hydrate

Pressure cores of methane hydrate. Scientists collected the cores during a 2023 mission led by The University of Texas at Austin.The cores are now kept in a special lab at the UT Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. Credit: UT Austin / Jackson School of Geosciences A scientific drilling mission in the Gulf of Mexico has returned with 44 cores from a methane hydrate reservoir deep under the seafloor. Globally, energy-rich…

All life on Earth depends on water, including us. Some of us consume water the old-fashioned way by drinking it with our mouths, others more creatively.Beetles can rehydrate themselves by opening their rectums and drinking trace amounts of water floating in the air.They can also reabsorb water from their poop, and their butts are surprisingly proficient at wringing moisture out of it, too.With their specialized rectal ability, beetles can survive in the driest regions on Earth, including the flour and grains in your…

China’s Chang’e 5 rover has found tiny glass beads containing water in an impact crater on the Moon. Samples collected from a 2020 mission found beads with water content as high as 2,000 parts per million (PPM). Given the prevalence of these glass spheres on the lunar surface, there may be enough to provide 71 trillion gallons of water. Some beads formed when asteroids collided with the Moon millions of years ago, while others came from ancient volcanoes. Scientists believe the water originated from a chemical reaction…

One in five animal species on the planet are beetles, with around 400,000 species officially described but scientists believing there could be as many as 1.5 million different types of these resilient little bugs on Earth. And with short lifespans of between a few weeks to a few years, they’ve developed some clever mechanisms for survival.For instance, darkling beetles have the ability to produce a lubricant for their leg segments, countering environmental drying of their exoskeletal joints, while the bombardier beetle’s…

Gatorade has designed a smart water bottle to help you determine and maintain your baseline hydration level and monitor your post-workout recovery. A ring of LEDs that runs around the Smart Gx Bottle's cap should allow you to monitor you daily hydration, and gently nudge you to drink more when necessary. You can recharge the bottle using a USB cable. A Gatorade spokesperson told Engadget the bottle is dishwasher safe, but the cap is not.  Naturally, your hydration levels can be tracked through Gatorade's iOS-only Gx App,…