Today’s stories include the Oldest known solar system discovered just 90 light-years from Earth to the BBC on Why there’s more to being smart than intelligence –the story of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, and much more.
The missing plan for alien first contact, reports BBC Future. “Finding life or making contact is always going to be highly unlikely until the day we do [it],” says John Zarnecki, emeritus professor of space sciences at the Open University in the UK. “It reminds me of exoplanets: as a young researcher, it was a topic we talked about, and we all suspected exoplanets were out there, but there was no way that we’d ever find one because it was technically far too difficult.”
Pro- and anti-UFO factions in government? It wouldn’t be the first time, reports The Hill. “Among several eyebrow-raising quotes, one source sharply criticized their Office of the Director of National Intelligence colleagues, stating, ‘They don’t want to talk about [UAP], because they really, really don’t know what the hell they are.'”
It Looks Like a Shell, but an Octopus and 40,000 Eggs Live Inside–Scientists are studying how the argonaut octopus evolved the ability to produce a floating shell-like structure to care for its offspring, reports New York Times Science.
Why there’s more to being smart than intelligence, reports BBC Future. Multiple psychological factors contribute to astonishing feats of creativity and insight. This is the story of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, whose theory of quantum electrodynamics revolutionized the study of subatomic particles. As a young child, “Ritty,” as he was known, struggled with literature and foreign languages. By the end of high school, Ritty reached the top place in a state-wide annual math competition.
How did the biological theory of evolution become such a central part of modern life? “In An Intimate History of Evolution, Alison Bashford traces the story from Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species, through the rise of scientific naturalism in the 1860s and 1870s and the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1940s, all the way to transhumanism, the idea that the limits of our bodies might be transcended,” reports Nature.
Remnants of oldest known solar system discovered just 90 light-years from Earth, reports Keith Cooper for Space.com. The finding provides further evidence that rocky planets were able to form in abundance in the distant past.
Scientists made a material that doesn’t exist on Earth. The compound is called tetrataenite, and the fact that scientists have found a way to make it in a lab is a huge deal. If synthetic tetrataenite works in industrial applications, it could make green energy technologies significantly cheaper. It could also roil the market in rare earths, currently dominated by China, and create a seismic shift in the industrial balance between China and the West.
Does a Quantum “Game” between Observer and Nature Define Existence? asks The Debrief. “For over a century, the quantum realm has imposed an abundance of bizarre obstacles along the road to understanding universal existence.”
The weird way language affects our sense of time and space, reports BBC Future. “The languages we speak can have a surprising impact on the way we think about the world and even how we move through it.
Did a Chaotic Climate Drive Human Evolution? –A new 620,000-year climate record from East Africa reveals dramatic swings between wet and dry conditions that may have influenced human evolution, reports EOS.
Shattered by Nazi Bombs, a Fossil’s Lost Copies Are Just Being Found–The first full ichthyosaur fossil was thought lost to the ravages of World War II. But researchers recently identified a copy, then more started to emerge, reports New York Times Science.
500 Million Year-Old Fossils Solve a Centuries-Old Riddle in the Evolution of Life on Earth, reports SciTechDaily. “Scientists have finally solved a centuries-old riddle in the evolution of life on earth, revealing what the first animals to make skeletons looked like. This discovery was possible due to an exceptionally well-preserved collection of fossils discovered in eastern Yunnan Province.”
Researchers Have Discovered a Mutation That Significantly Increases Lifespan, reports SciTechDaily. The study found that faulty RNA processing can result in longer life.
Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff.
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