. He did not take part in the new study. But he is a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England. 



Some researchers thought A. canadensis hunted another iconic Cambrian critter the trilobite. Thats because people have unearthed lots of fossils of injured trilobites. This hinted that something had attacked them. A. canadensis became a prime suspect.



But Russell Bicknell wasnt so sure. After all, trilobites have hard, thick exoskeletons. And no one had shown that A. canadensis could crack that armor.



Bicknell is a paleobiologist. He works at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He was part of a team that set out to learn if A. canadensis really could have crushed and chowed down on trilobites.



This is a closeup of an A. canadensis fossil. It was found in the Burgess Shale of Canada. The fossil shows the creatures head and curled front appendages.Allison Daley


Pinning softies with its spikes



The researchers compared the ancient creatures bendy appendages to those of modern arthropods. These animals include todays insects, spiders and crustaceans. Bicknells team also built computer models of the limbs on A. canadensis. Using those models, the team tested the limbs toughness, range of motion and best swimming position.



The ancient spiky limbs would have been good at grabbing prey. In that way, A. canadensis may have hunted much like todays whip spiders. But the limbs of A. canadensis probably were too fragile to attack armored prey. Those would have included trilobites.





Plus, A. canadensis would have moved most efficiently when its appendages were stretched out front. (Think of how Superman holds his arms while in flight.)



Together, these results suggest that A. canadensis was best suited for chasing soft creatures swimming through the water. It would have snagged prey in its spiky clutches, Bicknell says. It was going to absolutely pincushion something soft and squishy.

The SouthernTropical Andes, which comprisesareasof Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, is one of the world's most biodiverse regions especially when it comes to amphibians. The areais home to about980amphibianspecies, including over half of the 150-knownglass frog species. Now, two new membersof the tiny frogs have joined thisever-growing list.

Thecountdown tothe 2020 Summer Gameshas begun. On July 23, 2021, about 11,000 athletes from 206 countries will gather at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, for the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad.Here are a few contestantsto keep an eye on at the world's mostprestigious sporting event.

A seriesof deadly tornadoesswept across a large swath of the Midwestern and SoutheasternUS overnight onDecember 10, 2021.TheNational Weather Service (NSW)estimates that the severe storms spawned about50 twisters across eight states Arkansas, Indiana,Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, and Illinois.

Memorial Day, whichwill be celebrated onMay 31, 2021,is one of the most important American holidays.Observed annually on the last Monday ofMay, it honors the brave men and women of theUS Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, Air Force, and the Coast Guard whosacrificed their lives to defend America's freedom. Meanwhile,Veterans Day, which takes place each yearon November 11, honorsall veterans living or deadbut mainly givesthanks to livingveteranswho served their country honorably during war or peacetime.

Donut lovers,rejoice!Friday,June 4, 2021, is National Donut Day. That means it is your civic duty to consume at least one oreven a dozen of the delicious confections. The fun US holiday, observed annually on the first Friday of June,was startedin 1938 by theSalvation Army to help raisefunds forthose in need.

Mythical mermaids are often known for their fishy tails and alluring songs. But if you were underwater with one, her tunes wouldnt sound quite like they do in the movies. And you might struggle to understand the words as Ariel or her other mermaid friends burst out singing.



Even next to a mermaid, the song would sound muffled and would seem to come from all around, says Jasleen Singh. You could still make out what she is saying, but it would sound fuller with less clarity, Singh says. She studies human hearing at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.





If mermaids existed, and if they sang and talked to one another, their hearing and sound-making setups might resemble marine creatures features instead of humans. To understand why, you have to start with the basics of sound and hearing.



Explainer: How the ears work



Sound is produced when an object vibrates. Touch your throat while you talk, and you can feel your vocal cords vibrating inside your neck. These vibrations can travel through gases, liquids and solids. In each medium, atoms and molecules get pushed around by a sound sources back-and-forth motion. These particles bump into each other in a rippling pattern of waves. Like a line of falling dominoes, the colliding particles spread sound.



Human hearing starts with sound waves entering the air-filled space in each earhole. The waves vibrate the eardrum, which wiggles three little ear bones. One of the bones taps on a snail-shaped structure in the inner ear called the cochlea. This fluid-filled structure converts the vibrations into electrical signals that the brain understands as sound.



Underwater, its a different story. Since water plugs your ears, you rely on sound waves directly vibrating the skull. This happens on land too, but it works better below the waters surface. Thats because water and bone have similar densities. When sound waves gently rattle the skull, that is directly stimulating the inner ear the cochlea itself, Singh says. This is called bone conduction. We humans, however, are much more attuned to the sound waves striking our eardrums. As a result, the sound quality of bone conduction is not as good as regular air conduction.



Plus, its difficult to figure out where a sound is coming from underwater. On land, if someone starts talking on your right side, sound waves hit your right ear before your left. This slight variation in timing helps your brain find the source of a sound. But sound travels much faster in water than in air. Thats because the particles that make up liquids are closer together. In water, there is virtually no time difference between sound hitting each ear. That makes underwater noise sound very full, like its coming from everywhere.









Our sea-dwelling relatives



To hear their friends talk and sing properly, mermaids might have evolved hearing structures more like aquatic animals.



Marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins and seals, hear in a way very similar to humans, notes Colleen Reichmuth. A biologist, she studies marine mammals at the University of California, Santa Cruz. These creatures have cochleae. They also have ear bones and eardrums, though not always functional. And they have evolved some adaptations to help them hear under the sea.





The lower jaw of dolphins and some whales contains fat that directs sound to the bony middle ear. This fat has a special chemical composition that makes it really suitable for transmitting acoustic waves, says Laela Sayigh. Shes a marine biologist at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.



Some marine mammals, such as seals, have convertible ears. On land, the animals can open ear holes to pick up sound waves traveling through air. But when diving, their ear tissue swells with fluid, plugging the holes. The fluid-filled ears help transfer sound from the water to the cochleae.





Those features could help a mermaid hear her friends songs more clearly. But if mermaid voices were more like those of marine mammals, their vocal systems could get a major upgrade, too.



Whales, dolphins, seals and other marine mammals can sing underwater, creating complex noises with musical notes or rhythms. They produce sound by passing air along tissues to vibrate them, similar to a humans voice box. But unlike people, who must breathe out to make noise, many of these sea creatures dont need to expel air from their mouths or blowholes to produce sound.



Underwater, air is a precious commodity, says Joy Reidenberg. If whales exhaled when using their voices, they would have to keep resurfacing for more air. That would interrupt their lengthy songs, Reidenberg says. She studies animal anatomy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.



