Author: Jen Pinkowski

Science knows a few things about the function of sleep: It makes you feel better, regenerates your cells, consolidates aspects of memory, and may flush waste from the brain. However, sleep researchers have remained largely in the dark about the genetic underpinnings of this most basic behavior. New research on mice published today in Nature, however, indicates that your insomnia, need for extra-long slumber, and the number of dreams you have might be written into your genetic code.

Sleep scientists have previously determined the brain regions responsible for switching between non-dreaming sleep—NREMS (non rapid eye movement sleep)—and dreaming sleep—REMS—but they did not yet understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that determine a mammal’s likely switch between the two types of sleep.

To determine this, neuroscientists Hiromasa Funato (University of Tsukuba), Masashi Yanagisawa (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center), and their colleagues looked at the sleep patterns of more than 8000 mice, using a technique known as forward genetic screening. Their method involved first identifying a mouse family that showed a particular heritable sleep abnormality, such as extreme wakefulness, non-REM sleep, or excessive muscle activity during sleep. Next, they identified the gene mutation that caused the sleep abnormality, and induced these mutations by breeding the mice that showed the irregular genes. This created “a mutant pedigree,” as the authors state in the Nature paper.

In order to study sleep and wakefulness time, the mutant mice were attached to electrodes to record electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) data 24 hours a day for two consecutive days. The researchers narrowed down their findings into two types of mice: “Sleepy” mice were those that slept more than 3.5 hours longer than the average of all mice, while “Dreamless” mice experienced 44 percent less REM sleep than normal. (They’re not entirely “dreamless.”)

The “Sleepy” mice all had a mutation in a gene known as Sik3, a kinase that transfers a phosphate group to another protein called a substrate. The Sik3 gene, Funato told mental_floss, “is the first intracellular protein that regulates time spent in sleep.” The researchers believe that the Sleepy mutation in Sik3 increases the animal’s intrinsic sleep need, because, as they write in their paper, “Sleepy mutant mice exhibit (1) a higher density of slow-wave activity, a reliable index of homeostatic sleep need; (2) a larger increase in NREMS delta power after sleep deprivation; and (3) a normal waking response to behavioural or pharmacological arousal stimuli.”

Nalcn, the second gene mutation, showed up in the “Dreamless” mice. The paper’s authors write, “Nalcn works in the neuronal groups regulating REMS for the maintenance and termination of REMS episodes.” Nalcn “encodes an ion channel,” says Funato. “When the channel opens, ions can move through the channel between extracellular space and intracellular area.” This gene, he says, “is the first protein that is involved in the termination of an REM sleep episode.” An episode is one “sleep sequence,” of which the average mouse and human has approximately four to six per night.

“The current results suggest there is some genetic factors that determines how long we need to sleep,” Funato says. Of course, what is good for the mouse is not necessarily good for the human. “The genes we found in mice have not been reported in humans,” he notes.

Now, however, scientists have a window into understanding how genetics contributes to sleep—a window that can eventually be used to screen and identify human sleep genes, particularly in order to better understand and treat sleep disorders. Insomnia, for example, is closely associated with mood disorders, as well as one of many risk factors for obesity, diabetes, and dementia.

“This finding is just the first step of the thousand miles’ journey to crack open the mystery of sleep,” Funato concludes.

 
The practice of intentional cranial deformation is perhaps best known from Mesoamerica. But deliberately reshaping the skulls of infants when their bones are soft and fontanelles open was a widespread practice. It has been recorded on nearly every continent in many different cultures over tens of thousands of years. The malleable heads of neonates were bound with leather or textile bandages, flattened with boards or pads. Sometimes infants were restrained in custom cradleboards so that over months—sometimes years—their heads grew into the preferred shape: flat on top, flat on the back, flat on the sides, conical, elongated, or rounded.

As far-reaching a practice as it has been for all of human history and much of prehistory, intentionally deformed skulls still engender regular “Alien!” “Bizarre!” “Weird!” headlines whenever they are found because of their striking appearance. Here is a quick world tour of cranial deformation throughout the ages.

1. AUSTRALIA, 13,000–9000 YEARS AGO

The skulls of Pleistocene-epoch Australians with flattened occipital bones have been found at Kow Swamp (northern Victoria), Nacurrie (northwest Victoria/southwest New South Wales), and Coobool Creek (southwest New South Wales). Anthropologist and professor of human anatomy Alan Thorne believed the size and shape of the skulls were evidence that pre-sapiens Homo erectus was still alive and kicking in Australia “as recently as 10,000 years ago.” Later analysis disproved Thorne’s theory. The people with flat skulls were Homo sapiens, all right; they’d just had constant pressure applied to their foreheads from infancy.

2. PERU, 7000–100 BCE

 
The earliest examples of intentionally deformed skulls in the Americas were found in Peru and date to between 7000 and 6000 BCE. The practice put down deep roots in Peru, spreading throughout Andean communities and the rest of the continent from there. Excavations of ancient Peruvian remains have found that a vast majority of them—as many as 90 percent on some digs—have deformed skulls.

A group of skulls about 2500 years old, discovered in the 1920s in the Paracas peninsula of Peru by archaeologist Julio C. Tello, were so extremely elongated they’ve been featured in the fever dreams of the “I’m not saying it’s aliens, but it’s aliens” crowd ever since. There was even a claimed DNA study of the Paracas skulls that made headlines all over the world in 2014 for its ostensible confirmation that the skulls could not possibly be human. While the Paracas peoples did have extraordinary abilities—see the unparalleled beauty and complexity of their textiles, for example—they were decidedly human, and Homo sapiens at that. They were just extremely adept at flattening the frontal bones of babies’ skulls.

3. UKRAINE, 2800–2200 BCE

The Bronze Age Catacomb culture in modern-day Ukraine is named after its burial chambers which were dug at the bottom of a vertical shaft. Skeletal remains found in those graves bear the telltale marks of intentional cranial deformation—the earliest identified instance of it in the Eurasian steppes. Researchers believe they may have picked up the practice from the earlier Afanasevo culture which inhabited what is now Siberia from 3300 to 2500 BCE, moving it westward. After the Catacomb culture died out, there is no evidence of cranial reshaping in the archaeological record of the steppes until the Iron Age (700–500 BCE).

