Figured

How will our Sun look after it dies? Scientists have made predictions about what the final days of our Solar System will look like, and when it will happen. And we humans won't be around to see the Sun's curtain call.Previously, astronomers thought the Sun would turn into a planetary nebula – a luminous bubble of gas and cosmic dust – until evidence suggested it would have to be a smidge more massive.An international team of astronomers flipped it again in 2018 and found that a planetary nebula is indeed the most likely…

How many brain cells does it take to play a video game?No, really. That's not a joke, and there isn't a punchline. Instead, there's a real actual answer, thanks to a neural network system called DishBrain.If that game is Pong, the number of brain cells is around 800,000.While their slow-moving, one-sided strategy for digital table tennis won't see them win any e-sports championships in the near future, it does reflect the potential in fusing living tissues with silicon…

Birds of a feather flock together. And so do bats and fishes and any little critter hoping that getting lost in the crowd will keep them off the evening menu. But predators gotta eat. So they, in turn, have come up with clever ways to cut through the visual clutter of a churning mass of panicked prey to hone in on their target.  For hawks who forage in massive swarms of bats, the trick, it seems, is to just dive in and grab whatever hapless flier happens to share your trajectory. That’s according to a study in the…

Just in time for Halloween, scientists in Korea say they’ve found a better way to grow an insect-destroying mushroom in the lab. Their work could make studying these fungi easier, which is important, since they and the chemicals they produce may actually have medicinal uses for humans, creepy as they are.The fungi is known as Cordyceps. Members of this genus, along with a related but distinct genus called Ophiocordyceps, are parasitic, usually feeding on insects and other arthropods. These fungi will invade and often…

Scientists have finally unraveled the structure of a mysterious protein complex inside the inner ear that enables hearing in humans.To solve this decades-old puzzle, researchers needed to grow 60 million roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans), which use a very similar protein complex as humans do to sense touch.As humans only have a tiny amount of this protein inside their inner ears, turning to another source was the only way the team could accumulate enough of the protein to study."We spent several years optimizing…

Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs. So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground, but sometime later next year, Meta will let you add legs to your avatars on VR, mobile, and more as part of the company’s next generation of avatars.Legs are “probably the most requested feature on our roadmap,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the company’s Connect event while showing off the new avatars, which look significantly better than the avatars available now. (Imagine the improved avatar…

Today's tall cylindrical fermentation tanks that have replaced the shorter vats of breweries in the past have tended to negatively impact the taste of the resulting beer – but now scientists have stepped in to improve the taste of our booze.These tall tanks can produce more beer for less money – they're easier to fill, empty and clean – but their widespread adoption also means excess pressure from the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation, and that affects flavor.The researchers began by identifying strains of the…

It's a truth universally acknowledged yet little understood: Great epiphanies arrive in the shower.There's an entire sub-Reddit dedicated to the effect. So why does this hot and steamy environment seem to brew such interesting thoughts?For years now, scientists have been arguing over the so-called 'shower effect', and why it occurs. Now, two new experiments have helped clear up some of the foggiest findings.The latest experiments were led by Zac Irving, who studies and teaches the philosophy of cognitive science at the…

Uranus has always been an intriguing planet for astronomers to study. First discovered in 1781, Uranus quickly became known for its odd and extremely “off-kilter” tilt. The seventh planet from the Sun has always seemed to march to its own beat, and while it might share some similarities with other ice giants in our solar system, Uranus’ tilt has always baffled scientists. Now, though, a group of researchers may have discovered why Uranus has such an unusual tilt. Neptune and Uranus have often been cited as…

In a recent study submitted to High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, a team of researchers from Japan discuss strategies to observe, and possibly predict precursor signatures for an explosion from Local Type II and Galactic supernovae (SNe).This study has the potential to help us better understand both how and when supernovae could occur throughout the universe, with supernovae being the plural form of supernova (SN).But just how important is it to detect supernovae before they actually happen?"From my perspective, it is…