Instead, whales and dolphins can move air around in their bodies and even reuse it. This air recycling system would certainly help a mermaid sustain conversation or song below the surface, Reichmuth says.



For a voice that really carries, mermaids might be built like baleen whales. These whales, which include humpbacks, have huge vibrating structures in their throats that toss out sound. Some can make noises so loud and low-pitched too low for humans to hear that the songs could potentially travel more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) in the ocean. (Lower-pitched sound waves lose less energy when traveling through water than higher-pitched ones.)



Humpback whales sing beautiful, lengthy songs. But they dont need to breathe out of their mouths or blowholes to do it. These whales recycle the air supply in their bodies and can stay submerged for nearly an hour. Craig Lambert/iStock/Getty Images Plus



Something sounds fishy



A mermaids mammal upper half may not be the only part that could make or hear sounds. Crustaceans and fish are known to make quite a ruckus, too. In fact, snapping shrimps, typically around four centimeters (1.5 inches) long, are some of the loudest creatures on Earth. As the name implies, these shrimp snap one of their claws to produce a colossal sound.



Many fish use a similar method to make noise. They click or rub their bodys bony structures together. Sea horses, for example, produce clicks by knocking the tops of their skulls into the horns on their heads. They do this when wooing a mate.



You can think of it like clicking your teeth together, says Audrey Looby. A marine ecologist, she studies fish at the University of Floridas Nature Coast Biological Station in Cedar Key.



Other species can use their muscles to vibrate an internal organ, like playing a drum. Some fish can even communicate by expelling air out their backside, Looby says. Essentially, fish communicating through farting. And they have special cells lining the sides of their bodies that can sense vibrations in the water, helping them to hear.



If you met a mermaid, she might have both fish-like and mammalian structures to communicate with her underwater friends. Motion-detecting cells may line her tail, and her ears may work like a seals to hear both in and out of water. She would probably recycle her bodys air supply to talk and sing without having to keep resurfacing. But her conversations may also be sprinkled with teeth chattering, clapping and even farting.

Hello! This is the holiday contest. I know that the following options may not be your favorites. Don’t worry! Feel free to comment on your favorite, but please vote on the holidays listed below. The winners will have the chance to share their ideas, and I will even give a shout-out! Pick one and good […]

All known stars are made of ordinary matter. But astronomers havent completely ruled out that some could be made of antimatter.



Antimatter is the oppositely charged alter-ego of normal matter. For instance, electrons have antimatter twins called positrons. Where electrons have negative electric charge, positrons have positive charge. Physicists think the universe was born with equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Now the cosmos appears to have almost no antimatter.



Space-station data have recently cast doubt on this idea of a practically antimatter-free universe. One instrument might have seen bits of antihelium atoms in space. Those observations have to be confirmed. But if they are, that antimatter could have been shed by antimatter stars. That is, antistars.



Explainer: What are black holes?





Intrigued by this idea, some researchers went hunting for potential antistars. The team knew that matter and antimatter annihilate each other when they meet. That could happen when normal matter from interstellar space falls onto an antistar. This type of particle annihilation gives off gamma rays with certain wavelengths. So the team looked for those wavelengths in data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.



And they found them.



Fourteen spots in the sky gave off the gamma rays expected from matter-antimatter annihilation events. Those spots did not look like other known gamma-ray sources such as spinning neutron stars or black holes. That was further evidence that the sources could be antistars. Researchers reported their find online April 20 in Physical Review D.



Rare or possibly hiding?



The team then estimated how many antistars could exist near our solar system. Those estimates depended on where antistars would most likely be found, if they truly existed.



Any in the disk of our galaxy would be surrounded by lots of normal matter. That could cause them to emit lots of gamma rays. So they should be easy to spot. But the researchers only found 14 candidates.



That implies that antistars are rare. How rare? Perhaps only one antistar would exist for every 400,000 normal stars.



Understanding light and other forms of energy on the move



Antistars could exist, however, outside the Milky Ways disk. There, they would have less chance to interact with normal matter. They also should emit fewer gamma rays in this more isolated environment. And that would make them harder to find. But in that scenario, one antistar could lurk among every 10 normal stars.



Antistars are still only hypothetical. In fact, proving any object is an antistar could be nearly impossible. Why? Because antistars are expected to look almost identical to normal stars, explains Simon Dupourqu. Hes an astrophysicist in Toulouse, France. He works at the Institute of Research in Astrophysics and Planetology.





It would be much easier to prove the candidates found so far are not antistars, he says. Astronomers could watch how gamma rays from the candidates change over time. Those changes might hint at whether these objects are really spinning neutron stars. Other types of radiation from the objects might point to their actually being black holes.



If antistars exist, that would be a major blow for our understanding of the universe. So concludes Pierre Salati, who wasnt involved in the work. This astrophysicist works at the Annecy-le-Vieux Laboratory of Theoretical Physics in France. Seeing antistars would mean that not all of the universes antimatter was lost. Instead, some would have survived in isolated pockets of space.



But antistars probably could not make up for all the universes missing antimatter. At least, thats what Julian Heeck thinks. A physicist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, he too did not take part in the study. And, he adds, you would still need an explanation for why matter overall dominates over antimatter.

Hey guys! Welcome to this group. I am AthenaDaBest, and I am creating this for all people who LUVVV mythology and Percy Jackson fans and other Rick Riordan books, but other mythology series are allowed. Have fun!!

Bacteria can have superpowers. Some flourish in almost any environment. Others can transform toxic materials into harmless sludge. A bacterium called Shewanella oneidensis can do both. But this microbe also has a much rarer superpower: It absorbs and produces electricity. In fact, new research suggests, these bacteria may be able to use energy collected from wind or solar sources to make fuels to run vehicles and more.



I think of these organisms as eating electricity, says Annette Rowe. Shes a microbiologist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. Her team has just identified which genes the microbe uses to gobble electricity.



Explainer: Understanding electricity



Electrons are negatively charged particles. A moving stream of them creates an electric current. Scientists already knew that Shewanella can move electrons back and forth across its cell wall. But they didnt know exactly how the microbes controlled their current, Rowe says.





The pathway for getting the electrons in and out of the cell is like a wire, says Rowe. It allows current to flow from the inside to the outside. Reverse the flow, she says, and you can drive electrons into the cell. The cell could then use those electrons to do some other job, such as generate current. Or it could store the energy to use later. Those electrons could later be used to make fuel, for example.



Rowe knew that Shewanellas cellular wire had to be controlled by genes. But which ones?



Buz Barstow was able to help. He is a biological engineer at Cornell University. Its in Ithaca, N.Y. Earlier, he had made a list of nearly 4,000 of this bacteriums genes. That list also included mutations, or changes, in those genes. Rowe tested these mutants to find the genes that made up Shewanella’s cellular “wire.”



