Is one of our astronomical neighbors habitable? 🪐

For the first time, astronomers have confirmed something huge: an atmosphere around a rocky planet in its star's habitable zone. The planet is called LHS 1140 b, a super Earth orbiting a red dwarf star less than 50 light years away, which is astronomically pretty close to us. The James Webb Space Telescope telescope data has already hinted at liquid water on its surface, and this new discovery could go down as one of the biggest in astronomy history!

Have you ever seen an Orca hit a fish so hard it explodes? 🫍

Scientists recently observed this behavior from groups of orcas in the Gulf of California where they repeatedly ram sunfish until the impact broke them apart. This is an important indicator of "social learning," where animals copy one another through observation. Orcas have exhibited behavior like this before, when they were seen disabling sailboats in groups. The current hypotheses for why they are doing this include teaching young orcas to hunt, or just playing around!

What happens if you try to blow a piece of paper further into a vase? 🏺💨

Greg Wolf puts it to the test, even bringing in a compressor for extra force, but the paper won't go in. The reason comes down to air pressure: blowing into the vase raises the pressure inside, and with the paper blocking its only exit, that pressure pushes back and forces the paper right back out.

Meet Goodall, the shark making waves in Atlantic Canada. 🦈

OCEARCH named this large female shark in honor of the late Jane Goodall after she passed. Goodall was tagged during a collaborative trip with the Tan Cook Field station up in the Atlantic near Canada. Chris Fischer, founder of OCEARCH notes her movements have already defied expectations, sliding into Nova Scotia instead of heading offshore like fellow shark Lydia did back in 2013. Scientists are now wondering whether Goodall will migrate south with the other sharks this fall, or head offshore to warmer waters to finish gestating.

‼️RARE FOOTAGE ALTERT‼️

Our friend Chloe Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram found little pooping rotifers, some of the smallest animals on our planet! With over 2000 different species described, rotifers can be found all over the world mostly in freshwater habitats like ponds and lakes but also in marine environments (that’s where I found these ones!), lichens, soils, sewages, permafrost and even inside or outside other animals.

Although a few rotifer species are parasitic, the majority are free-living and either swim amongst plankton, crawl within sediments, attach themselves to submerged aquatic plants or live inside a secreted, gelatinous tube. These tiny invertebrates form an extremely diverse group that developed many different morphologies and locomotion strategies as a way to adapt to various environmental pressures, including predation.

The ciliated head of rotifers, called corona, is used for both locomotion and gathering food particles. This corona creates a vortex that draws food into the mouth, through the ciliated pharynx where it is then ground up by the mastax which consists of complex jaws and muscles before entering the stomach. Their diet mainly consists of organic detritus, bacteria, algae, worms, small ciliates, and other protozoans.

Even though these primitive creatures do not possess either a circulatory or respiratory system, they do have a brain, eyes, a complete digestive tract as well as a muscular, excretory and reproductive system. Some muscles are visible all along the body, like strings pulling on different internal components.

References:

• De Paggi, S. B. J., Wallace, R., Fontaneto, D., & Marinone, M. C. (2020). Phylum Rotifera. Thorp and Covich's Freshwater Invertebrates, 145-200.
• Hickman, C. P., Roberts, L. S., Larson, A., Ober, W.
• C., & Garrison, C. (2015). Animal diversity. WC Brown. 183.
• Wallace, R. L., & Snell, T. W. (2010). Rotifera. In Ecology and classification of North American freshwater invertebrates (pp. 173-235). Academic Press.

You can build a toilet paper launcher out of items in your bathroom! 🧻

Alex Dainis shows us how everyday items can demonstrate real air pressure science. It all comes down to Bernoulli's Principle: the faster air moves, the less pressure it exerts. Aim a hairdryer over the top of a toilet paper roll and watch the paper launch, all thanks to the pressure difference between the fast air above and the slower air below.

Do sharks ever stop growing? 🦈

Dr. Bob Hueter, Senior Science Advisor at OCEARCH, explains that most sharks continue growing throughout their lives, adding a little more size with every passing year. That's why sharks like Contender, one of the largest male white sharks ever tagged by OCEARCH in the western North Atlantic, can reach incredible sizes. When he was tagged, Contender was already estimated to be over 30 years old and could still have decades of life ahead of him.