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Earth’s icy extremes have long lured explorers with the promise of uncharted territory.
The challenges of reaching such unforgiving destinations created excitement in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic. Some achieved groundbreaking success, while others ended in tragic failure.
Crews encountered obstacles that caused ships to become stuck or submerged under ice-covered water, creating an enduring mystique about what went wrong.
Now new research reveals stunning insights into polar expeditions that have intrigued the public for decades.
Ocean secrets
An awe-inspiring 3D scan has brought Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s HMS Endurance shipwreck, found in 2022, back to life.
Previously invisible details, such as a boot possibly worn by Shackleton’s deputy, are now visible on the deck of the ship, which lies nearly 10,000 feet (3,008 meters) below the Weddell Sea. Even though sea ice crushed the ship in 1915, Shackleton and his men lived to tell the tale.
Meanwhile, a more somber DNA discovery identified the cannibalized remains of James Fitzjames, captain of HMS Erebus. The ship was part of a 19th-century Arctic expedition through treacherous parts of the Northwest Passage that resulted in the deaths of expedition leader Sir John Franklin and 23 other men.
Fitzjames led 105 survivors on a retreat from the ice-trapped ships in Canada’s Nunavut territory, but all the men ultimately died under mysterious circumstances.
Pioneers
The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine were awarded this week to bright minds who have made groundbreaking discoveries and advances.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry went to a trio of scientists – biochemist David Baker of the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind in London – who used artificial intelligence to ‘crack the code’ of almost all known proteins, which are the building blocks of life.
The Nobel Prize in Physics also recognized advances in AI, honoring polymath John Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist from the University of Toronto, for their fundamental work in machine learning, which uses AI-based products and applications.
And the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to American scientists Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Gary Ruvkun of Harvard Medical School for their work on microRNA, a molecule that determines how cells in the body function. Their research revealed how genes create different types of cells.
The night sky
Grab your binoculars on Saturday and keep an eye on the western sky shortly after sunset for a chance to catch a glimpse of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan – ATLAS.
The newly discovered celestial body was likely last seen when Neanderthals walked the Earth, and won’t appear again for another 80,000 years.
The unique comet will come within about 44 million miles (almost 71 million kilometers) of our planet on Saturday, appearing as a bright fireball with a long, elongated tail.
Meanwhile, a massive solar storm hit Earth on Thursday, unleashing blinding auroras across North America, Britain and Europe, which were even visible aboard the International Space Station.
Wild kingdom
In 1898, two enormous male lions hunted and killed at least 28 people while building a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya.
Civil engineer Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson eventually shot the lions, dubbed the Tsavo “man-eaters,” and sold the remains in 1925 to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.
Thomas Gnoske, collection manager at the museum, saw thousands of hairs stuck in the sockets of the lions’ broken teeth. Using an innovative technique, Gnoske and his colleagues removed some hairs and determined the DNA.
The genetic analysis showed that the lions hunted not only humans, but also a variety of large animals, including some that kept the lion duo far from home.
Other worlds
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is the largest storm ever found on a planet in our solar system, and has persisted for nearly two centuries.
Now, new images from the Hubble Space Telescope show the storm wobbling like gelatin and contracting in a manner similar to a stress ball as it oscillates. The observations over a 90-day period suggest that the vortex is less stable than previously thought.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency launched the Hera spacecraft and two shoebox-sized satellites to conduct a “crash scene investigation” of a twin asteroid system after NASA’s 2022 DART mission deliberately crashed into the space rock Dimorphos and disrupted its orbit changed.
NB
These intriguing stories may blow your mind:
Researchers have captured videos of bottlenose dolphins using human-like tactics as they played to ensure their games weren’t misinterpreted as fighting.
– A 2,000-year-old skeleton holding a remarkably preserved grave good was uncovered in a tomb beneath the Treasury Monument in the city of Petra, Jordan, which served as the location of the Holy Grail in the film ‘Indiana Jones and the Last’ 1989. Crusade.”
– A human foot in a boot found on Mount Everest could hold the key to one of mountaineering’s greatest mysteries that has persisted for a century.
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