Explainer: What are genes?



Within a cell, a gene can deleted. For the new study, Rowe and her colleagues tested groups of bacteria with groups of deleted genes. Their goal: to see which deleted genes allowed the bacteria to pull in electrons. These were likely genes involved in making the cell’s “wire.”



That was no easy task. It was really tricky to look for electron flow and track the electrons, she says. But in time they devised a clever test. They grew the different mutated bacteria on glass covered by a thin metal film. Then they attached a wire to the bacteria. When they sent an electric current through the wire, they could measure how much the bacteria absorbed or added. If electrons didnt flow, the scientists knew the deleted genes must have been the ones needed for electron flow. 



In time, they narrowed in on five such genes that Shewanella apparently uses to absorb electrons. Each gene tells the cell how to make a protein. Some of those proteins likely grab electrons and bring them into the cell. Others may send signals within the cell that guide the process. Still others can likely expel electrons from the cell.





Bacterial biofuels



Scientists see many ways to use electric microbes. One would be to make biofuels. These differ from fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas. (Fossil fuels are rich in carbon from decayed remains of ancient living things.) Ethanol, which can be made from corn or sugarcane, is a biofuel that can be added to standard gasoline. Cars that run on diesel can be adapted to run on another biofuel. Called biodiesel, it is fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fats.



Biofuels get their carbon from sources like plants or animal wastes. One day, they may even get their carbon with the help of bacteria, says Rowe.



This technician holds a biofuel sample, an alternative to fossil fuels. One day bacteria may be able to supply the power or the carbon needed to unleash a new wave of such renewable fuels.Sue Barrt/Image Source/Getty Images Plus



Shewanella is among bacteria thatcan pluck carbon atoms out of carbon dioxide. They can use it to create other, larger molecules that could be burned as a biofuel. And powered by the electrons it gobbles, Shewanella could keep making these molecules, Rowe says.



Knowing which genes drive the electron-eating could help scientists develop new biofuels, says Rowe. Even better would be if the electrons that feed the bacteria come from wind or solar power. Such sources could power the biofuel-making process without adding warming carbon dioxide to the air.



Elad Noor is an environmental scientist. He works at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Its in Rehovot, Israel. There, hes helping to develop new ways to fix carbon that is, to pull carbon from carbon dioxide to build other chemical compounds. Using bacteria to create biofuels is attractive because the bacteria can regenerate and should be able to repurpose the carbon. Soring energy in bacteria also would be green, he adds. After all, the microbes dont need dangerous metals, as a normal battery would.



However, working with living organisms is complicated, he warns. Biological systems are hard to predict, he says. There are ways to store energy that are much more efficient.



The genes that Rowes team found in Shewanella show up in other bacteria. The group plans to search for others that can store or release electrons. Rowe also wants to try to improve Shewanellas abilities, because these are the organisms we know the most about.

Dont watch TV close to bedtime. Put away your phone, too, or you may have trouble falling asleep. You may not realize it, but the blue light from device screens and even common lamps will confuse your brains internal 24-hour clock. Even white light contains these blue wavelengths. And when blue light enters the eyes, your brain gets the message that it needs to stay awake. But a new type of lighting appears to get around these sleep-challenging effects so you can nod off easily at bedtime.



This new light-emitting diode, or LED, might someday deliver the glow in lamps and other types of home lighting, its developers say. It might even find use in TV, laptop and smartphone screens, says Jakoah Brgoch. Hes a chemist at the University of Houston, Texas. He also helped design the new lighting technology.



He and fellow University of Houston chemist Shruti Hariyani have been studying the properties of phosphors. These substances glow when hit with light.



Explainer: Our bodies internal clocks





Light shines through the lens of an LED, usually a plastic bulb. Behind the scenes is an LED chip, which has small light-emitting diodes attached to a printed circuit board. When the chip is coated with powdered phosphors, the color of the light shining through the lens changes. The Houston team created a new phosphor to make their LED shine with a warm white light. Here, warm means the light contains less of the short, blue wavelengths that can mess with sleep.



Those same blue wavelengths are found in sunlight. And they tell your internal body clock that its time to be awake. Normally that body clock winds down as daylight fades. Melatonin is a hormone produced at night. It helps bring on sleep unless blue light tells your body otherwise. Blue light suppresses the melatonin hormone.



Explainer: What is a hormone?



And our bodies may well get confused if its late and our eyes remain bathed in blue light from devices or indoor lighting. Even though your body craves sleep, its still getting that signal for wakefulness.



Most modern screens and lighting systems use blue LEDs. They are energy efficient, long-lasting and cost little. But, Hariyani says, you have to be okay with the negative side effects [of their light] or fix it.



Shes part of a team thats choosing to fix it.





How to lose the blues



A new violet LED, shown here in a drawing, uses red, green and blue-emitting phosphors to combine the colors of the visible spectrum and create white light.S. Hariyani/University of Houston



Software helps some devices emit less blue light. For example, the iPhones night mode shifts its color palette. But this makes images look more red than normal, so users give up color quality. Plus, the LEDs in this and other smartphones still emit enough blue light to affect the bodys internal clock and melatonin production. People can block out some blue light by wearing yellow glasses near bedtime. However, this too will distort the hues in whatever youre viewing.



Says Brgoch, We wanted to know: Can we get to a high-quality light bulb with warmer and better quality light?



LEDs create white light by mixing red, green and blue hues. While these same primary colors of pigment in paint or crayons mix to make black, light works the opposite way. The white light shining out of an LED comes from the bulb color plus the colors of the phosphors used to coat the LED. Common house lighting uses blue LEDs coated with phosphors whose colors add to the LEDs colors to make white light.



A rarer type of LED has a violet bulb. Places such as museums and clothing stores install white lighting made using violet LEDs. Thats because these are designed to show an object’s true color better than the more common bluer LEDs used in most home lights. One drawback is that violet LEDs cost more. Still, Brgoch and Hariyani chose them for their prototype to get the best color.



Used in the new light, this phosphor glows blue when lit with a violet LED.S. Hariyani and J. Brgoch/University of Houston



To reduce their LEDs blue emissions, the chemists first altered a white powdered crystal that didnt glow on its own. They added a bright silver-colored element to the powders structure. This europium turns the crystal into a phosphor. Europium often is added to lighting phosphors because it helps boost the blue part of an LEDs glow. In this case, it made a true, high-quality blue good for use in an LED. That blue can combine with other colors to make white light.



