Popular Science

Some more independent baby animals—from precocial species—hit the ground running almost as soon as they’ve popped or hatched out. Others—called altricial animals—need parental attention before venturing out on their own.

Echidnas are altricial animals, and their young (called puggles) need lots of attention. Staff members at Harter Veterinary Medical Center in San Diego, California are experiencing their neediness first hand. At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Kathryn the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) has given birth to two puggles in one season, and one is being hand-raised. 

Echidnas are spiky, long-nosed animals native to New Guinea and Australia. Along with platypuses, they are one of two monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. An echidna egg hatches after around 10 days of incubation in the mother’s pouch.The puggle then emerges fur- and spine-less, and weighing approximately as much as half a miniature marshmallow. 

“Unlike a marsupial pouch, an echidna has a temporary “pseudo-pouch” that is only present when they are incubating an egg and raising a puggle,” Jennifer LeBeau, lead wildlife care specialist at San Diego Zoo Safari Park, tells Popular Science. 

The puggle then enjoys the pouch for around two months before the mother transfers it into the far end of a nursery burrow. Her work is far from over, however. For a few more months, the puggle will remain in the burrow, which the mother backfills with dirt. She will then return to the baby every few days to feed it. The puggle will start learning about the outside world once the mother stops backfilling the nursery.

One of the siblings was not gaining weight and is in the care of vets. Image: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Kathryn is currently raising one of her babies in the burrow. Because the other sibling wasn’t gaining weight, it was transferred into human care at Safari Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center. Part of the puggle’s hand rearing included veterinarians taking regular ultrasounds of the puggle’s stomach, which enabled them to better understand the speed at which the puggle digested its formula. As a result, they came to a more precise decision of how often it needed to feed.

“The puggle that is being hand-reared is having daily checks by veterinarians and a minimum of twice daily checks by wildlife care specialists,” says Anthony Cerreta, a San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance clinical veterinarian. “Hand-rearing puggles from this age tends to have a lower success rate, so we will continue to closely monitor and intervene as needed should any further challenges arise.” 

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Anyone can mistake an identity, even astronomers. On August 28, 2025, researchers aimed their equipment towards an area of sky where they expected to find the asteroid 1998 SH2. Based on gravitational data collected during its previous 4.5 year orbits around the sun, the hopeful observers focused NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) planetary radar system in the space rock’s assumed location about two million miles from Earth. However, things didn’t go as planned—1998 SH2 was a no-show.

Astronomers knew some unexpected force was affecting its orbit, so they relied on optical telescopes to pinpoint the asteroid’s exact location. Once they actually found 1998 SH2, they quickly realized the mistake.

“After we measured the nongravitational perturbations affecting the motion of 1998 SH2 and recognized they weren’t compatible with the object being an asteroid, we suspected the object could be an active comet,” Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, explained in a statement.

The differences between asteroids and comets may sound minimal, but they’re crucial. Asteroids are large rocky objects infused with metals orbiting the sun as ancient leftovers from the solar system’s earliest formative stages. By comparison, comets are birthed at the outer edges of the solar system whose mixture of dust and ice vaporizes into a tail.

The last observations of 1998 SH2 took place in 2016, meaning the space rock had since completed two solar orbits. But after reviewing the available analyses once more, Farnocchia’s team determined the object could be generating minor amounts of thrust as it vented gas into space. These vents form when the sun’s radiation heats a comet’s dusty ice, creating a propulsive gas often visible as a bright tail and coma. But when a comet is much smaller, those telltale signs may become harder to find.

Knowing their mystery object’s approach would be its closest in years, Farnocchia connected with astronomers at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope near Mauna Kea, Hawaii, as well as the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Danish Telescope in La Silla, Chile. Meanwhile, researchers at the ESO’s Very Large Telescope on Chile’s Cerro Paranal mountain also gazed up at 1998 SH2. Their collective results, published in a recent study in the journal Nature Astronomy, proved their suspicions correct.

“The images we collected from these observatories showed a weak but clear tail, thus confirming that 1998 SH2 is, in fact, a comet,” said ESO astronomer and study co-author Olivier Hainaut.

Beyond rectifying the multidecade misclassification, the team’s findings are helping us better understand a subcategory of space objects called dark comets. These entities often have major irregularities in their orbits called pertubations, yet do not offer visible signs like outgassing, tails, or comas. Astronomers discovered the first dark comet in 2016, and have since located about a dozen more across the solar system. The study’s authors suggest that continuing to examine other faint, near-Earth objects with sufficiently powerful telescopes may even force further reclassifications of subjects that astronomers currently believe to be asteroids. Beyond respecting these space rock’s true identities, more accurate observations can also improve the safety of everyone living on this larger rock called Earth.

“Detecting these perturbations can be an important diagnostic tool for planetary defense that will help understand which objects may be comets rather than asteroids, how their orbits evolve, and how that influences their Earth impact risks,” said Farnocchia.

“That’s how science works—you form a hypothesis, and you set out to test it,” added Hainaut. “This data is exactly what was needed to confirm our hypothesis that 1998 SH2 was a comet.”

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Feeding an animal that is clearly in need of help might be our first instinct. However, this feed-first approach might be more harmful than beneficial because different species have different dietary requirements.

Take baby skunks, for example. Recently, Raven Ridge Wildlife Center in Washington Boro, Pennsylvania, was taking care of 50 juvenile skunks. The wildlife center’s employees found themselves assembling highly diverse meals for the adorable mammals. 

The daily menu included 15 cups of fruit, 15 cups of vegetables, a dozen eggs, 15 cups of moistened dog food, 6 cups of meat, and 3 cups of mealworms in addition to Calcium and Taurine supplements. Yet, when very young skunks arrive at the center, the little kits need a species-specific formula that copies milk from their skunk mother. 

Rescued skunks chowing down on their daily smorgasbord. Image: Raven Ridge Wildlife Center.

Imagine trying to cook any of this up in your own kitchen! What’s more, a wild skunk in trouble is likely dehydrated, and requires at least two days of rehydration before it can start eating again. If a dehydrated animal eats before it should, it might lead to refeeding syndrome, which could prove deadly. 

“Often, well-meaning individuals who find abandoned wildlife turn to Google for guidance on how to care for them. However, while Google can be useful, it does not provide the best advice for wildlife rehabilitation,” Raven Ridge Wildlife Center writes. “Many mistakenly opt for puppy or kitten formula, which does not meet the specific dietary needs of baby wildlife. Others may feed skunks cat food, but this option is typically too high in fat and protein, leading to obesity and serious health issues.”

June is typically peak baby skunk season. Image: Raven Ridge Wildlife Center.

Similarly to humans, skunks need a balanced diet that includes fruits, veggies, and lean protein. The Raven Ridge Wildlife Center team frequently comes across Metabolic Bone Disease, which is caused by imbalanced levels of essential nutrients. 

“If you encounter any wildlife, regardless of its age, it is important not to offer any food, as this could harm its health,” writes the wildlife center. “The best approach is to gently place the animal in a box and keep it in a warm, dark, and quiet location, and then contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator immediately.”

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It’s the healthier choice, right? For those of us wanting to cut down on unhealthy treats, sugar-free candy might seem like the perfect alternative. You can have your cake and eat it too—guilt-free.

But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Can you eat too much sugar-free candy?

The added sugars in regular candy are a dietary villain for two main reasons. First, they cause your blood glucose to spike, making your pancreas work overtime to produce insulin to clear it. This can contribute to high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, chronic inflammation, and over time increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Second, added sugars are empty calories, adding to your daily calorie intake without giving you any nutrients or making you feel full. This makes them a major contributor to obesity.