4. FRANCE, 4TH CENTURY CE

In 2013, archaeologists unearthed a series of burial grounds in Obernai, in the northeastern French province of Alsace, dating from the Neolithic (4900–4750 BCE) through the Merovingian (5th–8th century CE) period. In one of 18 graves dating to the same time period were the skeletal remains of a woman with an ovoid skull (top image). Coupled with the style and richness of the grave goods, the shape of the skull identified her as an Alan, a people who originated in the North Caucasus but fled west during the Hunnish invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries. They too practiced intentional cranial deformation, tightly binding infants’ heads with bandages that applied equal pressure to the front and back of skulls. Archaeologists believe it was a process reserved for the Alan societal elite, as the ovoid crania have only been found in graves accompanied by elaborate grave goods.

5. HUNGARY, 5TH–6TH CENTURY CE

 
The Alans that were chased west by the Huns (their onetime allies against the Romans) probably gave the Huns the idea to start altering their babies’ skull shapes, perhaps as early as the 2nd or 3rd century CE when they were neighbors in the Carpathian Basin. More than 200 artificially deformed skulls dating to the 5th to 6th century CE have been found in what is now Hungary. The extent and type of deformations vary significantly, from extreme reshaping of the entire skull to minor alterations.

6. KOREA, 4th CENTURY CE

The archaeological site of Yean-ri, in southeastern South Korea, is an ancient burial ground of the Gaya Confederacy from the 4th century CE. Out of the 300 graves unearthed there, only a third of them had surviving skeletal remains. This is actually a relative bonanza for Korea, where the acidic soil and cycles of hot and wet, cold and dry weather wreak havoc on organic materials. Out of the 100 surviving skeletons, 20 percent of them were found to have intentionally deformed skulls. The main emphasis was on the flattening of the frontal bones of the Yean-ri skulls, with some small counterforce applied to the back of the skulls.

Of particular interest is that the burial ground, which includes an unusual variety of grave types (stone sarcophagi, jar burials, and wooden chambers) was used to inter commoners—the regular Joes of the Gaya period. This practice is attested by their modest grave goods. While many examples of intentional cranial deformation in other cultures were used to denote high status, wealth, or belonging to an elite subset of society, that does not appear to be the case at Yean-ri. It also confirms an account of the Gaya recorded in the 3rd century CE Chinese chronology the Records of the Three Kingdoms by Jin dynasty court historian Chen Shou.

7. MEXICO, 900–1200 CE

 
Almost 4000 miles northwest of Paracas, Peru, and 1100 years later, in the town of the Onavas, in what is today the Mexican state of Sonora, 25 people were laid to rest in a cemetery during the Late Classic Mesoamerican period. Other burials in Sonora were found under or around dwellings. This burial ground, excavated by archaeologists in 2012, is the earliest dedicated graveyard found in the state. The unique opportunity to examine a group of skeletons at one site revealed that more than 50 percent of them, 13 of the 25, had intentionally deformed skulls. They’re the first of their kind discovered in either Sonora or, across the modern border, in the American southwest.

The skull shapes were remarkably extreme, considering the practice had never been found before in the region. They were subject to fronto-occipital deformation, meaning flat planks, or possibly cradleboards, were bound to the front and back of the skull to flatten and elongate the head. Added to that, the bones on the side of the skull were flattened at an angle, giving the cranium a V shape (and breathless reporters everywhere the opportunity to talk aliens again).

8. ENGLAND, 17TH CENTURY CE

 
Technically, this skull was found in Paris, but that’s just because the young man in question was studying there. Thomas Craven was English from a wealthy noble family. His father Sir William was Lord Mayor of London in 1610. His two brothers were barons. He was 17 or 18 years old when he died in Paris of the plague in 1636. Thomas Craven’s body was embalmed, placed in a lead coffin and buried in a Protestant cemetery in the Paris suburb Saint-Maurice.

It was found during an archaeological dig in 1986 and identified by a loving Latin inscription on a copper plaque welded to the coffin describing young Thomas as “a model of good behaviour.” Not mentioned on the plaque but discovered during osteological examination was that Thomas Craven had an artificially elongated cranium. The long skull was considered to give the face an elegant slimness that was still fashionable in early 17th-century London society, a thousand years after the trend petered out among the Germanic peoples of the continent.

In 2015, a 3D facial reconstruction was made from a scan of Thomas Craven’s skull, as you can see in the video above. The extended skull can still be perceived even after the dashing long hair is added.

9. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, 18TH CENTURY CE

 
The Mangbetu people in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa elongated the skulls of their infants by wrapping them with bands of giraffe hide, rope or cloth. As the child grew, the binding would be changed to fit the larger dimensions while still ensuring the skull achieved the desired elongated shape. The practice was considered an art form. The distinctive shape of the head was a mark of intelligence, status, and beauty, and was emphasized by the styling of hair—braids coiled around the head—and accessories, like basketry-frame headdresses. It was also a frequent motif in Mangbetu decorative arts, such as their anthropomorphic pottery, knife handles, and arched harps called donnu. 

The practice continued well into the 20th century, dying out in the 1950s under the influence of European culture and legal pressure from the colonial Belgian government.

10. PACIFIC NORTHWEST, UNTIL THE 20th CENTURY CE

 
It’s not certain when the Chinookan people of the Columbia River in what are now the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon began to flatten the skulls of their infants, but by the time Lewis and Clark trundled along in 1805, the practice was deeply ingrained in the culture. Chinookan society was highly stratified and slaveholding. Binding a baby to a cradleboard ensured it would be marked for life as coming from a “good family,” and would not be enslaved as an adult.

It was not just a status symbol, but a clear dividing line of caste. Orphans, children from “bad families,” and slaves were excluded from the practice, and were treated with contempt because of it. When the Europeans arrived and Chinook women had babies with white men, rates of infanticide spiked when fathers refused to submit their children to cranial deformation—mothers would rather kill their children than allow them to be seen as slaves.