The Houston team tested the new phosphor to make sure it wouldnt break down easily. They exposed it to heat and water. Not only did the phosphor continue to glow at the same intensity, but its color remained steady. Having all of these properties at once makes it superior to many other phosphors, Hariyani says.



Then they mixed the blue phosphor with red and green ones to create white light. The chemists added this combination to a modified violet LED. Compared to standard violet LEDs, this new one emits far less intense blue light.



Good white and good night?



A mixture of the new blue phosphor, together with red- and green-emitting ones, produces this warm white light when lit by a violet LED.S. Hariyani and J. Brgoch/University of Houston



Theres maybe a dozen phosphors used around the world in lightbulbs, notes Brgoch. To find something new thats on par with what you can buy is fantastic. And, he adds, its lower production of short, blue wavelengths should reduce its effect on someones nighttime secretion of melatonin.



But other aspects of light also influence the body, warns Mariana Figueiro. Her work at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City focuses on how light affects the body clock and melatonin.



Brightness and colors of light other than blue such as green and yellow also affect the bodys natural readiness for sleep, Figueiro notes. To leave nighttime melatonin alone, she explains, A light source needs to have both low light levels and less blue light. She wonders if everyday lamps and screens could be dim enough not to interfere with the body’s internal clock and still be bright enough for practical use. Still, she says, its certainly worth studying.



To know if the new LED could help people who want to sleep better, scientists will have to measure its effect on melatonin.



This is science that is still relatively new to us, Brgoch says. As such, he says it will take some time for scientists to fully understand how to use the new LEDs in household items.



He and Hariyani shared their findings April 14 in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Did you know that arid deserts in several countries have turned into lush, fertile land? In countries such as the United Arab Emirates and China, fruits and vegetables now flourish, providing fresh produce for their inhabitants. But what caused this miraculous transformation? Lets find out! What is Nanoclay? In the 1980s, the Nile Delta in Egypt, known for its reliable farming, suddenly became barren. For decades, the Nile floodwaters had spread minerals, nutrients, and clay particles over the soil. However, the newly built Aswan Dam prevented clay particles from flowing, reducing the soils...

Hey friends, this is part 2 of the Christmas gift ideas. 1. Electronics: I would definitely recommend getting an Apple iPhone or an Apple iPad. I just got an iPad, and it’s working great so far! 2. Lip products: Some of the lip products that I recommend are actually on my Wishlist this year. […]

Climate change is coming for glaciers. Many are losing ice as summers get warmer and winters are bringing less fresh snow to build them up again. But to know when exactly a glacier will be gone, scientists first have to know how big it is. That why Ellery McQuilkin, 16, trekked up a glacier with a large drill in tow. To find out how big the glacier was, she drilled holes in it.



Explainer: Ice sheets and glaciers



Ellery is a junior at Lee Vining High School in California. I live right near Yosemite National Park, she notes. I’ve spent a lot of time backpacking and hiking so I’ve sort of been around glaciers a fair amount. Ellery also is interested in climate change. Scientists have already reported big irreversible effects of climate change on glaciers, she says. Thats even true near her, where she says glaciers are actually melting away. At this point, she fears, it could be too late to do anything to save them.



Her town of Lee Vining is very close to four small glaciers: the Conness, Dana, Kuna and Koip. No one actually knows how big or small these are, she says. To calculate their volume, one could theoretically multiply their height times depth times width. But depth is hard to find when only the top of a glacier is visible. The rock underneath might host sharp peaks or deep valleys. It might even be totally flat. What the bottom of the glacier looks like, there’s no way to visually see that, Ellery says.



To gauge that depth, she decided to try drilling test holes to the rock below.



Ellery poses on the Dana Glacier in California. She hauled a steam drill up to the glacier on her back, then used it to estimate the ice fields size. Geoff McQuilkin



Measuring thin ice



Scientists have other ways to calculate how much ice is in a glacier. But those ways are designed with large glaciers in mind. For small ones like those near Ellery, those techniques dont really work. So to find the volume of the small glacier on Mount Dana, she brought a steam drill. It weighs about 15.8 kilograms (35 pounds). Ellery could carry it up the mountain to the glacier on her back.





So there’s this big boiler. You fill it up with water, Ellery explains, and you heat it up. The drills hose then shoots hot steam at high pressure to melt a very small hole in the ice. Ellery used the drill to poke holes all the way through the glacier at some points. Where the glacier was thicker, she drilled just partway through.





She then used the depths she measured with the drill along with a computer model to calculate the volume of the Dana glacier. Her tally comes to about 596,000 cubic meters (778,500 cubic yards). Thats enough ice to fill a medium-sized football stadium. The deepest part of the glacier is around 30 meters (100 feet).



This glacier is very small and shrinking. Basically, in eight years, the Dana glacier will have melted away almost entirely, Ellery projects. And the region will lose more than a white field of ice on Mount Dana. The glaciers yearly meltwater supports a freshwater stream on which many animals and plants depend. It is really just sad that this massive shaping force is going to disappear entirely, she says. Adding to her frustration is that people really aren’t even aware that it’s happening.



The Dana glacier sits under a large rock shelf. That shades it, allowing the ice to stay cooler than the mountain nearby. But thats not enough to save the glacier, which Ellery estimates will be gone in eight years. Geoff McQuilkin



The teens ice-cold project earned her a spot at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. Created by Society for Science, this yearly competition brought together nearly 2,000 finalists in 2021. They came from 64 countries, regions and territories to show off their science fair projects. (The Society for Science also publishes Science News for Students.) This years ISEF competition moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There, Ellerys project earned her first place in the Earth and Environmental Sciences category and $5,000.



Ellery hopes to continue measuring Dana glacier, as well others near her town. She wants to find points where people took old photos of the glaciers and compare those to new images. That should offer this very clear documentation of the glacier as it melts, she says. Its probably too late to save the Dana glacier, she says. But if she can document how glaciers are changing, she thinks she might just spur people to act in time to save others.

This is a group of ages 7-13 years old who can talk about dance. You can give dance tips, what dance competitions are like, what classes you took when you started dancing, or if you are about to. Hope you like this group! Love your group leader, Christian kid

Comment if you like school or if you dont! You can also tell why.

Lets be honest. Spring break is the perfect time to think about how you want to spend it!  Now, would you rather go on a spring break trip(exploring new places with family or friends) or stay home and have a relaxing week? Both options are great, but which one would you choose? What would you […]

When you see a panda at the zoo, it stands out against the green bamboo that it eats all day. But that setting is misleading. In the wild, the pandas black-and-white patches help it to blend in with its background. That keeps the animal camouflaged against predators like tigers, leopards and dholes, a type of wild dog, a new study finds.