Sugar-free treats generally replace sugar with either artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols. While sodas generally use sweeteners such as aspartame or saccharin, sugar-free candy more often uses sugar alcohols known as polyols, such as xylitol or sorbitol. These are digested very slowly and are not fully absorbed, so these sugar alternatives don’t raise blood glucose the way normal carbohydrates do.

According to dietician and gut health expert Dr. Emily Leeming, around three quarters of adults eat more than their recommended daily sugar intake. Given the known health impacts of excessive sugar consumption, she says that choosing a sugar-free alternative to prevent crossing the threshold is often a good idea. 

However, there are some caveats.

Why sugar-free candy can cause diarrhea

“The sugar alcohol causes an osmotic shift in the gut,” says Dr. Kait Brown, clinical managing director at America’s Poison Centers. “It’s drawing water out of your tissues and into the gut. So, you’re getting a lot more water in the system. On top of that, the sugar alcohol is also being fermented by gut bacteria.”

If eaten to excess, these effects can be unpleasant.

“It can cause a lot of gastrointestinal distress,” Dr. Brown explains. If you eat multiple servings of sugar-free candy in a sitting, she says, you get gas production and bloating and can get more muscle movement in the gut. “That accumulates in having watery, loose diarrhea.”

There are also some concerns about consuming large amounts of sugar substitutes over time. Some studies suggest that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners could have a negative effect on the gut microbiome or even increase the risk of some cancers. 

Diet sodas may be more dangerous than sugar-free candy. Image: NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images / Jakub Porzycki

However, these types of sweeteners are usually found in diet sodas rather than sugar-free candy, and the experimental data is not yet conclusive.

“It’s kind of early [stages of] looking into these [long-term] effects, and most of the studies seem to be on mice,” Dr. Leeming says. “The caveat with that, of course, is that mice are not humans.”

“The other thing that gets missed out of the conversation is that these studies are done at incredibly high doses,” she adds. “It’s not proportional to anything you would eat as a human being.”

Sugar-free candy is fine for most people—in moderation

Dr. Leeming and Dr. Brown both conclude that sugar-free candy can be a positive aid for many people to lower their sugar consumption, and most people are unlikely to eat an amount that would cause them problems.

“[The consumption] would have to be quite sizable,” says Dr. Leeming. “Like, if you’re spending all day chowing down on sugar-free sweets.”

The exception, she says, is that “if you have irritable bowel syndrome, then you’ve naturally got a kind of sensitivity to polyols [one type of sugar alcohol].”

This means that people with this condition should be more careful at checking the ingredient list when consuming sugar-free products, and experiment to discover their personal sensitivity to different types of sugar alcohol.

The FDA only requires products to display a label warning of laxative risks for products that could cause you to consume more than 50 grams of polyols daily, whereas some people with a polyol sensitivity might start to feel discomfort after eating 10 grams or less.

“It’s harder with food products [than medicines] because you don’t know the exact amount of a sugar alcohol that’s in there,” Dr. Brown says. “You might know that xylitol is number four on the ingredient list, but you don’t know” how much of the sugar alcohol is actually in the product you’re consuming.

But for most people, both doctors assure, there is no need to overthink it.

“I would always just recommend consuming in moderation,” Dr. Brown says. “If you notice your stomach starts to hurt, you’re probably eating too much, and you need to dial it back.”

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

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Ancient Egyptians famously buried their royalty in ornate funerary complexes alongside prized jewelry, clothing, food, and even pets near the deceased, so that they could take these items with them into the afterlife. Weapons are also commonly discovered in these tombs, but not only next to royal men. In some cases, archaeologists have also found combat implements buried with ancient Egyptian women.

Historians and Egyptologists have debated the significance of these artifacts for decades. Did Egyptian women actually wield these weapons, or were they more symbolic objects? After careful physical analysis of six ancient princesses buried beneath the pyramids at Dahshur, researchers now have an answer. In short, these Egyptian women could fight and hunt with the men.

Other weaponry buried inside their tombs included bows and arrows. Credit: Zeinab Hashesh, et al.

“Members of the royal family, especially the women, were active participants in skilled, physically demanding activities such as archery and hunting,” Zeinab Hashesh, an archaeologist at Egypt’s Beni-Suef University, said in a statement.Hashesh and her colleagues detailed their findings in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. Their new paper focuses on a group of mummies previously lost for years. The women were originally excavated during the late 19th century from within the funerary complex at Dahshur, an ancient Egyptian necropolis featuring some of the oldest, largest, and best preserved pyramids in Giza. After rediscovering the mummies during a curation project at the Egyptian Museum in 2020, researchers finally examined them with advanced analysis techniques and equipment.

Four of the six women were sisters whose father was the pharaoh Amenemhat II. The third ruler of the 12th dynasty who reigned during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, little is known about Amenemhat II other than his death around 1895 BCE. Each of the women were buried in matching underground chambers, with the princess Ita followed by Khenmet, Itaweret, and an anonymous woman assumed to be their sister Sathathormeryt. At the time of their excavation during the late 19th century, archaeologists found weapons including bows and arrows that were traditionally associated with men. Princess Ita even possessed an ornate dagger.

 Despite their exciting rediscovery, time had taken its toll on the mummies. Their soft tissue powderized ages ago, and some bones are now missing, including all of the princesses’ skulls. Despite this, enough skeletal sections remain in good enough condition so r archaeologists can assess their age, sex, height, and any notable illnesses or injuries. According to Hashesh, it soon became clear that these women hadn’t lived lives of constant idle luxury.

The four skeletons lacked skulls, preventing additional detail analysis. Credit: Zeinab Hashesh, et al.

“Princess Ita was a young woman aged between 28 and 34 with strong upper-body muscle attachments, suggesting she habitually used weapons like maces or daggers,” she explained.

Princess Khenmet (who died in her late 30s or 40s) exhibited thinning bones but strong ligament attachments, while her sister Itaweret displayed physical signs of skilled archery before dying sometime between the ages of 20 and 34. The sisters’ collective upper limb development also suggests high-intensity, repetitive actions like holding a heavy weapon or pulling a bowstring.

“This directly explains the presence of bows, arrows, and maces in the women’s tombs,” said Hashesh. “These were not just symbolic gifts, but tools they actively used.” 

However, the siblings weren’t necessarily always in top form. Princess Itaweret’s skeleton showed healed fractures to both her ribs and foot, while multiple individuals displayed nutritional deficiencies and infections. The sisters also shared rare spinal conditions, indicating closely related parents and family members.

“What is remarkable is that the injuries healed well, which suggests they had access to advanced medical care for their time,” added Hashesh.

Unfortunately, Hashesh’s team could not conduct additional analysis since the princess’ skulls were missing. Future stable isotope examinations could also better contextualize the family’s nutritional issues. Despite this, the discoveries made by Hashesh’s team prove that the weapons owned by some of ancient Egypt’s royal women weren’t simply ornamental decorations.

“Our dream would be to go far beyond simply identifying the Dahshur royals,” Hashesh said. “We would try to tell their full life stories, their families, health, and even their political roles, with as much detail as possible.” 

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Despite increasing pushback from the public and some lawmakers, there still isn’t much preventing tech companies from training their generative artificial intelligence programs on internet content without the author’s consent. So until meaningful legislation and oversight is introduced, people are largely on their own when it comes to guarding original their online material.

While designer Eric Lu’s Ghost Font isn’t necessarily the silver bullet needed to stop AI from completely devouring the internet, it’s still an ingenious proof-of-concept experiment that highlights human creativity. It also shows just how far AI has to go when it comes to parsing concepts like optical illusions.

Ghost Font’s underlying mechanisms are deceptively simple. Text is entered by a user and overlaid within hundreds of moving dots in a short video animation. The dots composing the words move up the screen while the rest of the pinpoints move downward, generating a visual opposition that the human mind can detect and discern. Pausing the video creates a stationary picture that allows the words to disappear amid the overall clutter. AI (or the human eye, for that matter) can’t decipher the message in the still image, but that’s also where people get the upper hand.

