The flying capabilities of peregrine falcons are worth studying, as they represent a perfect example of how drones should fly to detect and attack intruders. To find out what strategies to adopt when guiding drones in future missions, the US Air Force funded a study which looked at the falcons’ moves.

The flying strategy of the peregrine falcons can be useful for the military

Peregrine falcons are extremely swift, and can dive without effort through air and glide towards their prey just like missiles do. For a better understanding of these strategies, researchers needed to study them better. Therefore, they selected eight falcons in Wales and adjusted video cameras and localizing systems on them.

Then, they studied these observations together with a professional falconer and a drone specialist. All the measurements performed by the cameras and systems were handled using a computer program, which put up a model of their flying patterns. This way, they could study in detail their strategy.

Drones can get inspired from the falcons on how to attack their targets

The video recordings revealed that peregrine falcons moved according to the same laws as guided missiles. They are visually guided, but the principle behind it is called proportional navigation. However, air force specialists wanted to borrow the strategies of the falcons to guide the drones more safely, and to annihilate intruder drones from protected regions.

It’s quite easy to calculate such an attack. Information like the speed of the target is not necessary. Instead, the drone should calculate the rotation performed by the intruder. Peregrine falcons have no means to assess the speed of their prey, but they can easily observe its direction. Also, no matter how fast this prey is, they can catch it, as they are actually the fastest animals on Earth.

The study was developed by researchers from Oxford University’s Department of Zoology and was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Scientists know that dinosaurs and birds might have shared some characteristics, so a team of researchers decided to find out what stage of the evolution they shared. It turns out that ancient birds initially had scales, which later turned into feathers.

Dinosaurs used to have feathers, and birds used to have scales

A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California have decided to find out how ancient birds looked like. Their findings revealed they actually had scales, and used alligators to reach this conclusion. They took alligator genes and edited them so that they could find out how the scales evolved into feathers.

First of all, the researchers looked at those genes which produce feathers in birds. Afterwards, they genetically engineered alligator genes and merged them with the feather-producing ones, and looked at what happened. This is how they observed the genes made the alligator scales turn feathery.

Both dinosaurs and birds evolved from the same family, namely the Archosaurs. They evolved during the Jurassic period, and looked more similar than we would expect. Both of them had scales, which later evolved into feathers.

The alligators were the key in this mystery

In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for such creatures to evolve feathers. A previous study documented the finding of a dinosaur fossil which was covered both in scales and in plumage. This was the first example of a reptile which had both, and which started revealing the similarities between dinosaurs and birds.

However, birds have changed a lot since they were formed as a species. This means it was hard to find out what genes they shared with the ancient reptiles. Fortunately, alligators still preserved many of the genetic material of their ancestors, so researchers knew they could reveal the mystery of the feathers and scales.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Image Source: Pixabay

Every year, we get to see a supermoon, when it appears brighter and seems to be much closer to Earth than usual. This happens when a full moon happens to reach the perigee, namely the closest point to Earth in its orbit. This year, the phenomenon will be visible on the night of December 3^rd, when the moon will appear 7 percent bigger and 16 percent brighter than it usually is.

What is a supermoon?

The moon doesn’t perform a perfectly spherical orbit around Earth, meaning that one specific point is closest to our planet. This specific point is the perigee. Whenever a full moon reaches the perigee, it will appear as a supermoon, namely much larger and brighter than usual.

The last event of the year is known as the Full Cold Moon, which is the name traditionally given to the last supermoon to occur in the year. According to your location, you will be able to see it at its peak at different times. If you live on the East Coast, for instance, the moon will reach its perigee at 4:00 a.m. on December 4^th.

Make sure you don’t miss the last astronomical event of the year

If you live on the west coast, then another surprise awaits you. In this region, the moon will be visible as it passes over the bright star Aldebaran. Depending on your location, the occultation will be visible from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. However, the best view you can get of the supermoon is soon after sunrise. This is when the phenomenon called moon illusion occurs, when it appears a lot bigger than it looks at its perigee.

