Author: Kate Horowitz

If wisdom comes with age, then this bird is going to be one smart mama. The 66-year-old Laysan albatross has returned to her ancestral nesting grounds in the North Pacific and is once again sitting on a new egg.

Biologist Chandler Robbins first slipped a band onto Wisdom’s leg in 1956, when the bird would have been around 5 or 6 years old. Six decades later, both Robbins (now 98) and Wisdom (no spring chicken herself) are going strong. Wisdom has logged more than three million miles in her annual trips across the ocean and back again, first for food, and then to add to her family.

Wisdom and her mate Akeakamai (Hawaiian for “scholar” or “lover of wisdom,” and if that’s not adorable then we don’t know what is) last visited the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial earlier in 2016, when they welcomed their newest chick Kūkini (“messenger”).

Albatross moms often take a year off between babies, so refuge staff had not expected to see Wisdom again this year.

But on December 3, there she was. Volunteer Kristina McOmber spotted Wisdom’s bright red leg band and discovered the old bird patiently sitting on a freshly laid egg.

Wisdom and Akeakamai will babysit in shifts, allowing one partner to go off and feed while the other sits and keeps their egg warm. While they may be the refuge’s most famous residents, the two birds are hardly alone; each year, hundreds of thousands of albatross [PDF] descend on the atoll and settle in new nests.

Charlie Pelizza of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is acting project leader for the refuge and memorial. When he arrived at lunch that day, he said in a statement, he could tell something exciting had happened. “The staff was abuzz with the news that Wisdom was back and incubating. It’s amazing what a bit of good news can do to brighten the day.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council have just announced the creation of a new marine protected area for some of the ocean’s humblest heroes: deep-sea corals. The Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area will be off-limits for commercial fishing practices that affect the sea floor.

Sessile and stoic though they may be, corals are both crucially important and in need of our help. These fascinating animals—yes, corals are animals—provide beautiful living habitats for all kinds of organisms and serve as the foundation for marine ecosystems.

 
Corals are fragile and slow-growing, which makes them simultaneously more prone to injury and slower to recover; a dangerous combination in areas regularly visited by clumsy, bulky commercial fishing equipment.

Corals aren’t flashy, but they do still have their defenders. Among them was the late New Jersey senator Frank R. Lautenberg, who pushed the coral agenda hard during his five terms in office. It’s thanks to him that the Magnus-Stevenson Act includes provisions allowing regional fishery management councils to protect deep-sea corals through commercial fishing bans.

The new marine protected area stretches through more than 38,000 square miles of federal waters off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia—all regions where scientists have spotted or anticipate the presence of vulnerable deep-sea corals. The new protected area is the result of recommendations informed by enormous scientific efforts, including repeated deep-sea surveys by NOAA and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“Today’s action is historic not only because it creates the largest protected area in the U.S. Atlantic,” Joseph Gordon, manager, Mid-Atlantic ocean conservation for The Pew Charitable Trusts, said in a statement to mental_floss, “but because so many different groups and interests worked together to protect these fragile deep-sea corals. Healthy habitat supports ocean ecosystems and thriving fisheries, and this success stands as a challenge and inspiration for other fishery managers around the country.”

Scientists have recently uncovered some staggering news: Many people have never smelled asparagus pee—and never will. The experts, writing in the British Medical Journal, say more than half of participants in a large survey reported an inability to pick up the scent.

People have been remarking on the odor of asparagus pee for just about as long as we’ve been eating asparagus. A bemused Benjamin Franklin noted the “disagreeable odour” the vegetable produced in his urine. Marcel Proust waxed lyrical on the subject, writing that asparagus spears “…played…at transforming my humble chamber into a bower of aromatic perfume.”

The precise cause of that perfume remains to be seen. Scientists’ current best guess is a natural compound called asparagusic acid, which is found only in—you guessed it—asparagus. On its own the acid smells fine; it’s after being processed through your body and coming out the other side that it acquires its signature scent.

Or at least it does for some people. Previous studies have suggested that the ability to smell asparagus pee is not as universal as we once thought. To find out, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health pulled data from two long-term projects on American health: the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Both studies had, remarkably, asked respondents about their ability to smell their own asparagus pee. All 6909 of the respondents had also submitted samples of genetic material.