While the human brain interprets motion as a fluid pattern, multimodal AI still examines videos by their individual frames. Think of it like a flipbook.Humans will see the cumulative animation while running through the pages, but AI is still forced to look at the image on each individual page. As an added protection, Ghost Font files also include the static decoy message “written in Ghost Font,” which further confuses AI by making it seem like that’s the only actual text to scan.

Lu claims to have tested the program using Anthropic’s Claude Fable and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra, both of which failed to find the real text. Further trials conducted by Creative Bloq also appeared to best AI.

By Lu’s own admission, Ghost Font isn’t a cure-all to ongoing AI issues. It’s limited to extremely short messages, and may become obsolete if generative AI develops the ability to examine videos as optical flows instead of individual frames. It also only takes a few seconds of staring at a dizzying Ghost Font video to realize it’s not the easiest on the eyes, and probably is useless for anyone with visual disabilities. Regardless, it’s still a fun and free way to celebrate human ingenuity—and AI’s deficiencies.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Popular Science’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

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Several precious pieces of space history hit the auction block in New York this week. On July 15, Sotheby’s Space Exploration auction features several iconic artifacts, including a life-saving pen from Apollo 11 ($857,600), a Soviet flag flown in the icy vacuum of space ($102,400), and even a piece of the first cloth to wipe a window in space ($5,120). You can learn more about some of these historical objects in the gallery below.

The pen that saved Apollo II The broken circuit breaker switch that nearly ended Apollo 11, and the pen that saved the crew and the mission. Image: Sotheby’s.

On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin collected rock and dust samples from the moon’s surface for about three hours. As the pair were climbing back into the Lunar Module to prepare to fly home to Earth, Aldrin hit the module’s circuit breaker switch with the life support backpack on his spacesuit. 

The switch broke off, and it would have killed all three Apollo 11 astronauts had it not been for Aldrin’s quick thinking. He wedged a pen into the board to create a makeshift switch.  

“He could’ve picked something that was not very important. But he banged into the circuit breaker that controlled the SM engine that got us back into orbit,” Armstrong later told ABC News. “It was just insurance. It’s nice to get a little insurance.”

This item sold for $857,600.

A flag from the first American spacewalk Jim McDivitt’s flown United States flag. Image: Sotheby’s.

Mission Commander Jim McDivitt flew this American flag during Gemini IV. The June 1965 mission was the second crewed mission of the Gemini series and included the first American spacewalk. 

Command Pilot Edward White concluded the spacewalk on June 3, 1965, and remained outside of the spacecraft for 21 minutes. McDivitt served as mission commander for Gemini IV and photographed the first American spacewalk, conducted by command pilot Edward White. The Gemini IV flag is a silk stars and stripes flag and is signed and inscribed by McDivitt on the two lower white bars. This item sold for $35,840.

In space, even windows need cleaning  Flown cloth from “The First Window Wiping in Space.” Image: Sotheby’s.

This nylon tab was exposed to the vacuum of space during Gemini XII in November 1966. The mission included a spacewalk by Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin used this cloth to wipe the spacecraft’s window to clean off a mysterious yellow substance. 

NASA later cut the fabric into small pieces and tested the substance in different laboratories. It  turned out to be propellant exhaust from the Titan II launch vehicle. Aldrin kept the nylon tab portion of the cloth as a keepsake. This item sold for $5,120.

Heat shield plug from the first trip to the moon An ablative heat shield plug flown on Apollo 8. Image: Sotheby’s.

Whether it’s 1966 or 2026, heat shields are crucial for space travel. This plug protected one of the 59 screws attaching the aft heatshield to the Apollo 8 command module in December 1968. The mission was humanity’s first trip to the moon and paved the way for a successful lunar landing one year later. Astronaut Bill Anders also took the famous Earthrise photo during this mission. 

When it was time to return home, the crew re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in the Command Module oriented aft-first. The bottom of the spacecraft faced the brunt of friction that is generated by its descent as it plunges out of space and towards the sea. To account for the friction, NASA created an ablative heatshield in a brazed steel honeycomb structure. The bolts attaching this structure to the bottom of the spacecraft were then covered by plugs protecting them from the friction of re-entry. This item sold for $8,960.

A symbol of diplomacy This USSR flag was flown to the moon on Apollo 11. Image: Sotheby’s.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s footsteps on the moon on July 20, 1969 made it clear that the United States won the space race. In the spirit of diplomacy, Aldrin flew a USSR flag as well as the American flag, the Texas state flag, and the flag from his home state of New Jersey in his personal preference kit (PPK).

Buzz Aldrin’s provenance letter about the flag reads:

“This provenance letter certifies that the accompanying Apollo 11 Soviet Flag was flown to the Moon aboard the command module Columbia. In July of 1969, I landed on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 crew. As an act of diplomacy and to help commemorate this historic milestone, I chose to personally carry the accompanying 4 by 6 inch Soviet Flag with me in my Personal Preference Kit (PPK). Carrying this flag was a gesture of goodwill between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, as well as a demonstration that Apollo 11 was a human achievement that transcended nations.”

This item sold for $102,400.

Gordon Cooper’s glove Apollo-era extravehicular glove made for Gordon Cooper. Image: Sotheby’s.

This A7-L glove was made for astronaut Gordon Cooper and was likely used in training.  The International Latex Corporation’s aerospace division (later called ILC Dover) has been the designer and producer of the space suit pressure garment for NASA since the Apollo program began. Every American astronaut to go into space since has traveled wearing an ILC Dover suit. Each full suit took about 5,000 hours to complete, and cost approximately $1,000,000 to produce.

Cooper was part of the first group of astronauts chosen by NASA as part of the Mercury Seven. He piloted the final Mercury mission (Mercury-Atlas-9) and became the first American to spend an entire day in space. This glove would have been used by him after he served as backup commander of Apollo 10. This item sold for $21,760.

Space’s favorite beagle Flown Sterling Snoopy pin presentation presented to Dr. George Mueller. Image: Sotheby’s.

Charlie Brown’s mischievous pup has been part of the U.S. space program from the very beginning. Snoopy joined NASA in 1968 as a mascot for the Manned Flight Awareness program and even served as the gravity indicator during Artemis I in 2022.  

Dr. George E. Mueller is credited with creating and leading the Office of Manned Spaceflight at NASA Headquarters. He guided the agency through the Apollo program and the early development of Skylab and space shuttle projects.

This Snoopy pin was flown in lunar orbit and was later presented to Mueller. This item sold for $12,160.

Buzz Aldrin’s very fly jacket This Apollo 11 jacket was worn by astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Image: Sotheby’s.

Following the Apollo 15 mission in 1971, Command Module Pilot Al Worden had worn out his flight jacket. To replicate his jacket and to keep “The Right Stuff” in the cultural consciousness, Worden co-founded a company called Still the Right Stuff in 2013. The goal was to produce museum-quality replica garments inspired by the iconic Apollo flight jackets.

This item is an Apollo 11 jacket from Still the Right Stuff from Buzz Aldrin’s personal collection. Aldrin’s flight jacket features the Apollo 11 mission patch as well as the NASA meatball.

Still the Right Stuff no longer crafts these legacy jackets, but this garment is a testament to the vintage flight jackets that inspired fashion around the world. This item sold for $20,480.

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Eaglets Sandy and Luna could fully fledge any day now. They both hatched in the first week of April, putting them right on the upper end of the 10 to 14 week average for fledging. This means they could leave the nest for good any day now.

To practice for a more independent life, they have been spending more time tree hopping and eating the fish that their parents, Jackie and Shadow, deliver to the nest. 

