In July 2024, a meteorite struck the Earth near a home in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The event was uniquely captured on a doorbell camera, recording both the visual impact and the sound of the meteorite hitting the ground—what scientists believe is a first in meteorite observation history.
The homeowners collected fragments of the space rock, which were later analyzed by Chris Herd, curator of the University of Alberta's Meteorite Collection. Herd identified the meteorite as an ordinary chondrite, a common type of stony meteorite originating from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
🎥📸 University of Alberta, CBC
Ask a male sea turtle if too many females is a problem and he'd probably say no. But ask an ecologist and they'd say absolutely.
We know the temperature of the sand incubating a sea turtle’s egg will determine the hatchling’s sex. The problem: warmer sands are exclusively producing female turtles. And because sea turtles reach sexual maturity much later in life, the unbalanced ratio of females to males we see today was a product of the environment decades ago.
Scientists are now in a race against time to correct sea turtles' sex problem before it reaches a tipping point.
Male seahorses aren’t the only animals that put a great deal of effort into raising their young, but they are the only ones that become pregnant. This explains the extreme lengths to which male seahorses are willing to go in raising their young, including brawling with other males.
Trailblazing big-wave surfer Maya Gabeira has conquered record-breaking waves, feats that display human courage amidst nature’s might.
Across the world, Lorenzo Bertelli is a competitive motorsport driver and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of the Prada Group and Executive Director, Patron of the UN Ocean Decade. As the leader at the helm of sustainability and innovation, he thinks deeply about what it means for humans to coexist in a more intentional way with the natural world.
Nautilus brought them both together for a one-of-a-kind conversation about the delicate balance between thrill-seeking and sustainability. Watch the entire discussion now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqIEehF8wuo
"The worst thing that can happen for a big wave surfer is you catch the wave of your life and then you're in front of the ride the whole time."
Meet Katherine Anderson, a PhD candidate in the Whitney Lab at the City College of New York. Her research focuses on how different social settings can change bird songs and behavior. Think of it like avian code-switching! 🐦
1,800 miles off the coast of Peru lies an underwater mountain range, teeming with life beyond our imagination. Millennia-old corals, watermelon-sized urchins, fish with fins adapted for walking, and more among over 100 species thought to be new to science.
The underwater mountains of the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges are isolated by a vast low-oxygen zone, the depths of the Atacama Trench, and the powerful Humboldt Current—an isolation that allowed evolution to follow its own trajectory. Almost half the species encountered there exist only there.
🎥 via @schmidtocean
Cassandra Jenkins' favorite planets
To celebrate Cassandra Jenkins' new space-inspired album release today, we caught up with her and asked her to rank her top 3 favorite planets. Spoiler alert: Earth ranks high on the list.
Listen to My Light, My Destroyer here: https://spoti.fi/4bOHHWE
Just past the main gate of San Diego Zoo Safari Park, a hyacinth macaw blasts Daft Punk on his boombox. His name is Sampson and he likes to dance.
Hearing is a dominant sense for many species, and zoo animals constantly hear unfamiliar sounds: construction noise, vehicles, human speech, and the sounds of animal neighbors. Researchers are now looking into ways to give animals in captivity agency over their sound environment.
For Sampson, who loves to dance and entertain, this means being a DJ. Now similar technology is being developed for other animals to mimic natural sounds, or provide quiet, silent spaces when desired.
🎥 RebKlein/YouTube
Groundbreaking research in Africa has revealed a remarkably simple and natural solution to human-elephant conflict: bees. These tiny insects have the astonishing ability to terrify elephants, animals millions of times their size.
Studies led by Lucy King, a zoologist from Oxford and researcher with Save The Elephants, have shown that even the sound of a bee's buzz can send elephants into a panic. Upon hearing the hum, elephants flee, kicking up dust, shaking their heads, and trumpeting warnings to others.
In 2017, researchers tested this concept by installing beehive fences along the Pungwe River's well-traveled elephant crossing points. The results were impressive, with the fences preventing 95 percent of elephant crossings. Head to Nautilus to learn more about how elephants are big scaredy cats around bees: https://nautil.us/elephants-are-total-scaredy-cats-around-bees-423763/?utm_source=fb-naut&utm_medium=organic-social
YT/ SaveTheElephants #elephants #africa #bees #animals
When Finch met Finch: A Love Story by Sarah and Andrew ❤️
Back in reality, researchers Kevin Oh and Alexander Badyaev followed thousands of finches over six years to map the social network the birds relied on during breeding season.
They found that females rarely left their neighborhoods to interact with birds in other neighborhoods. But how much males moved around from one neighborhood to the next depended on their coloring. Those with plenty of red coloration—which females tend to prefer as mating partners—generally remained put, just like females. But drabber colored males were more likely to socialize across many neighborhoods. The question was why?
The most colorful males did well no matter what neighborhood they were in. Drab males, however, had greater reproductive success if they tried their luck all around town—essentially, this allowed them to find just the spot where their relative coloration was greatest and therefore most likely to score them a mate.
They learned to play the field, restructuring social networks in a way that served their purposes best. Learn more at Nautilus: https://nautil.us/the-astonishing-ways-animals-use-social-networks-589010/?utm_source=ig-naut&utm_medium=organic-social
#love #bird #birds #finches #SocialNetwork
Grooming is a vital part of social bonding for macaque monkeys ❤️
On the island of Cayo Santiago, about a mile off the coast of eastern Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria devastated everything in its path, including the social networks of the monkeys living there. At the time, very little was known about how animals adjusted their social dynamics after full-scale natural catastrophes.
Animal behaviorist and author, Lee Alan Dugatkin, studied the fascinating way macaques worked together to reestablish their society following this catastrophe, and deep analysis on monkey grooming behavior and bonding was a big part of his research.
Learn more at Nautilus: https://nautil.us/a-hurricane-strengthened-monkey-friendships-589078/?utm_source=fb-naut&utm_medium=organic-social
#monkey #grooming #animals #cute #animallover #primates
