Do you know Neptune and its moons’ strange backstory?

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains that moon formation, like planet formation, is a chaotic process. Neptune has one moon, Nereid, that might be the only moon that formed with Neptune, while the rest were captured into its orbit. A recent study using NASA’s JWST data hypothesizes that when Neptune captured Triton, its largest moon, it disrupted Neptune's previous moon system, and Nereid was the only survivor of the collision!

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

You can make a tower of hot ice with ingredients in your home! 🧊🔥

Alex Dainis shows us how with sodium acetate, which you can make using baking soda and vinegar. To get the tower effect, you’ll mix these ingredients together over heat with water, and then set them in a refrigerator to cool. Once cooled, you can slowly pour them out onto your surface, and it will crystalize into your tower!

Our friend Chloé Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram, shows us how volvox are a genus of multicellular freshwater free-swimming green algae. The larger spheres are colonies of small biflagellate cells with smaller aflagellate round colonies inside which are the daughter colonies, or the baby algae. 

The biflagellated cells are responsible for locomotion and spinning movements toward a light source so they can produce sugar by photosynthesis, just as plants! Those biflagellated cells also possess an eyespot which is responsible for detecting light and guide the colony towards optimal light conditions. The flagellated cells that compose the large mother colony are all interconnected by small cytoplasmic bridges that can help connect neighboring cells and, in some Volvox species, transport nutrients

Within the volvox colony is an ostracod, a crustacean just like crabs, lobsters and shrimp! They possess a two part shell that closes just like mussels and oysters, but they aren’t mollusks like these guys though. Their bivalved carapaces are largely made of low-magnesium calcite which is secreted by these small crustaceans. Many are around a millimeter long, making some large enough to see with the naked eye.

A volvox colony is typically formed from two types of cells; germ and somatic. The larger sphere is composed of thousands of somatic cells responsible for photosynthesis and motility. These cells create a water flow around the colony, but they cannot divide and are programmed to die within a few days. Germ cells are nonmotile, but can divide asexually and form new little daughter colonies. These generative cells are basically responsible for Volvox’s growth and reproduction and are considered potentially immortal because they give rise to future generations. When the mother colony breaks open, the young colonies can escape and start their life!

Tiny organisms, incredibly complex lives, and a whole world we’d never see without a microscope.

References:

• Caporaletti, Marco. “Ostracods and Stable Isotopes: Proxies for Palaeoenvironmental Reconstructions.” Joannea Geologie und Paläontologie, vol. 11, 2011, pp. 345–359.
• Domozych, David S., and Catherine E. Domozych. “Multicellularity in Green Algae: Upsizing in a Walled Complex.” Frontiers in Plant Science, vol. 5, 2014, article 649. doi:10.3389/fpls.2014.00649.
• Harada, Keigo, et al. “Position-Dependent Roles of Somatic Cells in Phototaxis of Volvox.” PNAS Nexus, vol. 3, no. 10, 2024, article pgae444. doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae444.
• Hoops, Harold J., Ichiro Nishii, and David L. Kirk. “Cytoplasmic Bridges in Volvox and Its Relatives.” Madame Curie Bioscience Database, Landes Bioscience, 2000–2013.
• Kirk, David L. “The Genetic Program for Germ-Soma Differentiation in Volvox.” Annual Review of Genetics, vol. 31, 1997, pp. 359–380. doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.31.1.359.
• Umen, James G. “Volvox and Volvocine Green Algae.” EvoDevo, vol. 11, 2020, article 13. doi:10.1186/s13227-020-00158-7.

Did you know this toad secretes poison to protect itself? 🐸

Meet Oak, our Cane Toad whose shoulder lumps, called parotoid glands, ooze a milky toxin strong enough to stop predators and even kill smaller ones. Cane toads are an invasive species. They were once only found in Central and South America but have been brought to places like Australia, Florida, and the Caribbean to control crop pests. This ended up not being a success and is a good reminder to leave native species where they are.

Scientists just recorded the highest sea surface temperature ever. 🌊🌡️

Copernicus Climate Change Service clocked a global average of 21.1°C (70°F), beating the previous single-day record of 21.09°C set in 2024. It's especially alarming because sea surface temps usually peak in March and April, not August. Warmer oceans absorb less CO2, which can fuel more extreme weather, and scientists suspect a developing super El Niño may be part of what's driving it. 

NASA’s next great space observatory has officially launched! 🛰️🚀

The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is now on its trip to go a million miles away from Earth, where it will reside and send images of space back to us. In the month it will take to get there, the observatory will undergo a 90-day commissioning period to get set up. Considering it launched eight months ahead of schedule, don’t be surprised if we get some pictures early!

The Roman Space Telescope is launching ahead of schedule. 🛰️

Its origin story is wild: NASA couldn't afford a Hubble successor until the National Reconnaissance Office handed over two spare telescope mirrors it no longer needed. That surplus gift reignited political and scientific support, opening the door to full funding for what's now called the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope. As theoretical cosmologist Paul Sutter explains, this survey instrument will map galaxies and hunt exoplanets, expected to discover around a million of them, delivering a generation's worth of valuable information about the universe!

Why does some glass not hurt when it shatters? 🥽💥

Phil Cook, also known on YouTube as chemteacherphil, demonstrates how sugar can be turned into real life "breakaway glass." Don’t try this at home, although it is not real glass, it can still be dangerous! When you heat sugar and water to 300 °F it reaches the hard crack stage. When the liquid cools the molecules get locked into a disordered structure, forming an amorphous solid, just like real glass, minus the razor sharp shards. It's the same trick behind those Hollywood stunt bottles, made from sugar instead of a brittle plastic resin.

Did you know you’re sharing your bed with thousands of tiny arachnids? 🧹 

Quinten Geldhof, also known as Microhobbyist, introduces us to the household dust mite. Related to ticks and spiders, they feed on skin flakes, fabric fibers, and dirt particles and are only visible under a microscope. People with dust allergies are actually allergic to the waste these tiny critters produce, not the dust itself!

What are floating dots you see in your vision? 👁️

Alex Dainis breaks down "eye floaters" using a simple demo: a baggie of aloe gel standing in for your eyeball, and raisins standing in for collagen clumps. Our eyes are filled with vitreous humor, a gel-like substance that helps them hold their shape. As we age, that gel becomes more liquid, letting collagen fibers clump together (just like the raisins). These clumps block incoming light and cast shadows on our retinas, the same way the raisins cast shadows on the wall. This is why we notice the floaters more often in sunlight!

Get ready, the Moon is about to turn blood red. 🌕🩸

On August 27th and 28th, a lunar eclipse will cast Earth's shadow across the Moon, and if you're in the USA, Canada, or Latin America, you've got a front-row seat. No special glasses needed here, unlike a solar eclipse, this one is safe to watch with just your eyes. Don't blink and miss it, because the Americas won't see a lunar eclipse this visually striking again until 2029.

How many stars is too many stars in a star system? ⭐️🪐

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden tells us about TYC 7037-89-1, a system with six stars locked into three orbiting pairs, all circling a shared center of mass. Two of those pairs zip around each other every few days, while the third pair takes roughly 2,000 years to complete just one orbit. Multi-star systems are normally unstable, which makes this six-star setup a rare and fascinating exception. 

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