On June 28, Sandy accidentally fledged, when she and Luna stepped onto the nest’s “front porch.” Luna then tried to jump over Sandy to get back into the bowl of the nest, but Sandy lost her balance and flapped down to the lower branches. She freed herself from the branches and landed elsewhere in another tree. 

Eaglets typically depend on their parents for two to three months after fully fledging. They will learn how to hunt and work on their flying skills. Last year’s eaglets Sunny and Gizmo left the nest at 90 and 91 days old, respectively. 

After fledging, Sandy and Luna may pop up on the nest cameras from time to time since they are expected to keep to Big Bear Valley for a bit. However, they are not banded, so their activity will not be fully tracked. 

Jackie and Shadow’s 2026 babies: Everything you need to know

It’s been another roller coaster nesting season for Jackie and Shadow, a pair of internet-famous bald eagle parents living in San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California. After two of their eggs were destroyed by ravens in January, Jackie and Shadow laid two new eggs that have successfully hatched.

Chick 1 hatched on April 4 at 9:33 p.m. PDT, while Chick 2 followed on April 5 at 8:30 a.m. Their large nest in Big Bear Valley east of Los Angeles is livestreamed 24 hours a day by nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) and has captivated millions. 

On May 1, FOBBV announced the chicks’ names: Sandy and Luna.

How long will the chicks stay in the nest? 

Chicks usually stay in the nest until 10 to 14 weeks of age.

What challenges do the eaglets face?

Before leaving the nest, the chicks face threats from other birds of prey, including hawks, ravens, other eagles, and owls. Inclement weather can also present challenges for the chicks. In 2025, a March snowstorm resulted in the death of one of Jackie and Shadow’s three chicks.

During fledging, only 70 percent of eaglets survive. One of the greatest threats is from cars that can injure or kill the birds while they scavenge for food on roadkill. 

Who are Jackie and Shadow? 

The pair first got together in 2018 and successfully raised chicks in 2019 and 2022. However, their eggs failed to hatch in 2023 and 2024. Only 50 percent of eagle eggs successfully hatch, so this pair has already beaten the odds.

What happened to Jackie and Shadow’s 2025 eaglets?

In 2025, Jackie laid three eggs that all hatched in early March. On March 13, a strong snowstorm dumped up to two feet of snow and battered the nest with strong winds. Only two of the chicks were visible on the live cam when the storm passed by the next morning. FOBBV later confirmed the passing of one of the chicks. The two surviving chicks were later named Sunny and Gizmo after 54,000 names were submitted by fans.

What happens after chicks fledge? 

Young eagles usually fledge–or leave the nest and fly–when they can flatten their wings and have feathers capable of flight. This typically occurs when the birds hit 10 to 14 weeks of age. Males also tend to take their first flight a little sooner than females. 

According to FOBBV, fledglings from Southern California have been spotted as far south as Baja California, as far north as British Columbia, and as far east as Yellowstone National Park.

About 70 percent of bald eagles survive the fledgling stage. FOBBV does not tag their eagles, so it’s not possible to follow the chicks’ journeys after they flee the nest.

Can I help Jackie and Shadow?

Yes. Environmental groups are currently fundraising $10 million to protect Jackie and Shadow’s foraging area from development. Learn more at SaveMoonCamp.org.

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In the animal kingdom, life can sometimes look more like Game of Thrones than Charlotte’s Web. Bloody conflicts over territory, mates, and more are common in social animals, and several species have their own anticipatory behaviors to prepare when a fight looks imminent. They stay quiet, monitor their surroundings, conduct raids, and even bond with their allies through play and grooming. 

According to a study published today in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, environmental cues and memories can signal that it’s time to prepare for war. These behaviors are so important that these preparations can impact a species’ evolution, population dynamics, and even the structure of  communities. 

“Intergroup conflict is rife throughout the natural world, being found in social species from ants to primates,” Andrew Radford, a study co-author and behavioral biologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K., said in a statement. “Studying other species experimentally and in natural conditions can not only expand our understanding of a widespread aspect of sociality but also help to provide insights into our own conflict ancestry.”

Battle prep is an evolutionary force

Conflict over the resources all animals need exerts a powerful evolutionary force on a host of social species, including various primates, meerkats (Suricata suricatta), several bird species, and most obviously, humans. This force potentially impacts fitness and survival, according to the team. 

Humans prepare for warfare with more surveillance, taking to higher ground to gather information, conducting ambushes and raids, and quietly spying on enemy territory to avoid detection. Groups of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) tend to rest on hilltops in locations where intergroup contests occur, instead of feeding, traveling, or other more noisy activities. Experiments have also shown that dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula) will move more slowly and engage in look-out behaviors when they hear a rival’s vocal cues or pick up their scents to monitor their surroundings more easily. 

“What is becoming very clear is that preemptive behavior is widespread whenever intergroup conflict is found,” added study co-author and University of Bristol behavioral ecologist Josh Arbon. “There is growing evidence that the amount of anticipatory behavior displayed is dependent on the current threat level. More is seen when rivals are more likely to be encountered, larger in size, less familiar, or more likely to attack.” 

Territory, raids, and play

A threat of  intergroup conflict can also influence how animals use space. Dwarf mongooses deposit more territorial scent markings when a rival is detected nearby, meanwhile meerkats tend to scent mark near burrows that intruders have scoped out. Black howler monkeys (Alouatta caraya) will even go back to locations of past contests, potentially as a way to signal their presence to neighbors. By contrast, Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), chacma baboons (Papio ursinus), and long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) tend to avoid the areas inhabited by rivals. 

A more extreme conflict preparing behavior is raiding, or actively seeking out rivals on their home turf. Male chimpanzees silently invade neighboring territories in a single file line. They then move towards other groups’ vocalizations, potentially preparing to attack their rivals. Banded mongooses engage in deadly gang attacks, and even conduct raids to kill their rivals’ offspring.

Grooming activities like allopreening help these birds called woodhoopoes bond. Image: Chris van Rooyen.

When an outside threat increases, various mammal species will respond by sticking close together. Chimpanzees groom and play with one another more ahead collective territory defense. These kinds of behaviors likely facilitate better communication, reduce anxiety, enhance bonding, and promote a stronger fighting force. 

“There is increasing evidence that non-human animals adjust various behaviors to enhance information gathering, incentivize contest participation, reduce anxiety, and minimize collective and individual risk in anticipation of encounters with rival groups,” Arbon said. “What is notable is that these behaviors occur across a diverse range of social species.” 

Driving evolution

According to the team, future studies could assess how animals sense threat levels and adjust their preemptive behavior. It is also unclear how much brain power is associated with these preemptive strategies.  

“Intergroup conflict could be an important social driver of cognitive evolution,” Radford says. “But this remains an idea that is difficult to test, and teasing apart the relative importance of signals and cues from memories is a challenge.”

The post How wild animals prepare for violence just like humans appeared first on Popular Science.

In 2023, neurologists at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York achieved a medical breakthrough that many experts believed was once impossible. After 15-hours of open-brain surgery, a team of specialists successfully completed the first “double neural bypass” procedure, and installed and virtually mapped a brain-computer interface (BCI) for a man named Keith Thomas living with quadriplegia. As Thomas slowly regained feeling and strength in his arm and wrist, the monumental advancement made international headlines and was inducted into TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame.

“There was a time that I didn’t know if I was even going to live, or if I wanted to, frankly. And now, I can feel the touch of someone holding my hand. It’s overwhelming,” Thomas said four months after the initial surgery.

Nearly three years later, the pioneers behind the double neural bypass have offered updates on their findings and Thomas’ progress. As they detail in a study published today in the journal Nature Medicine, the combination of BCI and artificial intelligence technologies continues to provide their patient with lasting, life-changing recovery in their limb. By rerouting the nervous system’s neural pathways, Thomas can now feed himself and drink from a cup using restored feeling in his hand, and has gained increased both his arm strength and wrist sensation.

