Arachnophobes Look Away

 One of world's deadliest spiders is the funnel-web spider. its complex venom has a range of potential applications.

But funnel-web spider venom is not all made equal. In fact, the venom changes according to the spider's mood.

The Border Ranges funnel-web has different venom composition depending on its heart rate. I.e., the venom composition changes when it is under threat. This probably has something to do with the significant metabolic cost of venom production and "saving energy."

(Nobody has been killed by a funnel-web since 1981, by the way, which is when we developed a good antivenom for the group).

What is Carcinization?

 It sounds very fancy, or like it's a chemical reaction.

In fact, it's a word that is used to refer to the fact that crabs have evolved independently at least five times. Carcinization is "turning into a crab."

It's a classic example of convergent evolution, but it keeps happening...albeit only amongst the decapod crustaceans (which also contain lobsters and shrimp and are generally tasty).

King crabs, thus, aren't actually crabs, they're false crabs.

We don't fully understand why being a crab is such a huge advantage, but one theory is that the crab body allows more space for specialized limbs and thus increased versatility over other crustacean.

And decarcinization is stopping being a crab. There's a word for that too.

Crabs are weird.

If...

 ...dinosaurs had telescopes, they would have seen a smaller ring system around Saturn than we do. That's because Saturn's iconic ring system formed only a few hundred million years ago, tops. It's far younger than the planet, which indicates it was probably formed by some kind of disaster out among Saturn's moons.

And in a few million more years, the rings will be mostly gone. It's a cosmic snapshot and we're lucky as a species to get to see it.

Spiny Mice are Weird

 Let's check out the ways:

1. They have remarkable regeneration abilities, and never scar. Like lizards,

2. They have bony plates on their tails. Like...lizards.

3. One species menstruates. Like us. (The list of mammals that menstruate is thin, and other than apes and old world monkeys, it includes elephant shrews and some species of bat).

3. They can shed their skin when grabbed...and then regrow it.

They are strange...although they are definitely rodents! This may indicate that some very strange genes are dormant in a variety of mammals. They're being studied to see if we can use their regenerative capabilities to help humans heal without scarring.

What they are not, however, is mice. They look like mice, but genetics place them in the same group as gerbils.

What's Worse Than a Coronal Mass Ejection?

 A: A coronal mass ejection plus a volcano.

Tonga interrupted satellite communications on the far side of the planet by producing "bubbles" in the atmosphere called equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs).

Modeling shows that the combination of a large eruption and a CME could really mess up communications, including GPS (learn to read a map people. You never know) and have significant economic impacts.

So let's hope that doesn't happen. Or rather that we can develop forecasts to predict it, as there's no way of preventing it.

Wooden spaceships?

 They aren't just fantasy, they're also...possible.

Japanese scientists are studying the use of magnolia wood as a housing/casing for satellites. It's more flexible than metal and lighter. It may also generate less space debris when the satellite eventually burns up at end of life.

Why magnolia? They've done testing, and it holds up well in space, although not fantastically better than others. But it's flexible and strong.

Magnolia wood, eh?

Get your telescope...

 ...and point it at Ursa Major. Because there's...a supernova in the neighborhood.

It's actually 21 million miles away, but supernovas are so bright a standard commercial backyard telescope can see it...and some people have even got photographs.

Unless, of course, you live in the city *glares at the light pollution*.

We're going to get some decent data from it, though.

Rocks fall, everyone...

 ...actually, it's okay. Barring some kind of gravitational perturbation, Earth is safe from planet killing asteroids for at least 1,000 years.

This is good news...we're testing systems that should protect us from smaller rocks.

Yeah, we did the math, and the big rocks, which are the easiest to track, are most likely not a threat. We still have to worry about a city killer, though...

...let's hope we can scale up DART.

So, This Might Be A Proper Hellworld

 Let's try this exoplanet on for size...or plotbunnies. Plotbunnies that are on fire.

LP 791-18 D is about the same size as Earth and in the habitable zone. Because of the type of star it is, its tidally locked. It's also being constantly tugged on by LP 791-18C.

What does this mean?

Volcanoes.

Lots of volcanos.

And tidally locked. The suspicion is that there may be liquid water on the night side.

Oh, and it may have an atmosphere.

Lots of volcanos + liquid water + atmosphere like equals...

...life.

But probably not complex life like us and certainly it would be hard to sustain a technological civilization on a world like that.

We're probably talking, I don't know, sponges here.

But all the ingredients are there. Let's find a starship and go take a look!

Can fish "hold their breath"?

You'd think they wouldn't need to, but it turns out hammerhead sharks are weird in another way than their heads.

We're specifically talking about Sphyrna lewini, the scalloped hammerhead sharks. When diving, they close their gills. Why? To keep themselves warm...they're a warm water fish and the deep water is cold. And they can hold their breath for 17 minutes.