The weather enjoys causing mischief on Halloween. Even though this day isn’t typically a traveling holiday in the United States, the weather can still determine whether it’s a fun night of costumes and sweets or a rainy mess that can ruin weeks of excitement and preparation. Thankfully, Halloween 2016 looks spectacular across most of the United States. As of Friday October 28, the forecast for October 31 anticipates a familiar scenario these days—a ridge of high pressure will blanket most of the country with calm and warmer-than-normal temperatures, with wet weather creeping through the Upper Midwest and northern Rocky Mountains. The Northeast will be chilly for trick-or-treaters, but it pales in comparison to the spooky weather that can plague people celebrating this fun day. Here’s a look at some not-too-thrilling storms that made for scary times in years past.

1. THE PERFECT STORM, 1991

 
Few storms have reached the legendary status of the Perfect Storm, a ghoulish nor’easter/hurricane hybrid that meandered off the East Coast of the United States for a few days around Halloween in 1991. The storm began as a nor’easter—a strong type of low-pressure system named for the powerful northeasterly winds they bring to the coast—off the Canadian Maritimes, collecting its strength both from strong upper-level winds and by absorbing the remnants of Hurricane Grace. The nor’easter briefly developed into an unnamed hurricane, adding to both its intensity and unusual nature.

Forecasters at the time said that the storm formed in “perfect” conditions (hence its nickname) to cause headaches up and down the coast. The storm’s strong winds generated enormous waves and caused destructive coastal flooding as far south as North Carolina. The storm produced a 5-foot storm surge in Boston, Massachusetts, and waves there reached the height of a three-story building. Thirteen people died during The Perfect Storm—six of them perished when a ship named the Andrea Gail encountered rough waves. This tragedy at sea would become the basis for the 1997 book The Perfect Storm and the popular 2000 film of the same name.

2. THE HALLOWEEN BLIZZARD OF 1991

The Perfect Storm wasn’t the only hazard on Halloween in 1991. While that torrent churned over the western Atlantic Ocean, another powerful storm was developing a few thousand miles to the west over the center of the United States. A strong low-pressure system quickly got its act together during the day on Halloween as it raced northeast toward the Great Lakes, dragging bitterly cold air south from Canada while pumping tropical moisture north from the Gulf of Mexico.

This combination of high moisture and freezing air led to copious amounts of snow in the Upper Midwest, falling so hard and so fast that many folks couldn’t go out trick-or-treating that night. By the time the skies cleared out a day or two later, residents found their towns buried under historic amounts of snow. The airport that serves Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, measured 28.4 inches of snow by the end of the storm, an all-time record for one snowstorm that still stands today. In the far northeastern corner of the state, Duluth, Minnesota, recorded just over three feet of snow—36.9 inches—making it the highest snowfall total ever recorded in one storm in the entire state of Minnesota.

3. THE HALLOWEEN NOR’EASTER, 2011

 
October is a rough time to live in the Northeast. Kids growing up on the East Coast are used to having a more volatile Halloween than their counterparts around the rest of the country, as they found out in 2011 when a nor’easter dropped 1 to 2 feet of snow on communities from Virginia to Maine.

It usually doesn’t get cold enough to see much more than flurries in the Mid-Atlantic or lower elevations in the Northeast until after Thanksgiving, but a strong nor’easter barreled its way up the coast just before Halloween and snowed its way into the history books. The cold air that spiraled around the back of the storm tapped into deep tropical moisture to produce a heavy, wet snow across areas that still hadn’t seen all of the leaves fall off the trees. The weight of the leaves and the wet snow easily brought down trees and power lines, knocking out power for several weeks in the hardest-hit areas. The storm reportedly caused more than $3 billion in damages. Many kids in the affected areas couldn’t go trick-or-treating after the storm, forcing many communities to cancel Halloween activities or put them off until crews could clear away the snow and debris.

4. HURRICANE SANDY, 2012

 
Things got even worse in the Northeast just one year later. One of the worst hurricanes to strike the United States in the past two decades was Hurricane Sandy, an unusual storm that also took advantage of “perfect” conditions in order to turn into a colossal disaster for tens of millions of people.

Hurricane Sandy approached a complicated environment over the Northeast during the last few days of October in 2012. As the category 1 hurricane drew closer to the New Jersey coast, it gradually lost its tropical characteristics as it started to feed its energy from the jet stream above rather than thunderstorms at the center of the storm. Once the hurricane reached shore, it had transitioned into what was essentially the most powerful nor’easter ever recorded. This transition from a large hurricane into an even larger nor’easter raked damaging winds over an area nearly 1000 miles wide at the storm’s largest extent, an immense wind field that pushed a historic and deadly storm surge into the coast.

The evacuations and damage from the storm forced Halloween to the backburner for many coastal communities, but the storm didn’t stop at the coast. During the day on Halloween, the remnants of Hurricane Sandy continued pushing inland, making the evening a cold, dreary, and sometimes snowy mess for the Appalachians and Great Lakes region.

If you’re not a fan of spiders, you’re far from alone. But before you swat away another spider web, remember this: Relative to weight, the strength of a spider web rivals steel and Kevlar, the material used to make bullet-proof vests. (That’s important when your dinner flies headlong into your trap and writhes violently as it tries desperately to escape.) This tensile strength has inspired humans to develop a surprising number of products—but it’s just one of the fascinating facts that may give even arachnophobes a new appreciation for these eight-legged architects.

1. SPIDER SILK TRANSFORMS FROM LIQUID PROTEIN TO SOLID THREAD WHEN IT LEAVES THE BODY.

Spiders are like tiny silk production factories. Inside their bodies, thread is stored as a highly concentrated liquid. A common garden spider can produce as many as seven types of silk, each made up of a different sequence of proteins. Each type of thread serves a distinct purpose: one, for example, makes the web stretchy to better absorb the impact of insects smacking into it; another makes the thread less brittle. Still other proteins protect the threads from bacteria and fungi, and keep it moist.