“This approach is a new way to treat severe paralysis—we’re not just bypassing the injury, we’re actually rewiring the nervous system,” Chad Bouton, a bioelectronic medical specialist and study co-author, said in a statement.

The system relies on five microelectrode arrays surgically installed in Thomas’ brain, which machine learning algorithms then interpret brain signals denoting movement with nearly 85 percent accuracy. Those neural messages are then translated into electrical stimulation patterns given to the forearm muscles, which move as intended. Meanwhile, sensors inside a 3D-printed limb brace that measures grasping pressure. This then creates electrical stimulation in the sensory cortex to generate the perception of touch.

The results are so effective that Thomas is now able to grab and lift hollow eggshells without breaking them nearly 90 percent of the time. He can also perform this and similarly calculated tasks while talking—a vast improvement compared to existing BCI systems when handling cognitive burdens.

“Being able to feel my sister’s hand, to pet my dog and feel her fur— these experiences that the injury took away have been restored. “But beyond the study sessions, I can now scratch my face, wipe my eyes independently,” Thomas said. “The technology has given me back both connection and sense of self.”

“This research holds promise for millions of patients, opening up potential for future research and practical clinical applications that could help hundreds of thousands of people living with paralysis,” said Bouton.

Moving forward, the team is working to improve their system while expanding clinical trials to include other patients with differing levels of spinal injuries and neurological conditions. Recently, they tested the first interhuman neural bypass, which allowed Thomas to feel sensations from another patient as they touched multiple objects.

“We’re not just bypassing the injury, we’re actually rewiring the nervous system,” Bouton added.

The post After revolutionary brain-computer implant, man with paralysis can feed himself appeared first on Popular Science.

Before the invention of the printing press, the only way to make a copy of a text was by hand. Whether intentionally or by accident, the copy wasn’t always identical to the original, and the differences carried over into all the other copies made from the new version. This is also akin to how genetic mutations spread in populations across evolutionary history.

People first noticed the similarities between the genealogy of species and the genealogy of manuscripts in the 19th century, Julien Randon-Furling, a mathematician at Centre Borelli in the  École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, tells Popular Science. Randon-Furling studies the intersection of mathematical sciences and humanities, among other disciplines.

Following in the footsteps of polymath Michael P. Weitzman who, in the 1970s and 1980s, applied mathematics to manuscript genealogy, he and colleagues used computer models to reconstruct and simulate the spread of chivalric narratives starting in the 1100s. Chivalric literature is a genre that dates back to the medieval period and frequently portrays the adventures of knights.

Image: Bodleian Library, Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

By reconstructing the branches of how various medieval texts were copied and disseminated over the centuries, the team was able to estimate how much of the entire tree survived. Their results, published in PNAS Nexus study, indicate that up to 60 percent of chivalric texts and over 95 percent of chivalric manuscripts might have been lost to history. While that may sound extreme, it actually bolsters previous theories.

“Philologists and historians have known for quite a long time that the amount of loss was impressive,” explains Ulysse Godreau, a co-author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Ecole nationale des chartes, Paris Sciences & Lettres University. The team wanted to “confirm or infirm these estimates and maybe enrich them via more dynamical quantity studies.”

In fact, what makes this study unique is how it understands manuscript genealogy and texts’ endurance as a dynamic process, according to Jean-Baptiste Camps, principal investigator of the study and a computational philologist at the École nationale des chartes, Paris Sciences & Lettres University. Their approach accounts for time as an influencing factor. It also considers the consequences of events such as wars, pandemics, or even the decreasing popularity of a work on text genealogy, allowing researchers to align the proposed theory with historical information. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if only a few copies of a text were made in its first few years, it’s very likely that it will have been lost—another factor that was included and quantified in their computer models. The team’s study indicates that, because of this and other potential reasons—random accidents, important historical events like the plague—the original version of most chivalric texts have likely disappeared. 

While the study might come across as grim, it provides a tool to better understand not just history, but what we don’t know of that history, Randon-Furling emphasizes.

“One of the driving questions for us was, how much of the past do we have in our hands?” he explains. “Because if you tell me that the manuscripts that we have represent 90 percent or even 50 percent or 25 percent of what existed, or if they represent less than 5 percent of what existed, it’s a completely different story, a completely different picture of the past.”

Now, the team is aiming to investigate the genealogy of even older texts, such as ancient Greek plays. The team has already taken a stab at texts from the Church fathers. 

Furthermore, the researchers say they plan “to widen our approach by taking into accounts cultural transfers between different regions and languages in Medieval Europe, from France to Iceland or Spain. Different regions could function like different ‘ecosystems,’ with different results in terms of diversity of texts or their survival,” explains Camps. “Some elements already hint at differences between ‘insular’ and continental settings.” 

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Cursive is making a comeback. States and provinces across North America are re-introducing the continuous form of handwriting, making all sorts of arguments as to why. 

There are good arguments for teaching cursive, granted, but some of the most common ones don’t stand up to scrutiny. People will confidently state the idea that cursive is faster, that it offers cognitive benefits over manuscript handwriting, and that signatures legally need to be in cursive. The problem: None of that’s true. Let’s dig into what the science, and the law, actually suggests. 

Cursive isn’t faster than handwriting

A common idea is that cursive is faster than printing, but scientific research doesn’t bear this out. I couldn’t find a single study that suggests cursive is faster, though I did find some interesting ones. 

A 1998 study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Washington found no speed difference between students who wrote in cursive and manuscript. There’s a weird caveat, though: students who combined elements from each were both faster and more legible. 

But more interesting is a natural experiment. Schools in France teach all students to write exclusively in cursive, while schools in Quebec teach both cursive and manuscript. A 2013 study by researchers at the University of Brest and the University of Sherbrooke found that kids from Quebec wrote faster, though their handwriting was less legible. Writing in cursive was found to be slower than manuscript.

So why is this? The researchers in both studies don’t speculate, but I have a personal guess: Ballpoint pens are the culprit. A 2015 article in The Atlantic by teacher Josh Giesbrecht outlines how cursive is a natural fit for fountain pens, where the continuous flow makes connecting letters natural. “Fountain pens want to connect letters,” he writes, “Ballpoint pens need to be convinced to write, need to be pushed into the paper rather than merely touch it.” 

But the research doesn’t clarify this—it just shows that cursive really isn’t any faster than manuscript. 

Cursive doesn’t have magical educational benefits

I’ve written in the past about how writing by hand is better for remembering things, and there’s all kinds of research that backs this up. Taking notes on paper activates a different part of your brain than typing, and that seems to be connected to learning. It’s a good reason for kids to learn to write with a pen.

But that’s an argument for writing on pen and paper, not writing in any particular style. There’s a common argument that writing in cursive has cognitive benefits compared to manuscript handwriting, but I couldn’t find a single study proving that. Neither could Jim Hewitt and Nidhi Sachdeva, two education researchers from the University of Toronto. They extensively reviewed the scientific literature and had a clear conclusion: “Our review of the literature failed to find any evidence of advantages for cursive writing,” they wrote. “We think it is unlikely that cursive offers more cognitive benefits than printing, or vice versa.” 

Similarly, a 2012 research review, also by researchers based in Toronto, found no clear evidence that one form of writing is superior to the other. “We cannot yet say definitively whether cursive or manuscript writing is best for children when first learning to write,” the paper concludes, adding that “whether both are necessary is also questionable.” The paper does state that writing by hand has clear learning benefits over typing—just that the way you write doesn’t matter. 

Signatures don’t have to be in cursive

An extremely common myth is that kids need to learn cursive because only cursive signatures are legally binding. There’s no truth to this at all. According to the Uniform Commercial Code, a US law setting various standards for trade and commerce in the United States, a signature may be “a word, mark, or symbol executed or adopted by a person with present intention to authenticate a writing.” In other words: a printed signature is fine. So is any kind of symbol, so long as you use it consistently with the intention of proving your identity. 