We have been fooled into thinking that [pandas] are much easier to see than they are in the wild. If we want to understand animal coloration, we need to look at species where they live, says Tim Caro. Hes a zoologist at the University of Bristol in England. He is a co-author on the new study, which was published October 28 in Scientific Reports.



The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), a rare species of bear, lives in remote mountain forests in southwest China. Earlier research had shown that pandas white patches help them blend into snowy areas. And their dark legs and shoulders match well with shady bits of forest. Or at least they do to human eyes.







We tend to usually overestimate how well animals can see because our own color perception is so good, says Ossi Nokelainen. He is an ecologist at the University of Jyvskyl in Finland.



For their new study, Nokelainen, Caro and their colleagues obtained 15 images of pandas in the wild. They then corrected the photos to match how domestic dogs and cats would see the images. Dogs and cats arent dholes and tigers, but their vision should be similar. And the images showed that the pandas should be well-camouflaged from their predators, at least from a distance.



This makes sense, says Nokelainen, since pandas have to stay in one place, fairly still, for a long time to eat enough bamboo. They can just evade the predators in a way that they cant be detected easily by the predators.







































JoAnna Wendel




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Most crabs havestrongexoskeletons toprotect them from predators. However,hermit crabs are born with soft bodies. They have usuallylived insidesea shells or oldsnail shells. But, a recent study by Polish scientists has foundthatthe tiny crustaceans are increasingly turning totrash for refuge.

LOS ANGELES, Calif.  Some vehicles such as cargo ships host spinning vertical cylinders to boost their fuel efficiency. Now, two Massachusetts 18-year-olds have shown how to greatly boost the eco-friendliness of such vehicles. Vishnu Angiras and Misha Mishechkin simply roughed up the surface of those cylinders.



The principal behind those cylinders is the same aerodynamics that cause a spinning ball to arc through the air. Its known as the Magnus effect. Its named for H.G. Magnus, a German scientist who was the first to experimentally study the concept in 1853.



Vishnu and Misha have now shown how to optimize the fuel-saving value of this Magnus effect. For their discovery, they took home fourth place in the physics and astronomy division  and $500 at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), here, on May 17. This competition is a program of the Society for Science (which also publishes this magazine).



This ferry boat, arriving at a port near Denmark, has a rotor sail. Such spinning vertical cylinders generate force that helps propel the ship and improves fuel efficiency. Photofex/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus



Misha recalls how he and Vishnu encountered the Magnus effect as seventh graders watching a viral YouTube video. Drop a basketball from 127 meters (415 feet)  almost the height of the Pyramid of Giza and it will land directly below. But spin that ball slightly before dropping it and the descending ball now sails out in a great arc.



The video pointed to the Magnus effects role in sports. That effect explains baseballs curveball and why a golf ball sails in a big arc as it flies away from the tee.




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Do you have a science question? We can help!



Submit your question here, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of Science News Explores




A physics phenomenon



When a ball or cylinder spins, the air speeds up around one side of the object. Its the side where the objects surface is moving in the same direction as the airflow. That movement decreases the local air pressure. On the opposite side, the air pressure rises. The pressure difference between the two sides generates a sideways force on the object known as lift.



Vishnu Angiras (left) and Misha Mishechkin (right) created a motorized spinning cylinder to test how different textures might boost fuel savings. Here, they show off their contraption at the Regeneron ISEF competition. Society for Science/Chris Ayers Photography


Vishnu and Misha have been experimenting with the Magnus effect since they were ninth graders. Two years ago, they even published a paper. They showed how adding a spinning cylinder to the back of a car should be able to help it move faster on less fuel.



The YouTube video that kicked off their interest in this idea had explained that some ships have installed vertical spinning cylinders. They act like sails to cut fuel use, Misha says.



Those ship cylinders are smooth. But what if they werent?



For instance, golf balls sail great distances because of their textured surface, the duo learned. The balls surface dimples reduce drag a measure of its friction letting it fly farther than a smooth ball. The teens also found a book chapter explaining how a rough surface alters the Magnus effect, causing a textured ball to travel a different path than a smooth one. 



Theres never been any test on spinning cylinders for how roughness or dimples affect them, Vishnu says. So he and Misha decided to see if it would alter how well the Magnus effect might propel a ship or other vehicle.





This 3-minute basketball demo is what initially got Vishnu Angiras and Misha Mishechkin interested in the physics of the Magnus effect and how it might be harnessed for more than sports.



Into the wind tunnel



First, Vishnu and Misha built a test with an aluminum cylinder. This horizontal cylinder sits 60 centimeters (2 feet) off the ground and can spin, thanks to a motor below. A pulley transfers the motors motion to the cylinder. This entire device sits on tracks that allow it to move with little friction.



To vary the cylinders roughness, the teens covered it with various materials. One was a plastic. They 3-D printed it with a pattern that gave it the same dimpled surface as a golf ball. They also sheathed their cylinder with sandpaper having different roughness levels: 60 grit (coarse), 100 grit (medium) and 180 grit (fine). For comparison, Vishnu and Misha sometimes left the cylinder uncovered, so it was completely smooth.



Explainer: What is friction?



Then the teens asked a nearby university (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to let them use a wind tunnel that can move air at about 32 kilometers (20 miles) per hour. As wind pushed against their system, it touched a sensor that measured the setup’s drag force. A scale beneath the setup also measured the downward force. This allowed the teens to calculate the force of lift exerted on their cylinder.



They spun their cylinder with each textured surface at six speeds: zero, 5,000, 10,000, 13,500, 15,000 and 20,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). For each speed and texture combo, Vishnu and Misha took lift and drag readings three times. Afterward, they divided the average lift by the average drag to get a final ratio. A higher lift-to-drag ratio hints at a more effective texture.





Listen as Vishnu Angiras and Misha Mishechkin describe the Magnus effect and how it served as the basis of their award-winning project, showcased at the 2024 Regeneron ISEF competition.



The surprise



We were expecting dimples to be our best variable, Vishnu says. In fact, he now reports, dimples dont have much of an effect at least on a spinning cylinder. But surface roughness doubles the efficiency.



The medium-grit sandpaper increased the lift-to-drag ratio best, compared to the smooth cylinder. And that was true at almost all speeds. For instance, at 15,000 rpm, the medium-grit cover gave a lift-to-drag ratio of 3.169. It was only 1.446 for the slick cylinder. That means the medium grit provided a lift-to-drag ratio about 2.2 times that of the smooth texture. So roughening up texture this way should translate to a fuel savings of 119 percent, Vishnu and Misha report.







Results from a series of wind tunnel experiments showed that adding a dimpled surface didnt have much effect on the ratio of lift to drag. But covering the surface with medium-grit sandpaper roughly doubled the efficiency of the system.
Click the arrows on either side to see the other graph.