2. NOT ALL PARTS OF THE WEB ARE STICKY.

In fact, the silk itself isn’t sticky. Picture a classic web, like one made by an orb weaver spider: The basic structure includes radial threads that extend out like wheel spokes from the center. Another set of threads spiral out in concentric circles. The silk used to construct these two parts of the web is actually produced by different glands, which is why one is sticky and the other isn’t.

The silk’s gumminess comes from a super strong polymer adhesive produced by another gland in the spider’s abdomen. The spider secretes droplets of this adhesive along the spiral threads of the web to catch its prey. Most spiders leave the center of the web free of this “glue” so that they can move around with ease. But when the spider needs to travel along the sticky threads of its web, it has a special tool: tiny claws on its legs help it keep from getting stuck.

3. LIGHT, TEMPERATURE, AND HUMIDITY CAN AFFECT THE STRENGTH OF THE WEB.

The adhesive droplets that spiders apply to their silk become sticky only when the silk leaves the spider’s body. But its strength can be affected by environmental factors, including humidity and temperature. Recently, scientists discovered that ultraviolet radiation also affects the glue. In a series of experiments, researchers found that spiders inhabiting bright, sunny places, such as common garden spiders, produce webs better able to withstand UV radiation than those of nocturnal spiders and forest dwellers, where webs are generally less exposed to direct sunlight.

4. SPIDERS USE THEIR SILK FOR MUCH MORE THAN CATCHING DINNER.

Webs are used for trapping prey, but spiders produce silk for other reasons, too. Hunting spiders often make silk to use as drag lines to trail behind them as safety nets while they walk and stalk. Other spiders use a specialized silk to create egg sacs, or even to build a little protective shelter for themselves. Perhaps most remarkably, some spiders use their silk to pick up air currents and go sailing up into the sky, sometimes migrating hundreds of miles. When conducted en masse, these so-called mass ballooning events can involve millions of tiny spiders. When they land—or if they have an unsuccessful takeoff due to unfavorable winds—their silken strands can blanket the ground in thick white layers, as they did in Memphis near the end of 2015.

5. AT LEAST ONE KIND OF SPIDER USES ELECTRICITY TO SNARE ITS PREY.

 
Sometimes called the garden center spider for its love of humid greenhouse conditions, the feather-legged lace weaver has a truly far-out way of catching a meal. Researchers at Oxford University discovered that, rather than spinning sticky webs like orb weavers, this spider produces an incredible nano-thin silk inside a special organ called the cribellum. It uses special hairs on its hind legs to comb the silk as it emerges from the body, creating an electrostatic charge in the process. Together, the charged threads form “poofs,” similar to a ball of wool, that trap prey.

6. SOME SPIDERS’ WEBS ARE LARGE ENOUGH TO CROSS ENTIRE RIVERS.

 
The female Darwin’s bark spiders build enormous webs—some extending more than 80 feet—across rivers and lakes. By building their super-strong web across the water like a bridge, they can catch large insects like dragonflies that quickly swoop and rise along the water’s surface. The female will spend days building and reinforcing the so-called bridge lines that she casts across rivers to anchor the web on each bank, and repairing damage to the center caused by large insects. Meanwhile, the male of the species, which is considerably smaller than the female, hangs out in plants close to the webs to watch the show from the sidelines. Scientists are racing to learn more about this newly described species as deforestation in Madagascar diminishes their habitat.

7. ANOTHER AMAZING ARACHNID CAN SURVIVE COMPLETELY UNDERWATER.

In Europe and Asia, the diving bell spider has carved out an extraordinary niche. It spends its entire life underwater—the only spider known to do so. It can survive underwater because of its bell-shaped web, which it anchors to aquatic plants, with additional lines of silk extending up toward the surface. The spider climbs these lines of silk and lifts its rear out of the water to collect air bubbles around the tiny hairs that line its legs and abdomen. Carefully holding the air bubbles between its back legs, it descends back to its bell-shaped web and places the bubbles inside to form one large bubble. Scientists recently discovered that the bell can also take up dissolved oxygen from the water, behaving as a kind of gill. If the spider isn’t very active, this combined oxygen supply can last it an entire day.

8. WE LOOK TO SPIDER WEBS FOR ALL KINDS OF USEFUL PRODUCT IDEAS.

Because spider silk is so flexible, light, strong, and water resistant, it has a ton of potential applications. Researchers are busy developing bioinspired, synthetic versions of spider silk like this “liquid wire,” as well as adhesives based on their sticky glue-like protein droplets. Taking inspiration from spider silk, researchers have recently made big strides in designing medical devices, parts, and supplies that need to be strong and stretchy or sticky. These include artificial tendons, ligaments, and implants, as well as sutures, adhesives, and bandages. Spider silk protein is also aiding in the design of textiles and protective products that need to be strong and flexible but also light, like body armor, airbags and even athletic helmets.

But while scientists may draw ideas from spiders, actually using spider silk or protein has one major drawback: harvesting enough to facilitate commercial scale production of these items. So researchers have turned to transgenics—inserting the genes for spider silk inside other organisms. Like E. coli bacteria, which reproduce quickly. And goats. Yes, goats. By implanting spider DNA in goats, scientists can harvest components of spider silk from their milk. The hope is to eventually be able to extract those proteins on a scale large enough to support mass production.

So the next time you recoil in disgust at a spider, remember: You’re dissing a tiny master of engineering.

 
Last week, NASA’s Juno spacecraft reached perijove, the closest point of its 53.5-day orbit around Jupiter, when it passed less than 3000 miles from the gas giant’s clouds. But during its approach, the onboard computer suddenly detected an unexpected condition and turned off unnecessary subsystems, entering “safe mode.” The solar-powered spacecraft then went “power positive,” shutting down the cameras and reorienting itself toward the Sun, where it linked up with the Deep Space Network back on Earth. Then it waited for humans to evaluate the situation and provide guidance.