Last year’s supermoon occurred in November, which was the most impressive event of the kind since 1948. Next year is going to be even more spectacular, as the first month will offer us not only one, but two spectacular supermoons. Get ready for the Full Wolf Moon on January 2^nd, and the Blue Moon on January 31^st.
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Nothing could stop the ISS astronauts from celebrating Thanksgiving, not even the fact that they weren’t on Earth. NASA scientists Joe Acaba, Mark Vande, and Randy Bresnik, together with ESA astronaut Pablo Nespoli, celebrated the holiday together on the ISS, and enjoyed one of the most delicious Thanksgiving meal that the space has seen.

The ISS astronauts enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal

NASA didn’t want its astronauts to feel bad because they are away from home during the holidays. If they couldn’t be with their loved ones, NASA wanted at least to let them enjoy one of the most delicious and diverse Thanksgiving feasts. They didn’t receive a predetermined menu, as they got the chance to choose whatever they liked from a list of 200 dishes.

Among the meals they could eat, there were the traditional ones which cannot miss from any Thanksgiving table. These included the everlasting turkey, yams, and stuffing, all of them being available in pouches. Unfortunately, the iconic pumpkin spice wasn’t on the list, but the astronauts could pamper themselves with a dessert like cherry blueberry cobbler.

It’s quite difficult to convert food into space meals

The International Space Station posted a video on Twitter which presented how the meal was prepared. Astronauts haven’t figured out how to cook in space, so all the dishes could instantly turn edible just by adding water. However, they usually enjoy such delightful meals only on special occasions. Most of the time, they choose to preserve their resources and dine only on the essentials.

Even if the space Thanksgiving menu seems quite varied, the astronauts still cannot enjoy all the goodies we have here on Earth. Preparing food in space is a lengthy and costly process, so the scientists couldn’t afford to turn too many dishes into instant space meals. Some products, such as vegetables, are incredibly hard to convert, but this couldn’t stop the astronauts from enjoying the holiday.

.@AstroKomrade @AstroAcaba & @Astro_Sabot share some of their favorite Thanksgiving memories from Earth as they create new ones in space. pic.twitter.com/uIwtxQNs3u

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) November 22, 2017

Image Source: Flickr

Dolly the Sheep is the first animal to ever be cloned from the cells of an adult. Even if 14 years have passed since she died, she is still making the headlines and keeping the scientists’ attention. They have long suspected that her death was the result of her being a clone, but a new study suggests she suffered natural levels of damage in her body for a sheep her age.

Dolly developed osteoarthritis at the age of 5

Scientists used somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to create a completely new embryo from an adult cell. She was born in June 5^th, 1996, and died on February 14^th, 2003. Scientists decided to euthanize her after she contracted a deadly virus which affected her lungs.

However, when she was 5, she developed osteoarthritis, which affected her left knee. This led to dozens of ethical debates, as many said this happened due to the fact that Dolly was a clone. They blamed the process for making her age too quickly, and said cloning is not a viable practice. So many years later, researchers managed to prove that the aging wasn’t the result of cloning.

None of the cloned sheep showed abnormal aging signs

To prove their point, the researchers studied the remnants of Dolly, as well as the skeletons of several other sheep. Some of them were other sheep which were cloned, Morag and Megan, and another one was Dolly’s daughter, Bonnie, which she had given birth to naturally. After performing X-ray scans on their skeletons, they compared them with other non-cloned sheep.

They discovered that the cloned sheep exhibited no unnatural signs of aging. Although some of them developed osteoarthritis, this wasn’t uncommon for non-cloned sheep of a similar age. Also, apart from this condition, Dolly and the other clones were in perfect health. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

In case there weren’t enough theories on how life started on our planet, researchers decided to add one more to the list. It turns out the first life forms didn’t originate on Earth but, instead, were carried on particles of space dust. Researchers explored the origin of the space dust, and it could have been Mars. Therefore, life on Earth might actually be alien life.