Graphs: Vishnu Angiras and Misha Mishechkin



The two hope to one day patent their design. And Misha wants to tell shipmakers that if you make your cylinders more rough, you can double your fuel savings. In much the same way, adding spinning horizontal spoilers to cars ones with a similarly roughed up surface should help drop fuel use in cars.



Vishnu will soon graduate from Shrewsbury High School in Shrewsbury, Mass. Misha is a recent graduate of Tahanto Regional High School in Boylston, Mass. Both are off to different colleges. But they hope to continue working as a team to refine their designs.



The two were among nearly 2,000 Regeneron ISEF finalists who competed from almost 70 countries, regions and territories for more than $9 million in prizes. This yearly high-school event has been run by Society for Science since this organization created the competition in 1950.

Losing a pet is one of the scariest things for pet parents. Pets are part of the family, and when they go missing, its really difficult. Just think about calling their name and searching everywhere, hoping theyll return. Pets can slip out the door or get lost while playing outside. I totally understand this feeling […]

When 13-year-old Austin Appelbee went on a beach adventure with his family on January 30, 2026, he expected a fun afternoon on the water. Instead, he was thrown into a life-or-death emergency that would test his courage and endurance.

While total lunar eclipses are always spectacular, the one on May 26, 2021, promises to be particularly memorable given that it coincides with asupermoon. This means that the Moon which will be at perigee, or its closest distance to Earth will appear about 7 percentlarger and 15 percent brighterthana standard full Moon. Theeclipse will be mostvisible from the western parts of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and Eastern Asia. In theUS,the best views will be reserved forHawaii, Alaska, and the western states.

Hi guys! If you remember me, you’ve been here awhile… Anyway, I’m back and will spend more time on KN now that I am homeschooling! I decided to talk to other homeschool kids and see cool activities as I’m starting on Tuesday, April 1, 2025! Im doing homeschool gymnastics and ninja warrior classes, and I’m […]

Imagine the perfect holiday for you. Remember, it could be anything you want! And how would people celebrate it? Would people have parties, wear special outfits, or do something totally new? So what would it be? Also, what type of big questions would you like to see next?

President Trump has marked the start of his presidency with a series of new executive orders, many of which have adverse effects on the climate. His policies come on the heels of data that show 2024 was the hottest year on record. In addition, January 2025 was officially the hottest January ever recorded with temperatures 1.75C (3.15F) above normal! The federal government has reversed more than 100 environmental regulations previously put in place. The new administration is also shifting focus from the regulation of rising temperatures to oil and gas expansion. Let's find out more...

A dose of antibiotics seems to help some corals recover from a mysterious tissue-eating disease. And yes, theyre the same antibiotics used in people.



Divers discovered the coral disease in 2014. It was afflicting reefs near Miami, Fla. Nicknamed skittle-D, it appears as white lesions that rapidly eat away at coral tissue. The disease has no cure. It currently plagues nearly all of the Great Florida Reef, which spans some 580 kilometers (360 miles). In recent years, skittle-D has spread to reefs in the Caribbean.



Now, a type of coral with skittle-D just off the Florida coast has improved several months after being treated with amoxicillin. Researchers reported the findings April 21 in Scientific Reports. The deadly disease came back on some treated coral over time. But the results provide a spot of good news.



Antibiotic treatments give the corals a break, says Erin Shilling. She works as a coral researcher at Florida Atlantic University in Fort Pierce. Its very good at halting the lesions its applied to.



Treatment with an antibiotic paste (white bands, left) stopped a tissue-eating lesion from spreading over a great star coral colony up to 11 months later (right).E.N. Shilling, I.R. Combs and J.D. Voss/Scientific Reports 2021



Testing treatments



What causes skittle-D remains unknown. So scientists are left to treat the lesions it causes through trial and error. Two treatments show promise. In one, divers apply a material known as a chlorinated epoxy. In another, divers use an amoxicillin paste. 





Lets learn about coral reefs




Shilling and her colleagues wanted to see if either worked as well as some people have been saying. In April 2019, her team found 95 lesions on 32 colonies of great star corals. The scientists dug trenches to surround the lesions. Trenches separate diseased coral tissue from healthy tissue. The team then filled the moats and covered the lesions with the paste or epoxy. Scientists monitored the corals for 11 months.



Within about three months, some 95 percent of lesions treated with amoxicillin had healed. Meanwhile, only about 20 percent of the epoxy-treated lesions had healed in that time. That rate was no better than in untreated lesions. 



But a one-and-done treatment doesnt stop new lesions from popping up, the team found. Some key questions also still need answers, the scientists note. For instance, how long does the treatment work and in which coral species. Scientists are also trying to figure out what side effects antibiotics might pose to the corals.






Cause for hope



Erins work is fabulous, says Karen Neely. She is a marine biologist at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Neely and her team see similar results in their two-year experiment at the Florida National Marine Sanctuary. Her group used the same paste and epoxy treatments on more than 2,300 lesions. Those lesions affected some 1,600 coral colonies.The antibiotic was more than 95 percent effective across all eight species tested, Neely says. New lesions popped up after the initial treatment. But covering those new patches with paste appeared to stop skittle-D from coming back over time. Her teams findings are undergoing peer-review in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.Overall, putting these corals in this treatment program saves them, Neely says. We dont get happy endings very often, so thats a nice one.

Winter, theprosthetic-taileddolphin whose storyinspired a book and two heartwarming movies, died onNovember 12, 2021.The 16-year-oldhad been suffering froman intestinal blockage sinceNovember 1, 2021.The doctorsatFlorida'sClearwater Marine Aquarium tried severallife-saving efforts but were unable to helpthe beloved mammal.

Explorers from Europe made their home in North America longer ago than we had realized. Vikings settled in Canada exactly 1,000 years ago, a new study finds. Details preserved in wood were key to the discovery.



Researchers had evidence that Norse Vikings built the structures and lived there roughly 1,000 years ago. But until now, they hadnt been able to find an exact date for the settlement.



Newfoundland is part of Canadas easternmost province. A team of scientists examined wooden objects at a site on site on its northern coast. By counting tree rings preserved in the wood, they discovered that the objects were made from trees cut down in the year 1021. That gives the oldest precise date for Europeans in the Americas.



Indeed, its the only one from before Christopher Columbus and his ships came to North America in 1492. Margot Kuitems and Michael Dee are geological scientists who led the study. They work at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Their team shared its findings October 20 in Nature.





The site where archeologists found the wooden objects is known as LAnse aux Meadows. Thats French for meadow cove. Discovered in1960, it is now a historic site protected as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Newfoundland site hosts the remains of three houses and other structures. All were made from local trees.