It was a disappointing outcome for the Southwest Research Institute scientists leading the mission, including principal investigator Scott Bolton. Because the science instruments were shut down during the flyby, no data were collected. But this outcome was also a necessary one. In space, power is king. Engineers can often fix—or find inventive workarounds to—problems of enormous complexity, even from hundreds of millions of miles away. The one thing that is non-negotiable, however, is power. The spacecraft must be alive to receive commands. So in this case, “safe mode” is a good thing—the robot did exactly what it was supposed to do in this situation.

According to the original plan, the October 19 maneuver was not meant to be a science orbit, but rather, a “period reduction maneuver.” The Juno team initially intended to fire the same rocket motor that performed the daring insertion maneuver on July 4, when it purposefully slowed its engines enough to be caught by Juno’s gravity and orbit the poles. If successful, last week’s rocket firing would have slowed the spacecraft and changed its orbit from 53.5 days to two weeks.

While preparing for the maneuver, however, the team noticed that the valves in the spacecraft’s propulsion system were behaving sluggishly, as though the valves were “sticky.” Rather than take any chances with the spacecraft’s delicate orbit, they decided to postpone the maneuver and switch on the science instruments instead, making this a science pass.

The scientific investigation of Jupiter is tied to a two-hour window every orbit when the spacecraft reaches perijove. During that time, the spacecraft travels from Jupiter’s north pole to its south. Whether it makes this traversal following a 14-day orbit or roughly 7.5-week orbit makes no difference at all; the current longer orbit simply means it will take longer to reach the completion of the mission.

Then the plan for a science pass fell through too when the spacecraft switched into safe mode.

Although these are two disappointing events in a row, everything will be okay, Bolton said at a press event during the 2016 meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. The team can still fire the rocket in the future. Until then, they will work to determine what caused the safe mode and why the valves were behaving oddly. Bolton explained that the team is in no rush. “Fortunately, the way we designed Juno, and the orbit we went into, is very flexible,” he said. “It allows very flexible science.”

Though this flyby was a wash, a previous, successful flyby on August 27 has yielded extraordinary science. Then, an instrument called a microwave radiometer peered into Jupiter’s atmosphere, giving scientists the first-ever look beneath the planet’s clouds. Peeling away layers of the atmosphere as though it were an onion and looking as deeply within as 250 miles, scientists discovered that the atmosphere retains the famous structure of the zones and belts of clouds visible from telescopes.

“Whatever is making those colors—whatever is making those stripes—is still existing pretty far down into Jupiter,” Bolton said. “That came as a surprise to many of the scientists. We didn’t know if [Jupiter’s appearance] was skin deep—just a very thin layer—or whether it goes down.” Another surprise was that the colorful zones and belts also appear to evolve and change at various depths. This hints at the deep dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter’s atmosphere, though the details still require much analysis.

 
During that same pass, Juno’s camera captured images as the spacecraft crossed the “terminator” of Jupiter—that is, the line between the sunlit side of the planet and the side in darkness. Think of a half-moon: The terminator is the line where the bright half meets the dark half.

The above image of the sunlit half was created by citizen scientist Alex Mai using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam instrument. (Raw images from the mission are available at JunoCam for both public and professional use.) Meanwhile, the shadows revealed the topology of Jupiter’s atmosphere—another first. A particularly pronounced feature was a cyclone raging even above Jupiter’s base atmosphere. It’s 53 miles tall and 4350 miles wide—half the size of the Earth.

“Imagine the kind of atmosphere you’re dealing with,” marveled Bolton.

For now, scientists will need to imagine a little longer. Juno’s next flyby of Jupiter will be on December 11.

Fall is the northeastern United States’ time to shine: Leaf peepers from around the world flock to New England to enjoy the changing colors of autumn. The tourism fall foliage brings is a major industry in the region, but its success depends on the weather. A few rainy or foggy days could obviously wash out visitors’ weekend plans, but more importantly, long-term weather—like months of below-normal rainfall—can have a big impact on how much color shows up in the trees.

The amount of rain that falls in the months leading up to autumn plays a major role in determining how vivid the yellows, oranges, and reds are come fall. Leaves appear green because of chlorophyll, a pigment involved in photosynthesis—the process that allows plants to turn sunlight into the energy they need to survive. As the nights grow longer and days grow cooler, chlorophyll production in tree leaves slows to a halt. Once dying leaves stop producing chlorophyll, they change back to their “true” colors, showing us the color we would see if they didn’t have chlorophyll.

 
Normally, this process occurs in late September and early October in the far northern reaches of the United States, and slowly creeps south through Thanksgiving. But drought disrupts the changing of the leaves.

Trees can withstand a short-term lack of water, but when a tree goes without water for too long, it will gear up to survive the drought. To do so, trees start shutting down chlorophyll production early and cutting off water to the leaves in order to conserve water for the tree itself. As the leaves start to dry out and die of thirst, the lack of chlorophyll mutes their colors before they fall off. In a normal situation, the leaf is still getting water as chlorophyll production slows, and so survives long enough to lose its green pigment and revert to its original color. This is why many drought-stricken areas don’t see their usual fall foliage.

Unfortunately, parts of the Northeast are in a serious drought this year. This past summer tied for the third-warmest summer on record in the Northeast states, with the region as a whole measuring an average daily temperature of 69.3°F—that’s 2.7°F above average. The weather patterns that caused the near-record warmth this summer also limited the amount of rain that fell over the region. For example, Boston, Massachusetts, typically sees a little more than 10 inches of rain during the summer months. This summer, the monitor at the city’s airport only recorded 3.92 inches of rain, the lowest summer rainfall on record since the weather station began operating in 1936. It’s a similar story across nearby parts of New England.

 
In the days leading up to the traditional peak in fall colors across the Northeast, the U.S. Drought Monitor—a weekly analysis of drought conditions across the United States—shows that as of October 18, nearly 53 percent of the Northeastern region is experiencing some level of drought. Almost 26 percent of the drought is bad enough to be considered “severe,” and 5 percent of the Northeast is in an “extreme” drought, the second-highest category on the dryness scale.

