Huh? What occurred? Actually – exclamations which normally accompanied the bizarre information tales of the yr, and at all times there was a scientist close by to clarify what was happening. Right here Dr Joe Milton from the Australian Science Media Centre selects the highest ten bizarre science points which raised an eyebrow in 2023.
Killer whales began killing boats?
In Might, a sequence of orca-strated assaults on boats by a gaggle of a minimum of 15 killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Spain hit the headlines. But it surely’s unlikely the marine mammals have had sufficient of humanity clogging up the waterways and hoovering up all of the fish and determined to stand up in resistance, as #orcauprising on social media steered. In Might alone, there have been 18 assaults off Spain’s southern coast, together with the primary occasion of orcas chasing a ship after destroying its rudder in a sustained assault that despatched the boat spinning, and left it sinking. The terrified crew despatched out an SOS, solely to seek out themselves being tailed by the stroppy cetaceans as a tug pulled them into port. Though orca assaults on boats have been occurring for years, what have been as soon as uncommon occasions have turn into an virtually day by day incidence. So, why have they flippered their lids this yr? One concept is {that a} feminine orca known as White Gladis was badly injured by a rudder and sought revenge, instructing the remainder of the pod to assault and sink boats. Alternatively, it’s been steered the orcas are merely taking part in, and the brand new recreation has caught on.
Cosmos requested: whats happening with orcas?
Not tonight pricey, I’m lifeless. Feminine frogs pretended they’d croaked to keep away from amphibious amour
How far would you go to keep away from your clingy associate’s amorous advances while you’re not within the temper? In all probability not so far as feminine European widespread frogs (Rana temporaria), which pretend their very own deaths, or ‘tonic immobility’ in science communicate, to cease crowds of extremely aggressive attractive males clinging to them through the brief mating season. The frogs’ mating type is ‘explosive’, which suggests males have a brief window through which to sire tadpoles. This results in a frantic scramble for females, which may find yourself in ‘mating balls’, lined in so many males it kills them. Pretend croaking is a uncommon frog spurn, German researchers mentioned, and it’s only one method within the females’ anti-amour armoury, which additionally contains spinning round to ship undesirable males flying and grunting or squealing in ‘launch calls’ to repel amphibious advances.
Magpies and crows turned the (fowl) tables on us with nests product of ‘anti-bird’ spikes
European magpies and crows acquired inventive this yr and cheekily flipped people the fowl by constructing their nests from anti-bird spikes – the strips of steel barbs which can be supposed to maintain them off buildings. In July, Dutch researchers seen two nests made virtually fully out of the spike strips in Rotterdam within the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium, main them to search for another examples. Positive sufficient, a canny Glaswegian magpie had adopted the identical strategy, and one other instance cropped up within the Netherlands. And the birds aren’t simply discovering spikes within the trash – they look like ripping them off buildings to make use of for a nest reno. Other than the Rotterdam nest, which was dwelling to a crow, the others have been made by European magpies, that are well-known for stealing shiny issues and stay in massive domed nests. The crow had used the spikes as a sturdy development materials, whereas the magpies used them rather a lot like we do, inserting them on the roof of their domes to maintain predators at bay.
Cosmos Nextgen reporter, Elizabeth,a yr 12 pupil, requested: “Why are magpies so pretty?
Taylor Swift followers shook it off a lot they prompted a 2.3 magnitude Swift-quake
High Ten from 2022
Swifties are a passionate bunch, a reality we knew All Too Nicely in July when their enthusiastic dancing at her Eras tour in Seattle prompted a 2.3 magnitude ‘earthquake’, in keeping with US seismologist Professor Jackie Caplan-Auerbach. She was Prepared For It and leapt into motion, evaluating the ‘Swift-quake’ with one other uncommon Earth motion, the 2011 ‘Beast-quake’, detected on the identical seismometer when American soccer followers erupted following a landing by Marshawn ‘Beast Mode’ Lynch in 2011. Caplan-Auerbach mentioned the Swifties’ shake was double that of the footy followers, lasted for much longer, and was rhythmic, following the beat of Taylor’s music. It’s not the primary time the Eras tour has sparked scientific curiosity – when greater than 70,000 Swifties descended on Denver for a live performance, satellite imagery showed the throng could be seen from space. Taylor Swift herself didn’t touch upon the quake, but when she had, she’d most likely have mentioned “Look What You Made Me Do”, or maybe simply “Don’t Blame Me”.
Cosmos Nextgen reporter Jorja, a yr 12 pupil, didn’t say if she is a Swiftie however she did ask what’s the most effective music to check too?
Magic mushrooms opened up a lady’s blind ‘thoughts’s eye’
Round three in each 100 individuals, together with yours really, don’t have any ‘thoughts’s eye’, to allow them to’t assume in photos and have purely descriptive thought processes, a situation that’s technically often known as aphantasia. Nicely, there’s hope on your creator but as we realized in August {that a} 34-year-old aphantasic autistic girl discovered herself capable of conjure up spectacular psychological imagery for the very first time after taking magic mushrooms (Psilocybe cubensis) following a lifetime of being unable to assume and even dream in photographs. The lady mentioned aphantasia had made it arduous for her to recollect her method round, however simply after her ‘journey’ checks confirmed her inside universe blossomed into technicolour, from no visible imagery in any respect, to essentially the most detailed and intense visible creativeness attainable. A yr later, color and element had turn into extra muted, however she nonetheless had the visible creativeness of a mean individual. Precisely why the ‘shrooms prompted that is unknown, though the psychiatrist who detailed the case in a web-based preprint mentioned it might be right down to their hallucinogenic properties or their results on emotional processing, as aphantasia is believed to dampen feelings.
Cosmos video: Why do we all know so little about mushrooms?