Signature spike



The new study focused on four wooden objects found at LAnse aux Meadows. Its not clear how the objects were used, but each had been cut with metal tools. On three of the finds, Kuitems, Dee and their team identified an annual growth rings in the wood that showed a signature spike in radiocarbon levels. Other researchers have dated that spike to the year 993. Thats when a surge of cosmic rays from solar activity bombarded Earth and increased the planets atmospheric levels of radioactive carbon.



The scientists used the signature spike to help them count the growth rings in each of the wooden objects. Each year that a tree lives, it adds a ring of woody tissue around the outer layer of its trunk. Counting those rings would tell the researchers when the tree was cut down and used to make the object. They started at the year 993 ring and worked their way out to the edge. All the objects yielded the same year 1021.



Despite its precision, that date doesnt answer the question of when Vikings first set foot in the Americas. Some scientists believe LAnse aux Meadows might have been part of a larger area in eastern Canada called Vinland. That region is described in 13th century Icelandic texts as having been settled by Vikings.

Acollection of 1,000 prehistoricstructures dubbed mustatils the plural form of the Arabic term for rectangles scattered across 124,274 miles(200,000 kilometers) innorthwest Saudi Arabiamay be theworld's oldest monuments. A team of archeologistsfromthe University of Western Australia (UWA)reached this conclusion afterradiocarbon dating of charcoalfound inside the courtyardsindicatedtheywere constructed in 5,000 BC or about 2,000 years before theEgyptian pyramids or monuments likeStonehenge in southern England.

Have you ever heard of goldenseal? Its a perennial plant found exclusively in the hardwood forests of eastern North America and is part of the buttercup family. It has a long and varied history of medicinal use. Unfortunately, the future of this wonder plant is in trouble. What happened to goldenseal? Lets find out! Goldenseal: A Miracle Plant Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) has many uses and is prepared in many forms. Treatment methods include capsules, teas, and herbal extracts. The roots and leaves are used to treat viruses and swelling. Goldenseal is also used in ear drops, allergy...

Hello and Merry Christmas! Christmas might not be a time of video games, but it’s a thing to entertain you during the wintertime! Here are some games recommended by me that you should play during Christmas time. 1. Santa Tracker Why not add this to the list? Not only does it include games, but it […]

On February 17, 2026, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide will welcome the start of the Chinese New Year. Also called Lunar or Spring New Year, it is one of the most important holidays in China. The date of the two-week celebration is determined by the lunar calendar. It usually falls between late January and mid-February. For many families, it is a time to reflect on the past year and prepare for a fresh start.

Tectonic plate (noun, Tek-TAHN-ick PLAYT)



Earths outermost layer, or lithosphere, is broken up into a giant jigsaw puzzle of tectonic plates. These huge slabs of rock hold both Earths continents and its seafloor. Theyre around 100 kilometers (miles) thick on average and include both Earths crust and upper mantle. Earth is covered in about a dozen main tectonic plates. And its the only planet known to have tectonic plates.



Explainer: Understanding plate tectonics



Earths tectonic plates continually slide around atop the hot, swirling rock beneath them. They move only a few centimeters per year. But over millions of years, those tiny movements add up. When tectonic plates bump into each other, they push up mountains. When plates slide beneath each other, they can form volcanoes. Plates can also slide past each other. Each of these movements can trigger earthquakes.



Even more dramatically, the shuffling of tectonic plates can give Earths surface a complete makeover. More than 200 million years ago, Earth had only one huge landmass: Pangaea. Over time, the shifting of tectonic plates broke that landmass apart and gave rise to the continents we see today.



In a sentence



A single catastrophic collision may have given Earth both its moon and its tectonic plates.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

Bond (noun, BOND)



In chemistry, a bond is an attachment between atoms. Bonds form because atoms are made of particles with electrical charges. The center of an atom contains particles with a positive charge, and particles with no charge. The particles around the outside of an atom each have a negative charge. Have you heard the saying opposites attract? It applies in chemistry, too. The attraction between negative charges in one atom and positive charges in another is the basis for a chemical bond



Chemical bonds between individual atoms form molecules. Bonds can also form between the atoms in molecules and other atoms or molecules nearby. Chemical bonds form every solid thing on Earth from huge boulders to the cells in your body.



There are many kinds of chemical bonds. All of them require energy to form, and energy to break. Every chemical reaction involves a change in chemical bonds as atoms get added or removed from molecules. Thats why all chemical reactions involve energy.



In a sentence



Bonds between hydrogen atoms might help explain why hot water freezes faster than cold water.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

After months of negotiations, US lawmakers finally reached an agreementtoallocate$1.2 trillion to much-neededpublic works projects. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,signed into law by President Joe Biden onNovember 15, 2021,includes$550 billion in new spending.The restwill be reallocated from already existing projects and funds. Here are some of the manyinfrastructure improvements that can be expected across the country over the next five years.

Experiment (noun, Ex-PAIR-uh-ment)



The word experiment might make you think of scientists wearing white coats in a lab. But anyone, anywhere can do an experiment. An experiment is a procedure used to test an idea about the world.



In an experiment, a person manipulates one thing and observes how that may affect another thing. The thing that the person manipulates is the independent variable. The thing that may change in response is the dependent variable.





For example, Science News for Students did an experiment to test the five-second rule. The rule states that food dropped on the floor will collect fewer germs if its picked up quickly. To test this rule, you need to compare two things: how long food lays on the floor, and how germy the food gets. In this case, the person doing the experiment manipulates the amount of time the food spends on the floor. How long the food lays on the floor is the independent variable. The dependent variable the thing that may change in response is how dirty the food gets.



Measurements of the number of germs on different pieces of food are experimental data. Analyzing data can lead to a conclusion about the idea being tested. In this experiment, the data suggest that time spent on the floor does not affect how many germs get on food. Conclusion: the five-second rule is a myth.



But don’t take our word for it. A crucial part of science is replication. Thats when many scientists do the same experiment to confirm or deny the results. Join the scientific process by doing the five-second rule experiment for yourself. Or try another experiment from our collection.



In a sentence



If you have a question, like which parts of the body are most sensitive to touch, an experiment can help you find out the answer.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

In March, the film Dune: Part Two returned sci-fi fans to the desert planet Arrakis. On this harsh, sandy world, human settlers seek the spice a substance that enables interstellar travel. But spice miners must evade giant, man-eating sandworms.  



This fantastical setting has captured Dune fans imaginations for decades. Frank Herbert first introduced Arrakis in the novel Dune in 1965. The new movies, based on the book and directed by Denis Villeneuve,have brought Herberts rich worldbuilding to new life. And now, scientists have weighed in on how realistic the world of Arrakis really is. 