I tried to find any example of a country, anywhere, that specifically required cursive for signatures—I couldn’t find one. Printed signatures are legally enforceable just about everywhere. 

The post 3 myths about cursive handwriting appeared first on Popular Science.

The day has finally arrived. On July 10, hundreds of professional and amateur snake hunters entered the annual Florida Python Challenge, a 10-day race to remove as many of the invasive animals as possible from the Everglades. The person who bags the most snakes will earn a $10,000 first-place prize, while another $15,000 in payouts will go to various other categories, including for the longest snake captured.

Conservationists estimate between 100,000 and 300,000 Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) live across the state’s subtropical regions, where they have thrived as apex predators since their accidental introduction into the wild during the 1970s. Pregnant females can lay upwards of 70 eggs at a time, and each hatchling can reach an adult length of 13-feet long. Despite their population explosion, only around five percent of all pythons are spotted by the average onlooker. That means only one in about 20 snakes are noticed on any given day.

The python hunt ends on July 19. Credit: Joe Raedel via Getty Images

Over 600 people registered to participate in this year’s Florida Python Challenge as of July 7, according to Naples Daily News. Last year saw more than 900 local and international competitors, and the largest snake captured measured nearly 16 feet long. The annual event isn’t a free-for-all, however. Every hunter must complete a safety course prior to scouring for snakes, and while guns are allowed on private land with owner’s permission, all pythons must be euthanized as humanely as possible.

It may come as a surprise, but beheading one of the massive, coiling predators absolutely isn’t an ethical means of disposal. Because the snakes possess extremely slow metabolisms and can survive with very low amounts of oxygen, they can remain conscious (and in immense pain) for a prolonged period of time after decapitation. Instead, hunters are recommended to draw an imaginary line from each eye to the opposite jaw bone, then locate where those paths intersect. Then can then use a sharp rod or screwdriver to impale the top of the head before moving the tool in a multilateral direction to ensure an immediate loss of consciousness and a quick death. No one said python hunting was for the squeamish.

The Florida Python Challenge will end at 5 p.m. EDT on July 19, with champions announced soon afterwards.

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Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) including the submersible that rediscovered the Titanic recently captured images of yet another long-lost shipwreck. Researchers collaborating between the Royal Canadian Geographic Society (RCHS) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have released the first images of famed explorer Ernest Shackleton’s final ship. Quest rests around 1,280 feet deep in the Labrador Sea.

Although Ernest Shackleton survived his multiyear misadventure aboard the Endurance, he wasn’t so lucky during his final return attempt to the Antarctic. In 1922, the intrepid voyager died from a heart attack at the age of 47 while sailing on his 125-ton sealer ship. Shackleton’s death wasn’t the end of Quest’s career. A Norwegian family took possession of the vessel, returning it to its original hunting duties for another 40 years until ice floes crushed and sank it in the Labrador Sea on May 5, 1962.

Sonar scans conducted by the RCGS Shackleton Quest Expedition finally revealed the ship’s final resting place in 2024, which prompted plans for a return visit and closer inspection. The project ultimately involved the use of WHOI’s Falcon ROV along with DSV Alvin, which traveled deep into the frigid, murky Arctic waters to examine Quest’s current state.

“At first, there was a lot of darkness, but suddenly the bow emerge[d] as you [were] going towards it. It’s incredible,” RCGS CEO and expedition leader John Geiger said in a statement.

The wreck was imaged by DSV Alvin, which also helped find the ‘Titanic’ 40 years ago. Credit: Canadian Geographic and Voyis

The bow, deck, and multiple portholes are still visible, although its main mast broke during sinking. Over six decades on the seafloor has transformed Quest into a marine habitat filled with pink corals and multiple residents such as cod, wolf fish, and red fish. Unfortunately, the local inhabitants aren’t alone—many areas of Quest are now hidden by multiple large, abandoned fishing nets lost by passing ships over the years.

Portholes on the shipwreck similar to those in historical photos of Quest helped identify it as Shackleton’s ship. Credit: Canadian Geographic and Voyis

“There’s a lot of damage to the ship. The nets are a sad story, limiting our ability to look at the wreck,” Geiger said. “I think we have to take responsibility for what we are doing to our oceans; that’s a huge issue.”

Researchers are now working to survey and map the wreckage using underwater photogrammetry technology, which will generate a 3D digitalization of the ship for additional examinations by both oceanographers and curious amateur historians.

Quest at the Base Fjord with glacier in the background, taken August 29, 1930. Credit: British Arctic Air Route Expedition Photograph SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo

“This type of 3D modelling has only existed in ocean science for the last couple of years, and it’s giving us entirely new ways to explore these historic wrecks and make them real for the public,” added WHOI’s expedition co-chief scientist Dwight Coleman.

In the meantime, the team is traveling northeast towards Greenland to survey Terra Nova, the final ship of Shackleton’s rival, Robert Falcon.

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Metal detectorists encounter plenty of junk beneath the ground, but the good ones know the importance of always giving their discoveries a closer inspection. Recently, a hobbyist named Morten Eek unearthed a small, dingy discovery in southwestern Norway near Utstein Abbey. With one silvery side and the other seemingly copper, Eek assumed he found yet another post-medieval clothing button commonly found in the area.

Only while reexamining the object months later did he and fellow detectorists notice a previously overlooked detail on the supposed button’s shinier face—a clearly visible cross design. Examining it under a magnification lens also revealed that the copper side was actually a plate attached and folded around the coin’s edge. After consulting numismatic (coin-related) historical records, Eek decided to bring the “button” to archaeologists at Norway’s University of Stavanger.

The experts’ analysis further strengthened the suspicion that they weren’t dealing with an ordinary clothing accessory. The artifact’s copper side was an example of what’s known as secondary modification—when an object is later altered to serve a different purpose. In this case, two tiny notches along the rim suggested holes for a chain or cord. The silver side’s “cross over cross” design further underscored the archaeologists’ theory that the button was actually a Viking era Norwegian coin dating back to the late 11th or early 12th century CE.

X-ray imaging revealed a griffin-like design hidden beneath one side’s copper plating. Credit: Hege Hollund / University of Stavanger

Although the shinier side also displayed an inscription, it was too fragmentary to discern. The team suspected similar wording may be found underneath the copper plate, but knew removing it would compromise the delicate object’s historical integrity. They instead opted to utilize X-ray imaging, which uncovered a griffin-like creature on the opposing face.

With that, they finally had their answer. Eek hadn’t found a button; he discovered a rare coin minted during the reign of Magnus Berrføtt, aka Magnus Barefoot.

King of Norway from 1093 to 1103 CE, Barefoot is considered the country’s last Viking ruler, and is remembered for his attempts to extend power across the North Atlantic. Compared to his relatively peaceful father, Olaf Kyrre, the final monarch’s legacy is much bloodier and violent. His ambitions eventually brought Norwegian influence into the western isles, the Isle of Man, portions of Ireland, and the Hebrides. These excursions made him many enemies, and Barefoot died at around 30 years old in Ireland after he was ambushed during his second western campaign.

Beyond his military aims, King Barefoot is also remembered for coins like the one discovered near Utstein Abbey. He enacted significant currency reforms, specifically when it came to coinage silver content. As Arkeonews explained, he ordered a reduction in coin weight while maintaining the same amount of silver, which increased their fineness to around 90 percent.

Only about 100 Barefoot coins are known to archaeologists, making Eek’s find a major discovery for historians. With further examination, researchers may soon learn where it was minted based on the die cast, which would better contextualize the scale and organization of coin production at the very end of the Viking era. Not bad for a mistaken button.

