The Body’s Most Embarrassing Evolutionary Marvel: “To peer into the soul of a sea cucumber, don’t look to its face; it doesn’t have one. Gently turn that blobby body around, and gaze deep into its marvelous, multifunctional anus.”
Science
Neat things that we know or are learning because brains are good things that should be exercised through creative exploration and curiosity.
How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine: “Inside this facility in Chesterfield, Missouri, trillions of bacteria are producing tiny loops of DNA containing coronavirus genes — the raw material for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”
Facing collapse, the famed Arecibo Observatory will be demolished: While teams will try to salvage some parts of the observatory, the decommission will bring an end to the popular 57-year-old telescope, which has been featured in numerous films and television shows.
You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus: Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.: “Certain containment measures will be appropriate, but widely banning travel, closing down cities, and hoarding resources are not realistic solutions for an outbreak that lasts years.”
Goop’s Netflix series: It’s so much worse than I expected and I can’t unsee it: “Disclaimer: This review contains detailed information about the Netflix series the goop lab with Gwyneth Paltrow. If you plan to watch the show (please, don’t) and do not wish to know details in advance, this is not the review for you. Normally, we would refer to such information as ‘spoilers,’ but in our editorial opinion, nothing in this series is spoil-able.”
We now know that cuttlefish have stereoscopic vision…: because scientists tested the theory by having the cuttlefish wear 3D glasses and showing them 3D movies of shrimp and watching where the cuttlefish tried to strike to eat the shrimp. Not only is it cool, but CUTTLEFISH WEARING 3D GLASSES!
You Can’t Keep Your Relatives’ Skulls: “In theory, people get to decide what happens to their body after death. In reality, it is near impossible to get legal permission to display a relative’s skeleton.” I’d never considered this before, but now that I have, is it weird that I’m a little disappointed? ;)
An Alarmingly Deep Dive Into the Science of Baby Yoda: “But whether the Yoda is Baby Yoda’s true daddy isn’t what fascinates us every time we tune into The Mandalorian. What keeps us coming back for more is trying to figure out what in the actual hell Baby Yoda is supposed to be. […] We have more questions than The Mandalorian will likely ever get around to answering. But sometimes it’s the mysteries, the dots that don’t quite connect no matter how many biologists you ask, that make the Star Wars universe so enduringly fascinating.”
Are good readers more likely to give up on maths?: “None of this means that we should stop efforts to counter stereotypes about girls’ aptitude for maths and science versus reading. But it does suggest that much of the impact of these stereotypes occurs not at the point at which girls choose a career, but many years earlier.”
Apple sleuths hunt Northwest for varieties believed extinct: “E.J. Brandt and David Benscoter, who together form the nonprofit Lost Apple Project, log countless hours and hundreds of miles in trucks, on all-terrain vehicles and on foot to find orchards planted by settlers as they pushed west more than a century ago.”