People probably could live on a planet like Arrakis, researchers say. But monstrous sandworms (thankfully) could not.  



Habitable? Yes. Pleasant? Eh 



A few years ago, a team of climate modelers madea computer simulation of Arrakis. (You canexplore the virtual planet at Climate Archive). To create their model, the researchers started with the physics known to drive weather and climate on Earth. Then, they added details about the planet from the Dune novel and its sequels. The modelers also drew information from theDune Encyclopedia. 



Explainer: What is a computer model?



According to that intel, Arrakis atmosphere is similar to Earths with a couple of key differences. Arrakis has less carbon dioxide, or CO2, in its atmosphere. But the fictional world also has far more ozone in its lower atmosphere. Ozone makes up some 0.5 percent of the gases in Arrakis lower atmosphere. But its only about 0.000001 percent of Earths lower atmosphere. 



All that extra ozone is crucial for understanding Arrakis. Ozone is a powerful greenhouse gas. Its about 65 times as potent at warming the atmosphere as CO2 is over a 20-year period.  



Arrakis would certainly have a much warmer atmosphere, even though it has less CO2than Earth today, says Alexander Farnsworth. Hes part of the team that built the model Arrakis. He works at the University of Bristol in England. 



A climate model of Arrakis predicts that cloud cover and other factors would make regions near the poles unbearably hot in summer and well below freezing in the winter. Areas closer to the equator would be slightly more comfortable. But they would have strong winds (white arrows) that whip up massive sand dunes. A. Farnsworth, M. Farnsworth, S. Steinig/The Conversation (CC BY-ND 4.0 DEED)



So much ozone in the lower atmosphere could be bad news for humans. That would be incredibly toxic, I think, Farnsworth says. Almost fatal, if you were to live under such conditions. People on Arrakis would likely have to use some technology to remove ozone from the air. 



People would also need to be careful about where they established settlements on Arrakis. In the Dune universe, people live near the poles. But in reality, these areas would have extreme summer heat and bone-chilling winter cold. For instance, winter could bring temperatures as low as 40 C to 75 C (40 F to 103 F). This would make polar regions nearly unlivable without technology, Farnsworth says. 



Temperatures near Arrakis equator would be milder. Say, around 45 C (113 F) in the warmest months and about 15 C (59 F) in colder ones.  



On Earth, high humidity causes tropical areas near the equator to be far warmer than at the poles. But this was not the case in the computer model of Arrakis. Most of the atmospheric moisture was essentially removed from the tropics, Farnsworth says. This made even the scorching summers more bearable. The clouds and tiny amount of moisture gathered near the poles to heat the atmosphere.



But the tropics on Arrakis would pose their own challenges. Hurricane-force winds would regularly sandblast settlers and builddunes up to 250 meters (820 feet) tall. 



That doesnt mean people couldnt live on Arrakis, Farnsworth says. Theyd just need technology and lots of off-world support to bring in food and water. Its a very livable world, he says. Just a very inhospitable world. 



The fictional planet Arrakis is said to orbit the real star Canopus (pictured). The real Canopus is the second brightest star in the Southern Hemisphere sky but is not known to host any planets. In Dune, Arrakis is about as far from Canopus as Pluto is from the sun. The planet would still get blasted with a fair amount of radiation from its star which is a large white star much hotter than the sun. But ozone in Arrakiss upper atmosphere could help shield life on the surface from this harmful radiation. NASA



Its hard to be a giant sandworm 



Humans might be able to get by on Arrakis with some help from their tech. But the planet would likely not be livable for its most famous residents: the giant sandworms.  



The sandworms on Arrakis are said to be up to 400 meters (1,300 feet) long. Thats nearly 10 times the length of the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived. That would be unusual for an animal with a long body, like a worm.  



The worm body plan is really common. It has evolved many times over the last 600 million years, says Patrick Lewis. But none of them have ever been very big. Lewis is a vertebrate paleontologist. He works at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. 



For invertebrate worms those without spines the problem is oxygen. Worms often absorb oxygen through their skin to spread through their bodies. The larger the animal, the harder it would be to get oxygen to their internal organs. 



Lewis figures that Arrakis giant sandworms must be vertebrates, though. We have vertebrate worm-like creatures on Earth,likeZygaspisworm lizards from sub-Saharan Africa. Those are the species that Lewis studies. They are much smaller than Arrakis worms. Theyre only about 20 to 30 centimeters (8 to 12 inches) long. But that didnt stop Lewis from imagining what aDune-sized vertebrate worm might be like. 



Arrakis, the fictional planet in Dune, would be livable for humans, researchers say. But not the giant sandworms depicted in the movies (as in this scene from Dune: Part Two).Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures



Worms with bones and muscles could be bigger and stronger than invertebrates, Lewis says. But they would be limited by gravity. Whales can be big because they live in water. There, buoyancy can do a lot of the heavy lifting on their bodies.  



But if youre going to be on the surface, then you have to be able to fight gravity, Lewis says. To reach more than 150 meters long, you would basically have to be a big ball of bone to keep from crushing under your own weight. 



Perhaps Arrakis worms would have bones made of a superlight material not known on Earth. Then, they could grow to such a huge size. But that poses a problem for moving around. The bigger you get, the relatively weaker the muscles are, Lewis says. So youd need monstrously strong muscles and unbelievably thick bones to attach them to. And muscles create a lot of heat. 





Zygaspisworm lizards can tolerate 45 C (113 F) temperatures in Africas Kalahari Desert. Thats because they are small. This means their bodies have lots of surface area compared to their volume. The more surface area relative to volume an animal has, the more easily it can shed heat.  



A giant sandworm wouldnt be able to shed heat nearly as easily. The bigger an animal is, the more volume it has which generates and stores heat compared to the surface area it uses to cool itself. Combine that with the hot weather of Arrakis, and that spells trouble for huge worms.  



If youre a giant worm, a hot climate is not your friend, Lewis says. 



So if youre aDunefan wondering what life would truly be like on Arrakis, youre in luck. The planet would be a realistic, if harsh, place for humans to live. As a bonus, you probably wouldnt have to worry about getting eaten by a giant sandworm. 

We have all heard that reducing meat and dairy consumption is an important behavioral change that can help with our planet's climate. However, what is a successful strategy to get people to consume more plant-based food? Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital has an answer. They pioneered a vegetarian/vegan option to reduce climate change. Faulkner is one of 60 hospitals, universities, major corporations, and cities that have signed an international pledge to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030. One of the main strategies they are using: not mentioning the word vegan...