At least the good news for folks whose livelihoods rely on tourists gawking at trees is that the very worst of the drought is near the coast, while the best colors typically appear in the deciduous and densely forested areas farther inland. Daily satellite imagery provided by MODIS Today shows that fall colors are still in full bloom across interior parts of the region. While they’re not as vivid as they would be in a more normal year, the trees will still be a sight to see for the next couple of weeks.

 
Look up late tonight, October 20, and you will be treated to a veritable fusillade of meteors hurled by the phantom limbs of Halley’s comet. The Orionid meteor shower has been active in the night sky for the past couple of days, and it will continue blasting streaks of light for a few days yet. Tonight, however, is the big night, when the shower peaks and thus puts on the best show. If the sky is clear and the light pollution in your area low, you might catch up to 20 meteors per hour. These numbers might have been better if not for some particularly bright moonlight—the very same moonlight that made last weekend’s super hunter’s moon so spectacular.

If you don’t want to stay up all night, another way to see the best of the Orionid meteor shower is to wake before dawn tomorrow, October 21, when the Earth is still bundled in the blanket of night and the waking world has yet to stir. It’s just you, a dark sky, and the serene thrill of the shooting star.

MYSTERIOUS HALLEY

 
The Orionids are a parting gift from the comet Halley, which visits the Earth every 75 to 76 years. As the comet goes about its orbit, it leaves behind a trail of dust- and sand-sized particles. When the Earth passes through that debris field, those particles slam into our atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, generating terrific streaks of light as they burn away. So it is with every meteor shower, regardless of origin.

Halley’s Comet might be the most famous object of its kind, and remains one of the best studied. On its last visit, in 1986, nations of the world even sent spacecraft to observe it up close. Though NASA opted to sit that one out, Bob Farquhar, one of the agency’s mission designers, committed a kind of act of space piracy when he sent the ISEE-3 space weather satellite—which had been launched for an entirely different mission—on a wildly complicated trajectory that not only allowed the U.S. to encounter the comet, but to make first contact. When a comet inspires spacecraft theft, you know it’s important.

And yet for all the centuries that we’ve been studying it, the finer points of comet Halley’s orbit remain shrouded in mystery. The problem of calculating its precise orbit is that its internal processes, coupled with the influence of planets and smaller celestial bodies, throw the math off very quickly. The upshot is that the timescale over which the comet’s orbit can be predicted accurately is extremely short.

Earlier this year, however, astronomers from the Netherlands and Scotland conducted the most comprehensive set of calculations ever attempted of comet Halley, and managed to stretch things out a bit, bringing the predictability of the comet to about 300 years. They determined also that the comet’s orbit was most disturbed of late not by Jupiter (whose dominance in the solar system has long made it the most obvious candidate), but rather, by Venus. Don’t cry for Jupiter, however. The solar system’s largest planet will have its way in the 6th millennium CE, when comet Halley will pass extremely close by, and Jupiter’s influence will seize dominance.

WHAT IF IT’S RAINY?

If you want to see the Orionids but live in an area of extreme light pollution, or if the weather overhead is simply not cooperative, you have at least one option. Slooh will be broadcasting the event all through the night on October 20 through the early hours of October 21. If you are fortunate, however, and the sky is clear and the light on the ground dim to nonexistent, find a nice patch of ground before dawn on the 21st, lay out a blanket, let your eyes adjust to the darkness, and wait. No telescopes or binoculars are needed. You’ll have a front row view of the sky as it falls.

Tomorrow, October 19, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars lander will touch down, marking the first time the ESA has landed a spacecraft with—we hope—total success on the red planet, setting the stage for a new era of planetary exploration by the Europeans. You can follow the action live on ESA’s Facebook page beginning at 8 a.m. EDT. During the six-minute descent, which should begin at 9:42 a.m. EDT, the lander will return up to 15 images of the rapidly approaching surface, and once on the ground will activate a temporary weather system that will run for approximately two days. If all goes according to plan, the photos captured during the descent will be presented the following day, October 20, during a press briefing.

Named Schiaparelli after the 19th-century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who drew the first maps of Mars, the lander is a technology proof-of-concept. Launched on March 14, it was built by Thales Alenia Space, a French-Italian aerospace contractor, and is intended to demonstrate that ESA has Mars landing capability—no small achievement. Mars is notoriously inhospitable to landers, having eaten several spacecraft from Roscosmos, NASA, and most recently, ESA; its Beagle-2 lander apparently touched down in 2003 but failed to function thereafter. Data collected during the descent and landing of Schiaparelli will be applied to the next phase of the ExoMars mission, tentatively set for 2020, in which an actual, ESA-built rover will be placed on the Martian surface for an exploration mission.

ExoMars is a joint mission between ESA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. As originally conceived, the mission would have been a collaboration between ESA and NASA. But the U.S. agency withdrew from the project, leaving ESA in the lurch and intensifying already stormy relations between the two agencies following NASA’s withdrawal from the Europa Jupiter System Mission in 2011. (ESA’s part of the Jovian project has been redesigned as a standalone mission called JUICE, for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer.) When NASA walked away, Russia agreed to help ESA, providing a launch vehicle and scientific instruments for this phase of the mission, and agreeing to build the lander and instruments for the next.

On October 16, the lander separated from its mothership, a newly arrived Martian satellite called the Trace Gas Orbiter. While the lander performs its brief mission on the surface, the orbiter will circle Mars in preparation for its science mission, set to begin in 2018. (The delay is due to the aerobraking maneuvers necessary to take it to a tight, circular orbit about 250 miles above the Martian surface.) Once its mission is underway, the orbiter will search the Martian atmosphere for such gases as methane, an indicator of possible active and ongoing life. It will also image the planet’s surface in an attempt to find water ice. When the ExoMars rover arrives in the 2020s, the Trace Gas Orbiter will be its data relay; the rover will send data to the orbiter, and the orbiter will send the data back to Earth.

