Gathering for mutual defense puts young spiny lobsters at risk of predators. Lobsters are generally notable for their large claws, which can serve as a deterrent to any predators. But there’s a whole family of spiny lobsters that lack these claws. They tend to ward off predators by forming…
Yakisugi, a Japanese technique of burning wood surfaces, creates a protective carbonized layer Yakisugi is a Japanese architectural technique for charring the surface of wood. It has become quite popular in bioarchitecture because the carbonized layer protects the wood from water, fire, insects, and fungi, thereby prolonging the lifespan…
Information from sensors is transmitted using neural-style activity spikes. The nervous system does an astonishing job of tracking sensory information, and does so using signals that would drive many computer scientists insane: a noisy stream of activity spikes that may be transmitted to hundreds of additional neurons, where they…
Folklorist/historian Adrienne Mayor on her new book Mythopedia: A Brief Compendium of Natural History Lore Earthquakes, volcanic eruption, eclipses, meteor showers, and many other natural phenomena have always been part of life on Earth. In ancient cultures that predated science, such events were often memorialized in myths and legends.…
Art and science converge in Lynn Gamwell’s book, Conjuring the Void: The Art of Black Holes Black holes have long captured the imagination of both scientists and the general public. These exotic objects—once thought to be merely hypothetical—have also conceptually inspired countless artists all over the world. A generous…
Ants with lots of workers tend to put less energy into making them armored. The trade-off between quality and quantity is a fundamental economic dilemma. Now, a team of British, American, and Japanese researchers describes how it applies to biology, as well. They have discovered that this dilemma most…
Chris Wright declared an energy “emergency” in the Pacific Northwest. SEATTLE—The last coal-fired power plant in Washington state was set to go cold at the end of the year. It would then switch to natural gas, cutting carbon emissions in half. The shutdown had been in the works for…
South Korean rocket startup Innospace is poised to debut a new nano-launcher. Welcome to Edition 8.23 of the Rocket Report! Several new rockets made their first flights this year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn was the most notable debut, with a successful inaugural launch in January followed by an impressive…
DiskSat’s design offers “a power-to-weight ratio unmatched by traditional aluminum satellites.” Four small satellites rode a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle into orbit from Virginia early Thursday, beginning a government-funded technology demonstration mission to test the performance of a new spacecraft design. The satellites were nestled inside a cylindrical…
They were infected by roundworm, whipworm, and microscopic protozoans called Giardia duodenalis. It probably sucked to be a Roman soldier guarding Hadrian’s Wall circa the third century CE. W.H. Auden imagined the likely harsh conditions in his poem “Roman Wall Blues,” in which a soldier laments enduring wet wind…