The post Rare coin from Norway’s last Viking king mistaken for old button appeared first on Popular Science.

In a win for animal conservation, a Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) recently gave birth to three cubs at Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas. The new litter came into the world on June 11 and consists of three furballs—one female and two males. 

Their mother, Sienna, is an orange tiger, while their father, Grayson, is a white Bengal tiger. All three cubs take after their mother’s orange hue. Given that white is a recessive trait in Bengal tigers, this doesn’t come as a surprise. The birth itself, however, was a bit of a surprise as it came with little warning. 

Pregnant tigers don’t look all that different from their nonpregnant peers, especially first-time mothers. What’s more, the team at the Tanganyika Wildlife Park hadn’t yet seen a confirmed breeding between Sienna and Grayson. As such, they were only truly clued in when a keeper saw mammary development in Sienna during a training session. 

“We saw some mammary development and realized we were most likely going to have babies,” Carnivore Supervisor Phoebe Andrews said in a statement. 

The yet-unnamed cubs are the mother and father’s first litter. Sienna’s maternal instincts came out immediately, and she groomed her babies and allowed them to nurse shortly after birth. Nonetheless, animal keepers are hand-rearing the cubs. 

“Hand-rearing is a deliberate choice,” reads the press release. “Newborn cats are fragile, and the park’s first priority is giving each cub the best possible chance at survival. Raising the cubs by hand lets keepers tailor nutrition to their needs, provide immediate medical care, monitor their health closely, and support healthy development through the most vulnerable stage of life.”

The trio spent their first weeks with their mother, and then was transferred to the nursery for full-time care. The keepers will weigh them, document their growth, and feed them several times a day. The siblings’ stripes are currently too alike to distinguish them visually. Instead, the animal keepers are using small fur trims as short-term identifiers. 

Unfortunately, the Bengal tiger family’s counterparts in the wild are threatened by deforestation, habitat loss, poaching, and conflicts with humans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species classifies the species as Endangered.  

“They’re still endangered in the wild. It’s important to maintain a population in professional care so we can keep that genetic diversity,” highlighted Samantha Russak, Curator of Research & Welfare and Registrar at the Tanganyika Wildlife Park. 

The post Three tiger cubs born in Kansas appeared first on Popular Science.

As anyone who’s grown up favoring their southpaw can attest, the world overwhelmingly caters to right-handers. The vast majority of humans (somewhere around 85-90 percent) are right-handed, a tendency influenced by a combination of genes and environment. But it turns out this long-known preference towards the right may go back much further than scientists once thought—hundreds of millions of years further back, in fact. This preference toward the right may have been shared by some of the oldest known multicellular organisms.

That’s the core argument presented in a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. The international team of researchers examined over 100 well-preserved fossils of Spriggina floundersi, an ancient, inch-long worm-like animal that wriggled its way around southern Australia about 550 million years ago. The majority of those fossils shared something in common: they all showed the creature favoring its left side. And since fossils are mirror-image impressions captured at a moment in time, that actually means the animals favored their right side during life. 

Researchers say this represents the earliest known example of this type of asymmetry in nature, and it may lend credence to the idea that handedness is hardwired deep into the evolutionary history of complex living creatures.

“The dominance of bends to the left in fossils of Spriggina suggests a preference for right turns in life and represents the oldest evidence of behavioural handedness among animals,” researchers write in the paper. 

Evidence of ancient handedness, trapped in stone  

Spriggina fossils date back to the Ediacaran Period, an era of immense biological change and adaptation. This period was responsible for introducing the first multicellular animals visible to the naked eye. Though they might not seem like much today, Spriggina and its contemporaries were some of the first animals capable of movement and other abilities scientifically considered complex behaviors. These are among the first organisms many people would identify as actual animals, rather than simply globs of goop.

The Spriggina fossil analyses in the study primarily came from Nilpena Ediacara National Park, located on the western part of the Flinders Ranges in southern Australia. It’s a remote area home to some of the best-preserved fossils from the Ediacaran Period. In this case, the collection of Spriggina fossils was buried together during some storm event around 550 million years ago.

Bend angles observed for Spriggina. Image: Scott D. Evans, Jenson Webb, Ian V. Hughes, William Parker & Mary L. Droser

And while it might not seem like it, the ancient hammerheaded worm has some key things in common with humans. Specifically, it’s among the earliest known examples of an animal with bilateral symmetry, meaning it has a distinguishable front and back, left and right, and top and bottom. That’s also true for humans and most animals today, but that wasn’t always the case. The findings suggest that favoring one side or the other isn’t some recent adaptation humans developed, but instead is possibly something deeply rooted in the way complex animals have evolved. While interesting on its own, the research stops short of answering why that’s the case.

“When we talk about being right-or-left-handed, most people likely think about how they hold a pencil or a kick a soccer ball,” American Museum of Natural History assistant curator of invertebrate paleontology and study lead author Scott Evans said in a statement. “But our research shows that an animal without hands or feet, living over 500 million years ago, may have had its own version of handedness.” 

Humans and handedness: It’s in the genes

The fact that the overwhelming majority of humans today are right-handed isn’t entirely explained by genetics. Certain cultures in Asia and Africa have traditionally viewed left handedness as unclean. Others have gone even further, baselessly suggesting it was a sign of influence from satanic forces. Those and other cultural forces have led generations of people who naturally favor their left hand to be forcibly steered away from it. Tools and basic infrastructure are also largely designed around right-handedness, which can further pressure those who are naturally inclined to favor their left to conform to the social standard.

Related: [Why are most people right-handed?]

But still, even when accounting for those factors, handedness has a strong genetic component. Studies show that as many as 40 genes may play some role in determining handedness, which can present itself even before birth, in fetuses. Though it’s still not entirely certain what causes some people to favor the left hand, some researchers attribute it to random mutations during early brain development.

And while left-handers have typically had to work harder in many respects, their minority status does offer some unique advantages, especially in combat and sports. In fact, some modern athletes today, like tennis legend Rafael Nadal, were actually born favoring their right hand but trained to use their left specifically for the slight edge it offers.

Obviously, quite a few things happened in the 548 million years between Spriggina and the first human ancestors, which may account for right handed dominance today. Still, the findings suggest this ancient biological bias may have an origin story far older than anyone had expected.

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The French president and his wife were among the audience of thousands at the debut performance of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. 

Cody’s raucous tribute to the golden age of the American West was already a huge sensation in the United States. In 1887, the show had taken the United Kingdom by storm. But the French weren’t quite sure what to make of the Lakota Sioux warriors and lanky cowboys as they came whooping into the outdoor arena, spurring their horses into streaks of lightning. Even one of the show’s most popular acts—the rescue of a stagecoach ambushed by Native Americans—left them cold.

Then, Annie Oakley skipped into the arena and launched into her act, her guns shattering a flock of glass balls thrown into the air. When her bullets were spent, she threw the pistols like hot irons and grabbed another. The audience roared to life. 

Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show was “a great success in every way,” declared the front page of the Paris Herald the next day. Within weeks, the French capital had been infected by “Wild West Fever.” 

In 1894, Thomas Edison filmed Annie Oakley showing off her sharpshooting skills. Video: Annie Oakley 1894 Filmed by Thomas Edison, silentfilmhouse The “Savage Indian” turned French celebrity

By the late 1880s, a deep nostalgia for an American West full of “savage Indians” and “noble pioneers”—a place that, by then, existed only in memory due to the brutal policies of the U.S. federal government against Native Americans—had settled into the American consciousness. 

Europeans, too, were intrigued by the idea of the vast plains and their “primitive Indians.” Indigenous people had been displayed in Paris for decades, sometimes as performers on stage, other times as temporary residents of “living habitats” in the city’s zoological gardens. Close to 400 Indigenous individuals from French colonies were living on the main fairgrounds that same year. Early anthropologists—adherents of Social Darwinism, the ideology that all human groups occupied a rung of the evolutionary ladder between savagery and enlightened civilization—studied them as specimens in the science of race. 