Do they have a "dive reflex" like mammals?

Is the dive reflex that old?

Preliminary Balticon Schedule

 Balticon schedule (Subject to potential change):

All panels are on site this year.

Saturday 11:30am, Knowledge for Creators

Saturday 2:30pm, Holy Stuff

Saturday 5:30pm, Why So Many Kings and Emperors?

Saturday 7pm, Handling the Controversial in SF/Fantasy

Sunday 10am, Science Bloopers

Sunday 11:30am, Why superheroes? Why now?

Sunday 1pm, What happens when your fictional world starts coming true:

Sunday 2:30pm, Reading with Randee Dawn

Sunday 4pm, Hopepunk

Sunday 5:30pm, Out of Control Characters

Sunday 7pm, Signing with Sarah Avery

Monday 11:30am, Were the Dark Ages Really So Dark?

(I get Friday completely off, so if you want to corner me, that's the best time!)

Imagine...

 ...coming home to find a hole in your roof and a warm rock in one of your bedrooms.

Yes, somebody in New Jersey was fortunately not home when their house got, apparently, hit by a meteorite. This does not happen very often! About 500 meteorites hit Earth every year, but the vast majority land in the ocean and are never recovered.

The meteorite is now going to be analyzed by the College of New Jersey to confirm what it is (seems the most likely explanation) and its provenance, likely the Eta Aquarid shower.

I have to admit I would keep it if I was them. Quite the conversation piece!

(But imagine the conversation with their insurance company...)

Why do some of us have noses like that?

If you have a "snozz" - a tall, thin nose, then it's not just an adaptation to cooler climates.

You can thank your...

...Neanderthal ancestors. It turns out that the gene, ATF3, that significantly contributes to increased nasal height (compare the flat noses many Black people have) comes from Neanderthals.

It's proof of something I've long held...that interbreeding with Neanderthals served the evolutionary purpose of increasing the speed of adaptation to the cold experienced by tropical/African populations as they moved north.

Most white people and quite a few east Asian and Native Americans have Neanderthal noses. Which are better in cold climates.

Oh and central Asians have, it turns out, Denisovan lips.

Interbreeding with a related species is a great way to pick up genetic traits adapted to the environment without having to wait generations to evolve them.

I Did Pack That Snake...

 That snake robot, that is. NASA is developing a biomimetic robot based off a snake that may one day be landed on Enceladus. Why a snake?

Snakes handle water as well as land, and the snake will go into Enceladus' under ice ocean to collect samples and bring them back to the surface. Each segment can also have a different capability, including tracks, propellers, gripping mechanisms, etc.

Hiss!

We Can Now Recover DNA from Possessions

 ...and it may help us work out more about the Denisovans.

Researchers were able to find human DNA on a pierced deer tooth found in Denisova Cave. The deer tooth had apparently been turned into a necklace.

We now know that the necklace was owned by a single person and was owned, made by, or both by a woman. She was a modern human connected to the Ancient North Eurasians.

The tooth was 20,000 years old.

If we can push it back further we can expand our knowledge of populations that did not bury their dead.

Nom

 We just caught the first direct evidence of a star eating a planet. When main sequence stars (which includes the Sun) hit old age, they expand, and planets get consumed.

Yes, this will happen to Earth, but in about 5 billion years...by then we'll long since be extinct, have evolved into something else, or transcended into a star spanning civilization. Or all three.

We've known about it, but there's a really cool artist's impression here.

More water?

 Seems the JWST is so good it has detected water...26 light years away. Associated with a rocky planet. One that should not be habitable because it's too hot, tidally locked...basically Mercury. Which could suggest an atmosphere. Which shouldn't be possible.

But there's another explanation.

The water vapor is actually on the star. Wait, what? Even on our sun, in cool sunspot regions, there's traces of water. The star concerned is a red dwarf, so it's cooler, so it may have its own water.

But either way, that's a pretty huge achievement for the technology.

Just how big is a supermassive black hole?

 It becomes supermassive at 100,000 times the mass of our friendly local Sun. That's...honestly inconceivable. The largest we've found are tens of billions times that mass. That's...insane.

And we don't really know how they got that big. Because there are stellar mass black holes, which are typically up to 65 solar masses. Some bigger ones are caused by fusing two together.

There's nothing, though, between that and 100,000. That's one of the universe's weirdnesses.

Want a better idea? Here.

Video courtesy of NASA.

Water on Mars.

 The Zhurong rover has been declared dead (dust on solar panels). But before it died, it found signs that there was water on Mars as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago. And the dunes it was exploring were covered in salt.

Sea salt, perhaps? We might never know. Mars was just that bit too small. Just that bit too cold. Alas.