Science!

[KingRoyal]

45,000-year-old skull confirms existence of 9-foot tall Australian geese

That's a fucking Elden Ring monster is what that is

[Mongrel]

If emus are related to geese, at least Aussies finally have a good excuse for losing a war to them.

[nosimpleway]

This

guy

HONKS

[Mongrel]

New study appears to suggest that elephants address each other by individual names.

[Mongrel]

Hi it's Mongrel and I am stumping for Elephants Are Sapient again.

We've known for centuries that elephants mourn, and now New Research Suggests Asian Elephants Bury Their Dead (via Smithsonian)

[Mongrel]

Samsung Announces 600-Mile Solid-State EV Battery, Charges in 9 Minutes

Also claiming better thermal safety and double the energy density of current EV batteries. Not cheap though, at least, not currently (heh).

[Mongrel]

A while back some lunar scientists predicted lava tubes on the moon, well recently, NASA discovered a number of surface caves which were definitely volcanic in origin and now they know for sure that, yes, there are indeed huge lunar lava tubes.

And they are absolutely brobdingnagian enough for a theoretical lunar cave city!

[Cait]

That does potentially solve one problem with a lunar settlement. Which still leaves a dozen or so other major ones, but it's a start.

[Mongrel]

The tartrazine orange dye in Doritos can make mice transparent

Beyond the obvious jokes, this actually can be used to reduce the harm and invasiveness of medical research which involves mice; the effect can render tissue transparent to up to a cm in depth, and it can be applied just by gently rubbing the dye on and removed by simply washing it off.

[Upthorn]

The real upshot is if the technique works on nonmice you could wind up with much faster and cheaper injury and tumor diagnosis for everyone

[Mongrel]

The secret to living to 110? Don't register your death.

Guy won a 2024 Ig Nobel, but his research is real and legitimate - revealing that almost all the data on centenarians and regions where people supposedly live to see 110 at an above-average rate is junk.

Okinawa, for example, famously has loads of centenarians, but also has some of Japan's worst rates for healthy eating and heavy drinking, and, notably, has many areas where civic records were bombed out during the war, and that's in a country which does try to have scrupulous and accurate records. Looking at the famously healthy Mediterranean you also note you're looking at pension records in countries like Greece or Italy.

So, how to live to 110? Don't register your birth, don't register your death, and commit pension fraud.

I think this is something a lot of people sort of assume, because "Oh there's no birth certificate, but..." sounds suspicious to most folks with an iota of skepticism, but it's neat to see someone out there doing actual research that says, hey, this really is mostly complete bullshit, and it's a disservice to science (and pension funding) to pretend otherwise.

[KingRoyal]

Woman successfully treated for type 1 diabetes with reprogrammed stem cells from her own body

A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes started producing her own insulin less than three months after receiving a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells1. She is the first person with the disease to be treated using cells that were extracted from her own body.

“I can eat sugar now,” said the woman, who lives in Tianjing, on a call with Nature. It has been more than a year since the transplant, and, she says, “I enjoy eating everything — especially hotpot.” The woman asked to remain anonymous to protect her privacy.

James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says the results of the surgery are stunning. “They’ve completely reversed diabetes in the patient, who was requiring substantial amounts of insulin beforehand.”

[Büge]

Dozens of dinosaur fossils discovered in Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park in B.C.

[Mongrel]

A couple years old, but too wild not to share: Scientists consider building Mars bases with bricks made from human blood (also sweat, tears, & pee)

“The concept is literally blood-curdling,” remarked Aled Roberts, who is from the University of Manchester and who was involved in the project.

“Scientists have been trying to develop viable technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, but we never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along,” Dr Roberts said.

He'll be here all week, folks.

[Mongrel]

Oh lord, they kept working at it and there's more! Potatoes are better than human blood for making space bricks, scientists say

Good News Everyone!

[Mongrel]

There is literally no evidence anywhere of a large late-medieval cat cull, much less one at the behest of the church, and the idea that the Black Plague was some kind of cosmic retribution for a cat cull via a mouse population explosion is completely nonsensical.

I'm familiar with a lot of this, but I hadn't heard about the marmot origin before. That's a newish detail, I think?

Oh and there's a pic of a manuscript with cat prints on it in there that isn't the same one which usually circulates, so I'm beginning to suspect that "cat walks on your manuscript" was as common as "cat sits in front of your screen".

[Mongrel]

The wheels on NASA's Curiosity rover after 12 years on Mars.

[atog]

The wheels on NASA's Curiosity rover after 12 years on Mars.

Marvin: "I'd just like to remind you sorry pack of Earthlings that I'm not here to remind you about your extended rover warranty, and that I live here, so would you kindly dry up and blow away in the solar winds? Thanks in advance, Marvin"

[Friday]

Oh and there's a pic of a manuscript with cat prints on it in there that isn't the same one which usually circulates, so I'm beginning to suspect that "cat walks on your manuscript" was as common as "cat sits in front of your screen".

Cats will get in between you and whatever is holding your interest when they want attention/pets, so yeah I imagine cats walking on manuscript was as relatable to people in the 1600s as cat memes are to us now.

[Mongrel]

Researchers spot black hole feeding at 40x its theoretical limit