The results were kind of astonishing. A full 58 percent of men and 61.5 percent of women said they’d noticed no unusual aroma in their pee after eating asparagus. That’s well over half of everyone in the study. All of the survey respondents, including the ones who could detect the scent, were of European descent, which means these results can’t be considered representative of everyone everywhere.

The researchers then looked at the DNA of smellers and non-smellers to see if they could find any differences. They could. The 4161 people with this asparagus anosmia collectively had hundreds of genetic variants, all located in the region of the chromosome associated with our sense of smell.

“Outstanding questions on this topic remain,” senior author and epidemiologist Lorelei Mucci said in a statement. “First and foremost perhaps is: Why such a delicious delicacy as asparagus results in such a pernicious odor, and what are the selective pressures driving genetic variations that lead to asparagus anosmia?”

Pernicious or no, the aroma is one that Mucci and her co-authors imply is an olifactory experience millions are missing out on. They note that “future replication studies are necessary” but suggest a future of “targeted therapies to help anosmic people discover what they are missing.”

Santa Claus. A big ol’ red-and-white stocking hung by the fire. Nativity scenes. Most classic Christmas imagery is pretty self-explanatory. Then there’s the holly, genus Ilex, which found its way onto holiday cards through a more circuitous route. 

Christmas is kind of the new kid on the block as far as holly symbolism is concerned. The hardy plant’s ability to stay vibrant through the winter made it a natural choice for pre-Christian winter festivals. The Roman feast of Saturnalia, celebrated at the darkest time of the year, celebrated the god of agriculture, creation, and time, and the transition into sunshine and spring. Roman citizens festooned their houses with garlands of evergreens and tied cheery holly clippings to the gifts they exchanged.

The Celtic peoples of ancient Gaul saw great magic in the holly’s bright “berries” (technically drupes) and shiny leaves. They wore holly wreaths and sprigs to many sacred rites and festivals and viewed it as a form of protection from evil spirits. 

Christianity’s spread through what is now Europe was slow and complicated. It was hardly a one-shot, all-or-nothing takeover; few people are eager to give up their way of life. Instead, missionaries in many areas had more luck blending their messages with existing local traditions and beliefs. Holly and decorated trees were as good of symbols for new Christians as they’d been in their pagan days. 

Today, some people associate the holly bush not with the story of Jesus’s birth but with his death, comparing the plant’s prickly leaves to a crown of thorns and the berries to drops of blood. 

But most people just enjoy it because it’s cheerful, picturesque, and riotously alive at a time when the rest of the world seems to be still and asleep.

NOTE: Holly is as poisonous as it is pretty. Please keep it away from your kids and pets.

Three wizard-loving scientists have named a small, conical spider species after the legendary owner of Hogwarts’ Sorting Hat. They described the fantastic new beast in the Indian Journal of Arachnology [PDF].

The team discovered the orb-weaving spider in the forests of India’s Western Ghats. Like other members of the genus Eriovixia, the new species is petite (this one maxes out at about 0.3 inches) and covered with tiny hairs. Its unusual body is patterned and shaped to resemble a curled leaf—or a ragged, but very important, hat.

Inspired by the resemblance, the researchers named their discovery Eriovixia gryffindori for Godric Gryffindor, who donated the Sorting Hat to Hogwarts at its founding in the year 990. The species name is “an ode,” the authors write, “for magic lost, and found, in an effort to draw attention to the fascinating, but oft overlooked world of invertebrates, and their secret lives.”

The team confirmed E. gryffindori’s status as a new species by comparing a female specimen’s genitals with those of existing orb-weaver species. Sure enough, the Sorting Hat’s gonads were unlike any they’d seen before.

The gleeful researchers shared their find on Twitter with Potter creator J.K. Rowling, who said she was “truly honored” by the new “fantastic beast.”

