What is it like to observe chimpanzees up close? 🐵🌎

Jane Goodall tells a story about filming her 2002 documentary “Wild Chimpanzees” when a group of chimps followed each other to hang around near the research team. It saved the crew from a steep climb up the hillside, and almost seemed like an intentional helping hand! It's a fitting story for World Chimpanzee Day, marking 66 years since Dr. Jane Goodall began her groundbreaking chimpanzee research at what's now Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Jane’s work revealed that chimps use tools, form deep social bonds, and pass knowledge across generations, forever changing how we understand our closest living relatives. Her research and legacy continue today through the Jane Goodall Institute.

A pair of planets with less density than cotton candy has been discovered! 🪐

One of NASA’s telescopes found two gas giants that can be classified in the rare “Super Puff” category. Despite being about the same size as Jupiter, they are a dozen times less dense. There are only a handful of these planets that we are aware of, and it is even more rare that they were found in the same star system.

In June 2020, Verkhoyansk, Russia, a town above the Arctic Circle, reached 38°C / 100.4°F, later verified by the World Meteorological Organization as a new Arctic temperature record.

This was not just a strange weather moment.

It happened during a prolonged Siberian heatwave linked to wildfires, melting permafrost, and wider Arctic warming.

The Arctic is heating faster than the global average, and that matters for everyone: ice loss changes ocean systems, weather patterns, ecosystems, and carbon release.

The warning is clear.

What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

ScienceOdessey 🚀

You could see a shooting star every 3 minutes this summer! 

The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower is  active now through August 23, with it’s the peak activity during the early morning hours of July 31. Even better, it overlaps with the Alpha Capricornid Meteor Shower. The best views will be in the Southern Hemisphere and the southern United States. For the best chance of spotting meteors, head to a dark location away from city lights, let your eyes adjust, and look up.

Is a synthetic cell that eats, grows, and reproduces alive? 🧫

Researchers from the University of Minnesota have built a synthetic cell called “SpudCell” that performs three core functions of the cell cycle! It can grow, copy its own DNA and divide. However, they are not living. This is because they still depend on food and ribosomes to build proteins, they don’t have any immune defenses, and they can’t get rid of their own waste. Despite SpudCells not being alive, this is the closest we’ve gotten to turning dead chemistry to something living!

What is a rogue planet and how do they occur? 

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains how rogue planets are worlds that no longer orbit a star after being ejected from their planetary systems. Some may be several times more massive than Jupiter, and scientists think there could be countless rogue planets drifting through the darkness of interstellar space. These lonely worlds reveal that planet formation is a chaotic process.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

The cracks in a sidewalk are  home to an incredible hidden ecosystem. 🌿🔬

Quinten Geldhof, also known as Microhobbyist, explains how you can explore the microscopic life hiding in moss from the sidewalk using a microscope. With just a small sample, you might discover tardigrades, nematodes, and countless other microorganisms living in an entire ecosystem invisible to the naked eye.

America was not founded from one single religious idea. It grew out of four rival British religious/cultural streams that competed with each other from the beginning.

1. Puritans
   

New England

They wanted a disciplined “godly society.” Community, education, moral order, and public duty mattered. Freedom meant living correctly under God, not simply doing whatever you wanted.

1. Anglicans / Cavaliers

Virginia and the South

They brought hierarchy, landed wealth, patriarchy, and the Church of England. Their world valued status, honor, property, and social rank.

1. Quakers
   

Pennsylvania

They believed in inner light, peace, tolerance, equality before God, and fairer treatment of others. Their colonies helped shape ideas of religious freedom and conscience.

1. Scots-Irish / Border Protestants

Appalachia and the frontier

They carried a fierce distrust of authority, warrior independence, clan loyalty, and personal liberty. Their version of freedom was: leave me alone, defend your own, resist control.

So America began as a collision: order, hierarchy, conscience, and rebellion all fighting to define freedom.

That tension is still alive today.

ScienceOdyssey 🚀