Parisians “had heard about the [American] Indians, but the Wild West Show was their first exposure,” says Steve Friesen, former director of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave in Golden, Colorado, and author of Galloping Gourmet: Eating and Drinking with Buffalo Bill. “They saw the real thing and they were impressed.” 

Buffalo Bill as well as his father were firmly anti-slavery, and Buffalo Bill fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War. Image: Public Domain

Indeed, it wasn’t long before young Parisian women began flocking to the “Indian Camp” at the Wild West Show (the area where the performers lived, which was open to the public). Dozens stood waiting, ready to elbow one another out of the way to proffer cigarettes and coy smiles to the handsome, young Sioux warriors. Men, too, hung around, intrigued by the expert horsemen and sharpshooters. Cowboy hats and American- and Mexican-style saddles flew off the shelves of shopkeepers cashing in on the trend. 

Popcorn sold at the show, unfamiliar to the French, became so popular that, soon, it could be found at the city’s other sites of entertainment. By October, five months after the debut of Cody’s company, “it was said that the people of Paris seem to go to the [any] theater just to eat popcorn,” Friesen laughs.

Buffalo Bill Cody—Guillaume Buffalo to the French—was the ideal ambassador for the legend of the American West. Back in his own country, he was already a major celebrity—an authentic cavalryman, scout, who claimed to have ridden for the Pony Express, as well as a stage actor known for his charisma and good looks. 

Soon, “he became one of the darlings of Paris,” says Friesen. “Everybody wanted to meet him.” He, along with several of the Native American and cowboy performers, were often seen about town, at the theaters, and on the grounds of the World’s Fair, including climbing the Eiffel Tower, which was built for the event. 

This 1908 footage shows Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that took Paris by storm in the late 19th century. Video: Buffalo Bills Wild West Show 1908 original footage, Motion Pictures

For six months, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show performed twice a day to a full-to-bursting 30,000-person arena that, despite being some distance from the core of the World’s Fair grounds, sometimes upstaged the main event. No one in town could get enough, including some of Europe’s most famous artists.

“Paul Gauguin went to the show once,” says Friesen. “He liked it so much he went a second time and then he went out and bought himself a Stetson hat. At the Musée d’Orsay, in a self-portrait he made in Tahiti, he’s wearing a hat that looks very similar.” 

Edvard Munch visited; French painter Rosa Bonheur was a regular fixture at the Indian Camp, capturing the performers on canvas. It was also in Paris that Cody met Thomas Edison, who was at the fair to demonstrate new electrical technologies. A few years later, he put the showman and his Lakota performers into one of the world’s first motion pictures. 

The Wild West lives on in Paris

“Buffalo Bill was basically the first emissary of the American West to France, telling people what the West was like,” Friesen says. The appeal was anything but fleeting. When the company returned for a six-month tour of the country in 1905, they reignited the “Wild West Fever” that had swept Paris 16 years earlier.

Today, the impact of that “fascination with the American West is certainly still being felt in the larger sense,” he continues.

Phoebe Anne “Annie Oakley” Moses poses in front of her tent in a camp for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show while touring in Europe, possibly in Paris in 1889. Image: Public Domain

According to Friesen, the trend of women wearing cowboy hats with skirts, Annie Oakley’s signature style, likely began with the Wild West Show. The kind of “Western” shops that cashed in on the trend back in 1889 are still found in the city and beyond. There is even a French steakhouse chain called Buffalo Grill that has featured a portrait of Buffalo Bill in its logo.

While the French were skeptical when Disneyland Paris opened its doors in the early 1990s, one thing in the Disney Village was “turning a really good profit,” Friesen says: their knockoff Wild West Show. 

“It had room for 2,000 people, twice a day, who would go in and eat American food—cornbread and steak and things like that. Everybody would get a straw cowboy hat and they’d watch a performance of Buffalo Bill kinds of acts,” says Friesen. 

“The popularity, the name recognition of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show had enough of an impact that it remained all the way to the 2000s.”

In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

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In a world first, doctors successfully completed not one, but two surgeries with the use of remotely controlled humanoid robots. The proof-of-concept preclinical trial involved gallbladder removals in large, non-primate mammals. A humanoid robot and a human attendant completed one procedure while a pair of robots conducted the second one..

Lifesaving, robotically assisted surgical procedures are commonplace in many medical facilities, but they have limitations. Many of these multiarmed devices are massive systems weighing over 1,800 pounds, and require specialized teams to install them into retrofitted operating rooms. They’re also typically only designed with one type of procedure in mind. In comparison, humanoid robots are what their name implies. At about five feet tall and weighing only 60 pounds, the surgery bots (nicknamed “Surgie”) are comparatively small, nimble, customizable, and much more affordable. With the proper training and technological advancements, fleets of Surgies could one day deploy to critically under-resourced communities.

“Remotely operated and autonomous humanoid robots have real potential for amplifying access to critical surgeries to which patients would otherwise not have access,” Michael Yip, an engineer at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), said in a statement. “This can help address the healthcare crisis not only in the United States, but also worldwide.”

Yip and his colleagues recently detailed their groundbreaking trial in a study published in the journal Nature. Although the team needed to design adapters to allow each robot to hold surgical tools, operators said controlling them from afar felt unexpectedly natural.

“We were surprised at how well Surgie meshed with our workspace and workflow,” said UC San Diego surgeon Nikita Thareja.

“It’s a fraction of the cost and it takes a fraction of the space in an operating room. So it’s easy to deploy, anywhere from rural areas, to the battlefield, and even to space,” added UC San Diego surgeon and study co-author Shanglei Liu.

The first teleoperated humanoid surgeries did encounter a few early issues. The Surgie bots required recalibration multiple times, which greatly slowed the overall process compared to performing them with existing surgical systems. Latency between the controller and the robot also needs improvement. However, researchers are confident the technology will improve, and cite similar progress with robotic laparoscopic surgery. The first of those procedures took six hours, while today’s machine-assisted examples only take around 30 minutes.

A Surgie isn’t necessarily relegated to the operating table, either. The team envisions future humanoid robots could also assist by grabbing tools, or clean up following a surgery.

“One of our goals is to develop [an] autonomous surgical assistant,” Yip said. “Many communities struggle with adequate staffing on the surgical team, which means patients are not being treated. Our goal is an operating theater of the future, where humanoid robots and humans work side by side as an integrated team.”

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It’s easy to craft a paper airplane capable of soaring across a classroom, but one that can travel 200 feet is a bit harder. A group of students from Italy’s University of Pisa not only managed to reach that distance on a single glide—they did so with the Guinness World Record holder for the largest paper airplane ever assembled. 

Built using only paper and some glue, the team’s nearly 23-foot-long creation and its over 65-foot wingspan cruised through a warehouse at Italy’s annual We Make Future expo on June 25. According to the university’s announcement, the students broke a record previously held since 2013 by Germany’s Braunschweig Institute of Technology.

“It all started with [constructing] some paper airplanes between lessons, almost as a joke,” the team said in a statement. “We were students convinced that, with the right method, even a piece of paper could become real engineering.”

Science YouTuber Jakidale documented the design process and testing, which highlight the hours of trial and error, CAD renderings, and experimentation needed to pull off their collective success. You can watch the entire exercise in a pair of videos—provided you’re fluent in Italian. But even if you’re not well versed in the Romance language, it’s still fascinating to watch “Project Icarus” come together.

“In the end we managed to bring back to Italy a world record that had stood for thirteen years,” the team added.

Don’t have the engineering know-how or enough paper to craft your own gigantic glider? There are still plenty of aeronautically sound paper plane schematics to attempt, including one officially endorsed by NASA.

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