.@curiocritters I’m truly honoured! Congratulations on discovering another #FantasticBeast! ??✨ pic.twitter.com/NJ4Fe27F1r

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 11, 2016

[h/t Live Science]

Shattered pots and other artifacts have much to teach us about vanished civilizations, but, sometimes, it’s what’s inside that counts. Researchers have identified molecular traces of diseased human organs inside clay pots from the Iron Age. They describe their discovery in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Archaeological Science.

The settlement at Heuneburg in modern-day Germany was part of one of the earliest cities ever built among the Alps. At the height of its success during the 6th century BCE, Heuneburg was home to more than 5000 people. Those people left behind stone walls and mud-brick buildings, fields and burial mounds.

Nestled within one of those burial mounds were six ceramic jars. By the time archaeologists reached them, the jars were smashed, and their contents had decomposed beyond recognition—at least to the naked eye.

A team of three archaeologists and one biochemist found a way to reconstruct what was once there. They took teeny samples from each pot, ground them up, and washed them in a chemical solution to collect any proteins that might remain. They then compared the 166 different compounds they’d found with a large protein database, looking for matches.

What they found was surprising, to say the least. Some of the proteins came from human blood. Others were from human organ tissue. Still others belonged to a virus called Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). This tick-borne disease starts with a sudden fever and headache, progresses to vomiting and nosebleeds, and can end in uncontrolled bleeding and death. It still kills people today across a wide region stretching from western Asia through southern Africa.

The presence of organ and blood proteins inside the jars suggests that the people of Heuneburg cared lovingly for their dead, interring each organ in its own fine receptacle.

The researchers aren’t sure what the virus’s appearance in Heuneburg might mean; we’ve never found hemorrhagic fever on ancient artifacts before.

Lead author Conner Wiktorowicz, of Purdue University, says his team’s methods and findings open new portals into the world of the dead.

“What have archaeologists been missing regarding social practices and the use of pottery vessels in the past?” he said in Science magazine. “I can’t imagine all of the exciting new findings other researchers will make.”

However you pronounce GIFs, the little moving images have become an integral part of our modern vocabulary. And the futuristic minds at NASA are not about to be left in the past. The space agency has launched its own image collections on Giphy and Pinterest.

via GIPHY

Anticipating some confusion on the part of NASA diehards, the agency issued a press statement explaining what Pinterest is.

“Pinboards are often used for creative ideas for home decor and theme-party planning, inspiration for artwork and other far-out endeavors,” they wrote.

Over at Giphy, they continue, “Users can download and share the agency’s creations on their own social media accounts, and can be used to create or share animated GIFs to communicate a reaction, offer a visual explanation, or even create digital works of art.”

via GIPHY

The images are NASA at its best: sweeping shots of the cosmos, space walks, exuberance at Mission Control, and the wacky antics of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. So go forth, good nerds, and get your GIFs on.

Paleontologists have discovered a tiny dinosaur’s fluffy tail preserved inside a drop of amber. They described their findings in the journal Current Biology.

The amber market in northern Myanmar where the specimen was found has already proven itself a rich scientific resource. Earlier this year, a team of researchers reported finding a pair of well-preserved bird wings dating back at least 100 million years. The team had bought more than a dozen pieces of amber, including those two. As they turned their attention to the rest of their purchase, one silver dollar–sized chunk stood out.

Within this drop lay what looked like a tiny, feathery switch not even an inch and a half long. Computed tomography (CT) scans, high-powered microscopy, and chemical analysis confirmed the team’s suspicions: They’d found a dinosaur tail.

More specifically, they’d found part of the tail of a fluffy young theropod, most likely a coelurosaur.

The articulated tail contained eight vertebrae and delicate, barbed feathers that would have been white or chestnut brown while the little dinosaur was still alive. Unlike the bird wing feathers, these appear to be more ornamental than anything else. The researchers say that if the rest of the coelurosaur’s tail looked like this segment, it was unlikely it would have been flight-worthy at all. Its handsome fluffy feathers would have kept it on the ground.

Co-author Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan museum says these findings reaffirm the importance of amber to the scientific record. “Amber pieces preserve tiny snapshots of ancient ecosystems,” he said in a statement, “but they record microscopic details, three-dimensional arrangements, and labile tissues that are difficult to study in other settings. This is a new source of information that is worth researching with intensity and protecting as a fossil resource.”