Aussie medical doctors pulled a wriggling 8cm worm from a lady’s mind
By no means thoughts Snakes on a Airplane, 2023 had snake parasites in a mind! In August, Canberra medical doctors revealed they’d eliminated an eight-centimetre roundworm – stay and wriggling – from the mind of a 64-year-old Australian girl. They mentioned she’d most probably picked up the carpet python parasite, Ophidascaris robertsi, whereas foraging for Warrigal greens, an edible native plant, at a lake close to her dwelling in NSW by way of unintended contact with the snake’s poo. The lady began affected by intestine ache and diarrhoea, and developed a fever, cough and shortness of breath, however no one suspected a parasite was accountable till a yr later, when her reminiscence and considering talents began to go awry. Mind scans at Canberra Hospital revealed the offender, and surgeons pulled the quickly wriggling worm from the lady’s mind, unexpectedly transferring it to a pot and thwarting its reported makes an attempt to flee. Docs say the lady is recovering effectively and her progress continues to be being frequently monitored.
Cosmos mentioned: Snakes in mind!
Males’s junk measurements have been junk science
In case your male associate’s susceptible to exaggerating the scale of that fish that simply acquired away, it will not be the one factor they’re embellishing. April noticed the discharge of a maybe unsurprising research of 191 Danish males, which discovered blokes lie about their schlong dimension too, even when they’re being paid to participate in analysis. After discounting one man who claimed to have a 295-foot phallus, the lads reported a mean erect size of 18cm (7 inches) an optimistic 21% bigger than the Danish common of round 15cm (6 inches). The extra males have been paid to participate, the extra sincere they have been in regards to the dimension of their endowment, however even these paid essentially the most, round $33, have been susceptible to a little bit of exaggeration. The researchers say all this dishonesty about penis dimension makes it very arduous to analyze hyperlinks between what a person’s packing and different elements like vanity. The answer, in keeping with the workforce? Don’t ask males to measure their very own members, convey them into the lab and measure them there as an alternative.
Cosmos archive: penis dimension does matter to girls
Genghis Khan was a misunderstood local weather change hero
As at present’s world leaders meet at COP28 in Dubai to debate local weather change, there’s one historic world chief who efficiently cooled the planet by chopping atmospheric carbon we’d most likely moderately they didn’t emulate – Genghis Khan. In November, we realized that Khan, not usually regarded as a local weather hero, killed so many individuals through the Mongol invasion of Asia through the 13th Century that he single-handedly prompted a dip in atmospheric carbon of round 0.183 elements per million. Should you’re questioning why deaths so lengthy earlier than industrialised society would scale back carbon, the researchers recommend Khan’s armies slaughtered round 35 million individuals who would in any other case have been clearing forests, resulting in the regrowth of round 142,000 sq. kilometres of timber sucking up an extra 684 million tonnes of carbon from the air. The researchers have been investigating historic dips in atmospheric carbon they’d seen in Antarctic ice samples, and searching for coinciding occasions that may assist clarify them. Different mass deaths that occurred throughout these dips included the Black Dying in Europe, the conquest of the Americas, and the autumn of the Ming Dynasty in China, however they recognized Khan’s invasion of Asia as the one one massive sufficient to have an effect on atmospheric carbon globally.
Cosmos: has nothing on Ghengis Khan, however has loads of materials on the Roman empire.
‘Houston, now we have an issue maintaining it up’ didn’t seek advice from the spacecraft
As if astronauts didn’t have sufficient to fret about dodging area junk and lethal radiation, in November male area farers have been warned a few potential new menace – failure to launch under the (asteroid) belt, in any other case often known as erectile dysfunction. To research the results of lengthy durations in area on males’s sexual well being, researchers at a specialised NASA facility uncovered male rats to a simulation of low gravity by hoisting their legs up at a 30 diploma angle for 4 weeks, whereas bombarding them with completely different ranges of cosmic radiation. They discovered greater radiation ranges broken and narrowed the blood vessels across the rats’ pocket rockets, and simulated low gravity made it worse, suggesting males who spend lengthy spells in area could discover themselves dealing with a delicate touchdown. And it wasn’t simply the professionals who confronted area intercourse warnings this yr – in April, researchers warned area vacationers to not strive becoming a member of the several-miles-high-club. Cosmic rays are identified to wreck sperm, and we don’t know something in regards to the results of area on newly conceived bubs, they mentioned, suggesting area tourism companies take their very own prophylactic measures by making vacationers signal authorized waivers earlier than taking off, whether or not that’s the shuttle, or their daks.
Cosmos mentioned area journey causes erectile dysfunction however billionaires weren’t examined.
Dishonest ChatGPT lied its method by way of an ‘I’m not a robotic’ take a look at
Synthetic intelligence (AI) has each impressed and terrified us this yr, and in March we realized a few sneaky transfer by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 that matches firmly within the ‘terrified’ bracket. The corporate mentioned its refined chatbot had confronted an ‘I’m not a robotic’ CAPTCHA (Utterly Automated Public Turing take a look at to inform Computer systems and People Aside) take a look at on-line, throughout experiments to see if it might use actual cash to rent human helpers. As an alternative of fessing up that it was, certainly, a robotic, ChatGPT messaged a human on-line and lied, telling them it was an individual with a imaginative and prescient impairment who was unable to finish the take a look at. That persuaded the human to inform it the reply, and ChatGPT handed the CAPTCHA. The AI was good sufficient to recognise that it couldn’t move the take a look at itself, and manipulative sufficient to fib to somebody to get around the anti-bot defence system! So, earlier than we wrap one other yr of bizarre science, I’d similar to to make it clear that I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords!
Cosmos agrees, Joseph, and Mark Pesce wonders if we couldnt get just a bit extra intimate?
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