Science

A squid pulled from a sperm whale’s stomach during an Antarctic whaling expedition in 1955–56 sat overlooked in scientific collections for nearly 70 years — until researchers realised it wasn’t just a new species, but an entirely new family of oceanic squid no one knew existed.

A squid pulled from a sperm whale's stomach during an Antarctic whaling expedition in 1955–56 sat overlooked in scientific collections for nearly 70 years — until researchers realised it wasn't just a new species, but an entirely new family of oceanic squid no one knew existed.

A preserved squid removed from the stomach of a sperm whale in 1955 or 1956 turned out to be much more unusual than its label suggested. The animal, considered for decades an example of the sharp-eared oenope squid Ancistrocheirus lesueurii, is now the only known representative of Mobydickia poseidonii and a newly created family, Mobydickidae. … Read more

Dolphins filmed using shells to hunt for first time

Dolphins filmed using shells to hunt for first time

Researchers are shocked by the latest marine discovery. Dolphins have been filmed using shells to catch prey off the coast of Australia, marking the first time this clever tactic has been caught on camera, according to an explosive article in Marine Mammal Science. “The moment I saw that shell in the air, I immediately knew … Read more

They’re a whopping 150 million years older than dinosaurs, look like a shark, have a tail like a rat, teeth like a rabbit and sharp, venomous spines 

They’re a whopping 150 million years older than dinosaurs, look like a shark, have a tail like a rat, teeth like a rabbit and sharp, venomous spines 

Deep in the ocean there is an ancient fish that glides by flapping its pectoral fins instead of waving its rat tail. They resemble a shark but with larger eyes, a more prominent snout, and only one visible gill opening. These are chimeras, also known as ghost sharks, rat fish and rabbit fish. They diverged … Read more

Lego’s supersized Hubble deserves a little more shine

Lego's supersized Hubble deserves a little more shine

EXTRAORDINARY Excellent internal details cannot completely disguise some costly decisions. Lego has released its largest Hubble Space Telescope yet: a model built to roughly minifigure scale that dwarfs the observatory included with its space shuttle Discovery set. The first thing to say about this set is that there is a lot of gray. This is … Read more

Crocodiles Evolved Backwards From Warm-Blooded Species to Cold-Blooded Killers

Crocodiles Evolved Backwards From Warm-Blooded Species to Cold-Blooded Killers

Despite an incredible number of visible differences, modern-day crocodiles and birds share a common ancestor dating back to the Early Triassic. Paleontologists call them archosaurs: a hardy clade of reptiles that endured through the sulfurous, inhospitable years of the Great Dying that followed the Permian-Triassic extinction about 250 million years ago. Scientists had long assumed … Read more

A planet called WASP-127b, roughly 520 light-years from Earth, has a jet stream ripping around its equator at up to 33,000 km/h — more than 18 times faster than Neptune’s winds, the fastest found anywhere in our own Solar System.

A planet called WASP-127b, roughly 520 light-years from Earth, has a jet stream ripping around its equator at up to 33,000 km/h — more than 18 times faster than Neptune's winds, the fastest found anywhere in our own Solar System.

Astronomers have measured atmospheric motion around WASP-127b’s equator at about 9 kilometers per second, about 33,000 kilometers per hour. The giant exoplanet is approximately 520 light-years away, but its climate left a velocity signature precise enough to separate gas moving toward Earth from gas moving away. The result, obtained with the Very Large Telescope of … Read more