Q. What do vegan zombies eat?
A. Graaaaaaaaaaaaains. 

If that joke made you groan like the undead, thank your bilateral processing abilities. Researchers studying the neuroscience of puns say that understanding them, even the bad ones, requires cooperation between both sides of the brain. They published their research in the journal Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition. 

Humor has a reputation for being transgressive, but all that boundary-pushing is only possible thanks to a system of internal rules. From knock-knock jokes to digs on someone’s mama, each class has its own standardized scaffolding. Some philosophers argue that humor itself depends on a formula: taking something familiar and giving it an unexpected—but not upsetting—twist. 

This “benign violation” setup is also at the heart of the pun. The joke up top takes a reader’s familiarity with the cliché of the lurching, brain-craving zombie, then uses a rhyme to add a surprising shade of meaning. Yes, we know that dissecting jokes isn’t funny. We’re done now.

Neuroscientists at the University of Windsor wondered how our brains would parse the two-step process of understanding puns. They were specifically curious to find out how the work was divvied up between the brain’s left and right hemispheres. 

To find out, they brought volunteers into the lab and sat them down in front of computers, which proceeded to display a series of easy, cheesy puns. (Ex.: “They replaced the baseball with an orange to add some zest to the game.”) Some of the puns showed up on the left side of the screen, where they would be processed first by the right side of the brain. The rest showed up on the right. The participants were timed to see how long it took them to get each joke, such as it was. 

The results showed that participants were quicker on the uptake when their puns appeared on the right side of the screen—that is, starting with the left side of their brains. This makes sense, co-author Lori Buchanan told Scientific American: “The left hemisphere is the linguistic hemisphere, so it’s the one that processes most of the language aspects of the pun, with the right hemisphere kicking in a bit later.” 

Understanding a pun, they found, requires input from both hemispheres. The left side introduces the standard, linguistic part of the sentence or joke—essentially setting up the setup—while the right side analyzes the punchline’s double meaning. 

That’s probably more thought than most puns deserve. 

Just when you thought nature couldn’t get any more adorable, there’s this. Scientists have discovered that teensy shrimp, jellies, and other sea creatures act as pollinators for underwater plants. They described the sea bees’ activity in the journal Nature Communications.

The sea grass Thalassia testudinum, also known as turtle grass, grows in dense meadows in the shallows of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. The grass puts out little white and pale pink flowers, some (male flowers) giving off pollen and others (female flowers) accepting it. Scientists have long believed that turtle grass pollinates itself by simply releasing its pollen into the water, which washes it into receptive female flowers.

Those scientists were correct. But the grass also seems to make use of its little visitors, as researchers learned when they trained video cameras on a flowering meadow. They discovered that the meadow was a bustling place frequented by dozens of different species [PDF], from shrimp and crabs to jellies, isopods, and worms.

Analysis of the recordings also revealed an interesting trend: male flowers full of pollen were far more popular with crustacean visitors than those without. The researchers watched as the tiny animals fed from the male flowers and swam away, grains of pollen still stuck to their bodies. The situation looked awfully familiar. Was it possible that the animals serve the same role underwater as bees do on land?

To find out, the researchers carefully collected flowering turtle grass and a sampling of its animal visitors, then brought them all into the lab. They set up a series of trays, each containing a single pollen-rich male and a single female flower, then added the trays to small aquaria teeming with their regular customers. They also ran a second experiment, in which the two flowers were buffeted by different types and strengths of current.

The researchers’ hypothesis was spot-on: The little animals were indeed ferrying grains of pollen from male to female flowers, allowing the flowers to get it on even in the absence of strong currents.

Kelly Darnell of The Water Institute of the Gulf was unaffiliated with the study, but told New Scientist she was excited with its findings.

“That pollination by animals can occur adds an entirely new level of complexity to the system,” she said, “and describes a very interesting plant-animal interaction that hasn’t really fully been described before.”

Turtle grass can also reproduce asexually, so pollination via shrimp likely represents a pretty small portion of its sex (or sexless) life. But the fact that it happens at all is delightful enough for us.