As for the lander: During its descent, it will measure changes in temperature, density, and pressure. Once on the ground, it will perform an analysis of the electrical properties of the Martian atmosphere and perform meteorological tests—humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure, and temperature, among other things.

In addition to the ExoMars Facebook Live and Livestream feeds, the agency is also running a liveblog of ongoing mission activities and updates. This can help provide context and granular-level information on what is happening and why.

Look up at the sky tonight, October 16, and you’ll be treated not only to a full moon, but a supermoon. And not just any supermoon, but a Super Hunter’s Moon!

WHY A FULL MOON IS FULL

Let’s go over the fundamentals first. If nothing else, take away from this article the knowledge that the Moon’s phases have nothing to do with the Earth’s shadow. Yes, it kind of makes sense: the dark crescents, the predictability, and the orbits: one around the Earth, and both around the Sun. Shadows crossing orbs. But when the Earth’s shadow crosses the Moon, you get a lunar eclipse.

The Moon’s phases are a lot simpler than that. First, the Moon orbits the Earth every 29.5 days. You might have noticed that “moon” and “month” are similar words. That’s not by accident. Moreover, the Moon is “tidally locked” with the Earth, which means from down here, we only see one side of the Moon, ever. Keep this in mind.

One half of the Moon is always fully illuminated by the Sun. As it creeps around the Earth over the course of a month, the illuminated area changes. When the Moon is generally opposite the Sun relative to the Earth (i.e. Sun-Earth-Moon), the side we can see is in full sunlight. It’s a full moon. When the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth (Sun-Moon-Earth), the far side of the Moon—the half of it we never see—is in full illumination. In other words, the half we do see is receiving no sunlight at all. This is a new moon. (N.b. that there is no “dark side of the Moon.” Every side of the Moon gets bathed in sunlight over the course of a revolution.)

The rest of the Moon’s phases proceed from these fully lit or totally darkened states of visibility. As the Moon’s orbit around the Earth takes it away from the Sun, it is said to be waxing, because from our point of view, the Moon is becoming increasingly full. After crossing the halfway point (the full moon), the visible Moon seems to darken. It is waning.

WHAT’S IN A NAME

Not all full moons are created equal. Sometimes the full moon seems really, really big. Sometimes it seems weirdly small. This is because the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle, but rather, is elliptical. Sometimes it is closer to the Earth than other times. When it is close, it is said to be at perigee. When it is farthest away, it is at apogee. When the Moon is both at perigee and full, you get what is colloquially called a supermoon.

So what about this Hunter’s Moon business? That is what some Native Americans called the full moon in October for reasons that must seem obvious. It provided extra light by which to hunt—a vital activity with winter’s fast approach. (You might recall last month’s harvest moon, whose name has the same rationale as this one: Gather your acorns before snow blankets the forest.)

HOW TO SEE IT

Look up. Other things you’ll see: tiny flickering dots that are stars, unless they’re moving quickly, because those are likely airplanes or the International Space Station. If they’re moving really, really fast, they’re meteors. If you see a tiny stationary dot that doesn’t flicker, it’s probably a planet (or the tip of a cell phone tower). The super hunter’s moon will make planet spotting more difficult. Uranus is at opposition this weekend and thus fully illuminated by the Sun from our point of view, but unless you’re a first-rate astronomer with heavy duty hardware at your disposal, you won’t be able to see it. The full moon above and light pollution below will join forces to wash it out. Even under the best conditions, it’s really difficult to find. If you just vaguely point in the direction of the Moon and say, “See that dot? That’s planet Uranus,” people will probably believe you, though.

One more thing: Because we get a full moon this weekend, Halloween night will have a new moon. In other words, the night sky is going to be really dark: perfect conditions to test out your new clown costume and the response time of the local police department.

Many regular travelers seek out their favorite series of landmarks to visit—every national park, every art museum, or every state. For the more macabre among you, here’s a guide to 15 most interesting mummies you can see around the world.

1. LADY DAI (XIN ZHUI)—HUNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, CHANGSHA, CHINA

 
Lady Dai was the wife of a marquis in the Han Dynasty. When she died in the middle of the 2nd century BCE, she was overweight, with a bad back and gallstones. Her tomb was airtight and sealed with clay and charcoal, which may be responsible for her remarkable preservation. She was also surrounded by a reddish liquid that may have played a role as well.

2. VLADIMIR LENIN—RED SQUARE, MOSCOW, RUSSIA

 
After the infamous communist leader died in 1924, his body was embalmed and put on display in a mausoleum in Red Square. He is re-embalmed every other year in a special solution, and care is taken to deal with mold, wrinkles, and even lost eyelashes. Annual cost of maintenance runs to about $200,000.

3. TOLLUND MAN—SILKEBORG MUSEUM, DENMARK

 
Tollund Man died in the 4th century BCE and was preserved naturally by peat, making him one of the most famous of all the bog bodies. While his face looks like that of a sleeping man, there was a noose around his neck, suggesting a far more sinister end by hanging. Bog bodies tend to be so well preserved that they are often mistaken for recent murder victims. Other bog bodies are on display throughout Europe.

4. GEBELEIN MAN—BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, ENGLAND

 
Six naturally mummified bodies from 4th millennium BCE Egypt are in the collection of the British Museum. All are from the same grave, and they are the earliest natural mummies known from Egypt, predating the Great Pyramid by about a thousand years. The most famous of these, nicknamed “Ginger” for his red hair, has been on display almost continuously since 1901. He was 18 to 20 years old when he died of a stab wound to his left shoulder, which pierced his lung.

5. ÖTZI—SOUTH TYROL MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY, BOLZANO, ITALY

 
The most well-researched mummy in the world, Ötzi died around 3300 BCE high in the Ötztal Alps. About 45 at his death, the Iceman was killed by sharp trauma to his shoulder (and possibly a blow to the head), and his body was naturally preserved by the cold and ice. He has some of the oldest preserved tattoos in the world, and he carried a variety of weapons and tools, including a proto first aid kit.