Space dust could have carried life

Researchers believe that space dust was the one that triggered life on planet Earth. These particles travel through space at speeds which can reach 70 km per hour, and often end up hitting our planet. Aboard the particles, there were microscopic life forms, which found an environmental suitable for them to thrive.

This theory sounds crazy enough, as it suggests that life on Earth is actually alien life. If it were true, the theory indicates that some life forms might be present on other planets as well, or that microorganisms from Earth hopped on these particles and were transported somewhere else in the universe.

This sounds really hard to believe, but we might have enough evidence that such space dust exists. ESA scientists found evidence that plenty of material from Saturn actually originated on one of its moons, Enceladus. Also, they say space dust is widely present across planetary systems.

There is some scientific basis on the theory of life coming from space

This is not the first time when researchers explore the possibility of life on Earth coming from outside the planet. Previous studies offered hypotheses which suggested life was brought on our planet by an asteroid which collided with it, or aboard particles originating from Mars.

Water is essential for the presence of life, and it was plenty of it on our planet. However, other ingredients are necessary for life to proliferate, and these are molybdenum and boron. The initial conditions present on Earth couldn’t have produced these substances, so it’s possible that they have come aboard space dust particles, together with several microorganisms.

The study has been published in the journal Astrobiology.
Image Source: Max Pixel

Budweiser has big plans for the future, as it’s getting ready for a special launch in space. The company wants to send two barley experiments to the International Space Station, where they are to stay for a month. Afterwards, they will be sent back to Earth, where researchers will perform a series of tests on them. This is the first step towards becoming the first beer to be brewed in space.

Budweiser wants astronauts to have beer on Mars

Budweiser thinks the future colonists to settle on Mars shouldn’t miss Earth, so they deserve to enjoy the same treats even if they are billions of miles away. NASA didn’t plan to send the beer ingredients to the planet for the next mission. However, learning how to brew the beverage in space is the first step towards allowing astronauts to enjoy the taste of beer.

The series of experiments will start on December 4^th, when Budweiser will send the two barley experiments to the ISS. The cargo will be put aboard a rocket launched by SpaceX from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Both the scientists and the experts from Budweiser decided upon barley as the plant that should be sent into space. They chose it as it’s the essential ingredient needed to produce malt.

The experiment will focus on the interaction of barley seeds with zero gravity

Researchers want to see how barley grows in an environment with no gravity. One batch will offer an insight on how the seeds behave after being exposed to zero gravity. For the second one, researchers will focus on the growth of the seeds into sprouts. This way, they will find out if it’s really possible to grow the plant in space.

The two experiments will gather 20 Budweiser seeds, which should be split in two separate boxes, called Space Tango CubeLabs. These cubes are about the size of a shoebox and, after 30 days, they will go back on Earth for study. The two probes are only the first in a series of experiments that Budweiser is planning to send to the ISS.
Image Source: Flickr

If glaciers start melting, they will greatly contribute to the rise of the sea level. However, the effects would not be felt the same everywhere on the globe, due to climatic variations. This melting event would increase the sea level by 70 meters, but cities near the coasts might have a lot to suffer.

Coastal cities would suffer different effects, depending on their position and climate

A team of three researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to tell how a global melting event would impact around 300 cities situated on the coast. The main glaciers which put these cities in danger are those near Antarctica and Greenland.

Among the cities they studied, there were Hong Kong, London, or New York, and each of them was posed to different risks, from different glaciers. The main glaciers which threaten the integrity of the cities include Jakobshavn Glacier, Helheim Glacier, Petermann Glacier, and the North-East Greenland Ice Stream.

If we take New York, it faces more danger from the North-East Greenland Ice Stream than from any other glacier. In about 200 years, the sea around the city might suffer an increase of 2.83 inches. However, the city facing the biggest threat is Rio de Janeiro, which might face an increase of 5.1 inches.

