Popular Mechanics

THE WARTY COMB JELLY, MNEMIOPSIS leidyi, is a fascinatingly weird creature that can regenerate parts of its body, reproduce from a larval stage, and even fuse its body with other comb jellies in order to survive when injured. It also, according to a recent study, can revert from an adult back to its biologically juvenile state after it heals from a traumatic injury or bout of starvation. It’s not the only weird sea dweller that can manipulate its age—the similarly goopy ocean blob Turritopsis dohrnii (or “immortal jellyfish”) can restart its life from the beginning when it reaches maturity. But instead of the oddity being a sort of default life cycle quirk, M. leidyi’s de-aging process is actively used for survival. Joan J. Soto-Angel, a marine biologist from Norway’s University of Bergen,…

Scientists recently analyzed Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night to see how well its famous swirls matched up with known atmospheric physics. After analysis, they found that not only did the shapes match up with our current ideas of atmospheric turbulence, but the colors used throughout the piece communicated fairly accurate physics at a remarkably small scale. The team released their findings in a study published in the journal Physics of Fluids. Yongxiang Huang, PhD, one of the authors of the paper, thinks that van Gogh could have come to understand these movements by “studying the movement of clouds and the atmosphere," or that he could have just had “an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky.” LANE OF POPLARS AT SUN-SET → Starry Night is not the only place…

THE WARTY COMB JELLY, MNEMIOPSIS leidyi, is a fascinatingly weird creature that can regenerate parts of its body, reproduce from a larval stage, and even fuse its body with other comb jellies in order to survive when injured. It also, according to a recent study, can revert from an adult back to its biologically juvenile state after it heals from a traumatic injury or bout of starvation. It’s not the only weird sea dweller that can manipulate its age—the similarly goopy ocean blob Turritopsis dohrnii (or “immortal jellyfish”) can restart its life from the beginning when it reaches maturity. But instead of the oddity being a sort of default life cycle quirk, M. leidyi’s de-aging process is actively used for survival. Joan J. Soto-Angel, a marine biologist from Norway’s University of…

THE SANDSTONE CLIFF FACES OF THE ancient city of Petra (one of the New Seven Wonders of the World) have long been in the archaeological limelight. They’ve even spent time in the Hollywood spotlight as the location for several scenes in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But in their most recent on-screen appearance—and no offense to Harrison Ford’s iconic professor—they were the site of a very real discovery. Discovery Channel’s popular show Expedition Unknown was recently on-site to document the discovery of 12 human skeletons and artifacts dating back at least 2,000 years, which had all been long hidden beneath the famed Khazneh (or “Treasury”) in Petra. The colossal find was accomplished by a team led by archaeologist Pearce Paul Creasman. “This is a hugely rare discovery,” said Josh…

Scientists recently analyzed Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night to see how well its famous swirls matched up with known atmospheric physics. After analysis, they found that not only did the shapes match up with our current ideas of atmospheric turbulence, but the colors used throughout the piece communicated fairly accurate physics at a remarkably small scale. The team released their findings in a study published in the journal Physics of Fluids. Yongxiang Huang, PhD, one of the authors of the paper, thinks that van Gogh could have come to understand these movements by “studying the movement of clouds and the atmosphere," or that he could have just had “an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky.” LANE OF POPLARS AT SUN-SET → Starry Night is not the…

THE SANDSTONE CLIFF FACES OF THE ancient city of Petra (one of the New Seven Wonders of the World) have long been in the archaeological limelight. They’ve even spent time in the Hollywood spotlight as the location for several scenes in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But in their most recent on-screen appearance—and no offense to Harrison Ford’s iconic professor—they were the site of a very real discovery. Discovery Channel’s popular show Expedition Unknown was recently on-site to document the discovery of 12 human skeletons and artifacts dating back at least 2,000 years, which had all been long hidden beneath the famed Khazneh (or “Treasury”) in Petra. The colossal find was accomplished by a team led by archaeologist Pearce Paul Creasman. “This is a hugely rare discovery,” said…