6. LA DONCELLA—MUSEUM OF HIGH ALTITUDE ARCHAEOLOGY, SALTA, ARGENTINA

 
“The Maiden” is one of the Children of Llullaillaco, three Inca kids who died on the volcano five centuries ago. La Doncella was around 15 when she died in her sleep after being drugged by coca leaves and chicha beer. She may have been an aclla or “sun virgin,” chosen as a child to eventually become a sacrifice to the gods. The cold, dry environment preserved La Doncella perfectly, making her look as if she just recently fell asleep.

7. ITIGILOV—IVOKGINSKY DATSAN, BURYATIA

 
Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was a Buddhist lama, or teacher, who died in 1927 while meditating in the lotus position. Itigilov had left instructions to be buried as he died, interred in a pine box, and exhumed several years later. Monks checked on his body over the years, but in 2002, he was officially exhumed and transferred to the Buddhist temple of Ivolginsky Datsan. It is unclear how the body was preserved for so long, but it is thought that monks applied salt to it over the years to dehydrate it.

8. EVEREST CLIMBERS—”RAINBOW VALLEY,” MT. EVEREST, NEPAL/CHINA

 
The first recorded deaths on the tallest mountain in the world date back nearly a century. An estimated 200 or more bodies dot Everest today, many in the area nicknamed “Rainbow Valley,” just before the summit on the northeast ridge. It’s the multicolored hiking gear of people who perished in their ascent that gives the valley its macabre name. Recovery of the bodies is difficult due to the terrain and can cost upwards of $30,000. Most bodies therefore stay and become landmarks on Everest, making it the highest “graveyard” in the world.

9. CAPUCHIN MUMMIES—PALERMO, SICILY, ITALY

 
The Catacombe dei Cappuccini are burial chambers that were in use from 1599 to the 1920s. Originally intended only for monks, the catacombs quickly filled with status-seeking locals. Bodies were dehydrated on ceramic pipes and then washed with vinegar. By the latest census, there are 1,252 mummies in these catacombs, and close to 7,000 additional skeletons. Some of the mummies are posed, some are wearing clothing, while others are partially covered with a simple sheet. The most famous resident is little Rosalia Lombardo, who died at age 2 in 1920 and whose body is remarkably well preserved, thanks to a special Sicilian embalming technique.

10. SALT MAN 1—NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRAN, TEHRAN, IRAN

 
Since 1993, remains of at least six men have been found in the Chehrabad salt mines in Zanjan, Iran. The corpses, likely people who were killed by mine collapses, are between 1,700 and 2,200 years old, dating to the Parthian and Sassanid Empires. The bodies were likely naturally desiccated by the salt. While Salt Man 1 is on display at the National Museum, four additional mummies can be seen at the Zanjan Archaeology Museum, and the sixth and most recently discovered mummy was left in place in the mine.

11. MUMMY OF SAN ANDRES—MUSEUM OF NATURE AND MAN, TENERIFE, SPAIN

 
Prior to Spanish settlement of the Canary Islands, the indigenous Guanche people intentionally eviscerated and desiccated the bodies of members of the social elite. Hundreds of mummies filled numerous caves on the islands, at least until the Spanish settled the area in the 15th century. Most of the mummies are assumed to have been sold, traded, and made into mummia, a powdered “medicine” that was used until the early 20th century. The mummy of San Andrés was a man in his late 20s and is exhibited in the Canary Islands, while some Guanche mummies can be found in Madrid at the National Archaeological Museum.

12. SIBERIAN ICE MAIDEN—REPUBLICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, GORNO-ALTAYSK, ALTAI, RUSSIA

 
Deep below the ground in the Russian steppes, a burial chamber was uncovered in 1993. Within a log cabin-style coffin, surrounded by grave goods and horses, was a woman in her 20s who died in the 5th century BCE. The Ice Maiden’s impressive clothing—including a tall, gilded headdress—and intricate tattoos mark her as someone of high status, perhaps a priestess, in the ancient culture. A recent MRI revealed that she probably died of breast cancer.

13. MUMMIES OF GUANAJUATO—EL MUSEO DE LAS MOMIAS, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO

 
For about a hundred years starting in the 19th century, a local tax in Guanajuato was levied on burials. If the family couldn’t pay the tax three years in a row, the corpse would be dug up. The climate of the area naturally mummified many of the bodies, and the unclaimed ones were stored in a nearby building. Pretty quickly, graveyard caretakers started charging for admission to see the mummies, which range in age from infants to the elderly. Today, the collection holds 111 mummies.

14. HATSHEPSHUT AND RAMESS II—MUSEUM OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES, CAIRO, EGYPT

 
Some of the most famous mummies in the world reside in Egypt, having been excavated from the Valley of the Kings. Hatshepsut was the second incontrovertibly female pharaoh, dying in 1458 BCE in her 50s from bone cancer, possibly as a result of carcinogenic skin lotion, according to recent forensic analysis. She also suffered from diabetes, arthritis, and bad teeth. A later pharaoh, Ramesses II, died around age 90 in 1213 BCE. Because of his campaigns and numerous monuments, he is one of the most well-known Egyptian pharaohs. Thanks to numerous battles, Ramesses’ body showed evidence of healed injuries and arthritis; his arteries were hardened; and he had a massive dental infection that might very well have killed him. These and many other ancient Egyptian ruler mummies are on display at the Cairo Museum, along with their gold grave masks and sarcophagi.

15. DAIJUKU BOSATSU SHINNYOKAI-SHONIN—RYUSUI-JI DAINICHIBO TEMPLE, TSURUOKA CITY, JAPAN

 
Sokushinbutsu is self-mummification that was practiced by Buddhist monks in the Yamagata prefecture in the 11th–19th centuries. This involved eating primarily pine needles, seeds, and resins to lose fat stores, and over the course of several years reducing intake of liquids to dehydrate the body. Monks would die while meditating, having naturally mummified themselves. Although hundreds of monks reportedly tried this over the centuries, only about two dozen are known to have succeeded. Perhaps the most famous monk who achieved sokushinbutsu is Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai-Shonin, who died in 1783 and whose body is on display in a Buddhist temple.