The sea level might also decrease

However, a higher sea level is not the only danger posed by the collapse of glaciers. The sea might decrease as well, and the best example of affected city is Ellesmere. This little town on the coast of England could be affected by Petermann Glacier, which might reduce its sea level by 37.2 inches.

Through this study, published in the journal Science Advances, researchers could highlight the damaging effects that global warming might have. However, there are several other factors which were not presented in the study. This might also contribute to an increase or decrease in sea levels. Even so, these projections might be perfect to prepare people for a future melting event.
Image Source: Pixabay

A team of Portuguese scientists stumbled upon a weird-looking creature which turned out to be as old as dinosaurs. The creature in question is a shark with the head of a snake, with 300 frilled teeth arranged carefully inside its mouth. After closely analyzing it, they decided it was about 80 million years old, so it got classified as a living fossil.

The ancient shark was caught by commercial fishermen

The impressive catch was made by a commercial fishing trawler which traveled off the Algarve Coast, near Portimao. It came from a depth of 2,300 feet, so initially it was hard to see the fish looked a lot different than the others.

After the catch was brought on board, the fishermen saw something was wrong, so they decided to take the shark to the researchers for analysis. The researchers, coming from the Institute for the Sea and Atmospheres, were right in the middle of a project meant to help fishermen catch less species with no commercial purpose.

The creature has a set of 300 teeth to catch mollusks

The ancient shark turned out to be a male. It was about five feet long, and its body and head resembled that of a snake. However, the most interesting aspect of its appearance were its 300 frilled teeth, which lay arranged on 25 rows. This creature is known in science as Chlamydoselachus Anguineus.

Whenever the shark opens its mouth, it looks a lot bigger than it actually is. This happens because the mouth doesn’t end where it should, and it gapes open even beneath the head. Apart from the teeth, it also sports some frilled gills in the throat.

The creature sounds like taken out of a horror story with sea monsters, but humans needn’t worry. All those teeth are perfectly positioned for it to seize and catch sea mollusks while plunging upon them. Also, given the fact that it lives at such great depths, other details regarding its way of life remain unknown.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

A new video has surfaced to prove wrong your old convictions about crabs. If you regarded them as peaceful and harmless creatures, think again, as a footage captured on the Island of Chagos, far away in the Indian Ocean, show a coconut crab ferociously killing and then feasting upon a seabird. These images bring a great contribution to our understanding of these creatures and their way of life.

The coconut crab is indeed an impressive species, measuring about three feet from one leg to the other, and weighing up to nine pounds. Therefore, it already looks quite threatening, so the fact that it’s quite a skilled killer should come as no surprise.

The coconut crab can easily kill a bird

This video shows the coconut crab grabbing a type of seabird from its nest, and cracking its wings. The seabird in question is a red-footed booby, and the task of dealing with its wings shouldn’t be so difficult for the crab.

Its name suggests that it can easily break a coconut shell, so attacking a bird shouldn’t be problematic. Moreover, this particular species of booby is the smallest of all. The specimens usually don’t exceed 30 inches in size, and weigh a maximum of 39 ounces.

The creature is so ferocious that it would eat anything

After the coconut crab broke the bird’s wings, it immediately fell to the ground. Afterwards, the crab climbed down from the tree, and finished the job. The video ends here, but the researcher who filmed everything, Mark Laidre from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, said that several other crabs joined the feast.

The main diet of the coconut crab consists of, as you might have assumed, coconuts. This makes them incredibly powerful and ferocious, and would definitely not refuse any other prey. They often capture seabirds, but they can be so cruel as to feed on kittens or even other crabs of the same species. Some researchers even say they would feast on a dead human if they found one.

Therefore, these creatures are not something to mess with. Researchers want to continue studying the creature by installing many other cameras, while watching the creatures from a safe distance.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons