Cool Science Story Of The Day [Continuing Thread]

[Heel n Toe]

No idea when this happened to one of Jupiter's moons.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/486466497396198

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

No idea when this happened to one of Jupiter's moons.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/486466497396198

Jupiter has lots more moons left. 95 at last count.

[Heel n Toe]

I've known about these things for awhile now... saw a bit about them on the Weather Channel or Discovery. Wild stuff... and beautiful.

https://imgur.com/gallery/i-keep-seeing-this-photo-pop-up-newsfeeds-2OBjV9K

[masraum]

Not "cool" exactly.

Forget about cocaine bear, now you've got to worry about cocaine sharks!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/thirteen-sharks-test-positive-for-cocaine-off-the-coast-of-brazil-180984765/

t might sound like science fiction, but researchers have discovered real “cocaine sharks” off the coast of Brazil.

Thirteen wild Brazilian sharpnose sharks (Rhizoprionodon lalandii) caught near Rio de Janeiro tested positive for the drug, according to a study published last week in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The team is still teasing out the implications of this finding, but they say it adds to the growing body of evidence that humans’ illegal drug consumption is affecting wildlife and the environment.

Previous research has detected cocaine in wastewater and rivers. Last year, researchers in England identified a chemical produced by the liver after cocaine use in seawater. Studies have also found the drug in other marine creatures, including shrimp, mussels and eels.

But researchers were curious to know whether cocaine might be affecting sharpnose sharks that spend their entire lives in coastal waters near Brazil, which is a major exporter of the drug to Europe. In addition, people in Brazil and elsewhere often eat sharks, which raises questions about possible contamination up the food chain.

So, the team purchased 13 sharpnose sharks from small fishing vessels between September 2021 and August 2023. The sharks were all juveniles or small adults that measured roughly 20 inches long and weighed less than two pounds. Three were male, and ten were female; five of the female sharks were pregnant.

They dissected the creatures in the lab, then tested their liver and muscle tissues. All the tissue samples came back positive for cocaine and its metabolites, with concentrations up to 100 times higher than what had previously been found in other marine animals. When the team saw the results, they were “actually dumbfounded,” study co-author Rachel Ann Hauser-Davis, a biologist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, which is affiliated with Brazil’s Ministry of Health, says to the New York Times’ Sarah Hurtes.

“We were excited in a bad way, but it’s a novel report,” she adds. “It’s the first time this data has ever been found for any top predator.”

Many questions remain unanswered. For starters, how were the sharpnose sharks exposed to cocaine? The researchers don’t know for sure, but they have a few theories. It’s possible they ate packs of cocaine that had been dumped by traffickers. Cocaine also might have reached coastal waters as drainage runoff from illegal refining labs. More than likely, untreated sewage entering the ecosystem could have contained cocaine in waste from drug users. From there, the sharks either ingested it directly through their gills or acquired it by eating smaller, contaminated fish.

“Regardless of where the drug came from—which is still not possible to determine—the results show that cocaine is being widely traded and moved in Brazil,” says study co-author Enrico Mendes Saggioro, a biologist at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, to the Guardian’s Tiago Rogero. “Cocaine has a low half-life in the environment so, for us to find it in an animal like this, it means a lot of drugs are entering the biota.”

It’s also unclear whether or how the cocaine might have affected the sharks’ behavior or health, or whether it affected the fetuses of the pregnant females. Past studies have suggested that cocaine can be toxic or cause health problems for aquatic creatures. Researchers note that the amount of cocaine found in the sharks was a fairly low concentration, though females had higher levels than males.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Brazilian sharpnose sharks as “vulnerable,” primarily because of overfishing.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

I've known about these things for awhile now... saw a bit about them on the Weather Channel or Discovery. Wild stuff... and beautiful.

https://imgur.com/gallery/i-keep-seeing-this-photo-pop-up-newsfeeds-2OBjV9K

Very cool. If anyone wants a BIG (8256x5504px) version...
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/iss071e170351.jpg
It was shot by a Nikon Z 9 using a Nikkor 50mm f1.2 lens.

[Geneman]

pretty good evidence , all in one rock, of ancient microbial metabolism on mars...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7v_xuCDwnM

[Shaun @ Tru6]

^^^ cool stuff! I wonder how long it will take to regularly/effortlessly send rovers to Mars to follow up on new findings that the current rover(s) find. That rock at the end I am very keen to see here on Earth.

[Heel n Toe]

Asteroid 2024 RW1 Just Hit Earth.
That’s a Good Thing.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/luzon-asteroid-2024-rw1

[jyl]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/redirecting-an-asteroid-with-a-nuclear-bomb-should-work/

I never heard of this cool bit of hardware

Perhaps someday we’ll have a bigger version in orbit fairly far from the Earth, ready to deflect killer asteroids.

[jyl]

When I was a kid, I studied mathematics. My dad was a mathematician, although he later moved to aerospace engineering. I got my BA in mathematics, then changed direction. Today i remember algebra, trig, some calculus, and that is about it.

Anyway, as a child I also read a lot about the history of mathematics. When I ran across this article, I immediately recognized the guy's name. Ramanujan is one of the most mysterious, improbable, and romantic figures in the field. You don't need to follow the math discussed to appreciate how remarkable his story is.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/srinivasa-ramanujan-was-a-genius-math-is-still-catching-up-20241021/

He's a reminder that unimaginable talent exists in the most obscure places, almost all of which goes wasted. Some big famine or civil war in Africa that kills millions - multiple talents like Ramanuian will be among the dead and we'll never know what was lost. Individual talent needs collective civilization to flourish. Ramanujan had to get to England to make his contributions.

Reminds me also of Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" scifi books, there is a place where all the greatest composers of history are celebrating a man no-one ever heard of, who never composed a note, but as it turns out had more talent than any of them.

[pavulon]

If affordable, this could change a lot of lives.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a64188957/human-tooth-regrowth-trials-japan/

[Heel n Toe]

[RNajarian]

This may not be on the level of discovering a new moon orbiting Saturn but . . .

My boy did receive a Special Award from the United States Navy Office of Naval Research for his science fair project on the effectiveness of HEPA filters and HEPA filters with carbon inserts. He also won third prize in the LA County Science Fair.

All the students had pretty impressive projects, there may be hope for us as a race after all.

[jyl]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/05/infrared-contact-lenses-let-you-see-in-the-dark/

Passive infrared night vision via contact lenses. Very cool. Early in development, I wonder how good this will get and how quickly. Note the alternative of injections into eye.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by RNajarian

This may not be on the level of discovering a new moon orbiting Saturn but . . .

My boy did receive a Special Award from the United States Navy Office of Naval Research for his science fair project on the effectiveness of HEPA filters and HEPA filters with carbon inserts. He also won third prize in the LA County Science Fair.

All the students had pretty impressive projects, there may be hope for us as a race after all.

Very, very cool! Congrats to Shant and you on the great work. So what was the end result, are HEPA filters effective?