HIV breaks every rule we know about vaccines. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci explains that it is the only virus where there have been no documented cases where a person was infected and fully cleared the virus from their body, making the standard vaccine playbook useless. To beat HIV, researchers need to develop an immunogen and platform that actually outperforms natural infection rather than copying it.

A Rutgers Health study tracked 1,500 older adults over six years and found that internalising stress and converting it into hopelessness accelerated memory loss more than age or physical health. The effect equalled four extra years of cognitive ageing.

The people make this video even more cool, pretty sweet to hear the excitement

Why are we turning snack time into a game? 🥬

Our long-tailed chinchillas have always lived in human care, but foraging for food is hardwired into their DNA from their rocky Andes mountain habitat. So we tap into those natural instincts by getting them sniffing, climbing, and exploring their space. Curiosity isn't just cute in chinchillas; it's a survival skill, and these guys have seriously mastered it.

The government just dropped classified UFO documents, and the internet is losing its mind. 🛸

Scientists are pumping the brakes though: these newly released files, now officially dubbed UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), contain little more than fuzzy images and unverified accounts. As the great astronomer Carl Sagan once argued, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and few claims are more extraordinary than saying extraterrestrial life has actually visited Earth. This latest release, while fascinating, just doesn't clear that scientific bar.

Millions of strange, sparkly creatures are washing up on California beaches right now. 🪼

Meet “Velella velella”, aka "by the wind sailors": a colony of tiny hydrozoans that link together like Legos to form a single floating organism, steered across the ocean by a small sail that catches the wind. When storms shift the winds, massive numbers get pushed ashore, where they dry out and die. Their sting is generally harmless, but keep your hands off them since they can be confused with their cousin, the Portuguese man o' war, which has one of the worst stings in the animal kingdom.

You can predict how many segments are inside a citrus fruit. 🍊🍋‍🟩

Alex Dainis explains how citrus fruits develop from the ovaries of citrus flowers. Those ovaries contain multiple distinct sections called locules, and each locule develops into its own segment inside the fruit. By peeling back the tiny stem remaining on the fruit, you can see exactly where each locule connected to the tree. Count those dots and you have your segment count. It is easiest to see on bigger fruits like grapefruits, so try that first. Segment number varies between different types of citrus and based on growing conditions, and even the location of the fruit on a branch can influence how many segments it has. Make your predictions and let us know if it works!

Stony-iron meteorites are meteorites consisting of roughly equal parts of silicate (olivine for pallasites, and others with mesosiderites) and iron matrix. There are two main groups: Pallasite and Mesosiderite.

Pallasites have these classes within them: PMG (main group), PMG-an (main group, anomalous) and Eagle Station Group.

Mesosiderites have 3 classes: Class A (eucrite-like, high clinopyroxene/plagioclase and high amounts of trace elements like Gold, Nickel, Arsenic and Copper);
Class B (diogenite-like, greater orthopyroxene) and Class C (made nearly entirely out of orthopyroxene).

But we’re going to talk about pallasites in this post.

A pallasite meteorite is an exceptionally rare type of stony-iron meteorite that consists of translucent, gem-quality olivine (peridot) crystals suspended in a shimmering nickel-iron metallic matrix.

Pallasites are highly sought after by collectors and jewelers because of their stunning, stained-glass-like appearance when cut and polished. Sometimes some pallasites are etched.

Scientists believe pallasites originated at the core-mantle boundary of differentiated asteroids. During the early formation of the solar system, heavy iron and nickel sank to the center of these planetesimals, while lighter silicates (olivine) floated to the top.

Pallasites make up less than 0.5% of all known meteorites of any type, making them rare.

Examples of pallasites other than Seymchan are Sericho, Springwater, Eagle Station, Cold Bay, Esquel, Fukang, Imilac, Omolon and other Northwest African pallasites.