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As Earth Day approaches and the Wonder Theory newsletter celebrates its third anniversary in your inbox, I look to the future with hope.
We all start somewhere. Encouragement and the pursuit of knowledge help us grow. When Jane Goodall When she was a little girl, her mother nurtured the famous primatologist’s love for the living world.
Goodall, now 90, fosters the same appreciation through her Roots & Shoots program, which encourages young people to create change in their communities around the world.
Even as the world changes in response to the climate crisis, Goodall remains hopeful that humanity can save the planet.
“Remember that as an individual you make an impact on the environment every day,” Goodall recently told CNN. “And it’s up to you to choose what kind of impact you want to make.”
ocean secrets
In May 2020, then-11-year-old Ruby Reynolds and her father, Justin, were searching for fossils on the coast of Somerset, England, when they noticed something unusual.
The fossils Ruby found, reassembled with the help of experts, revealed the jawbone of a giant ichthyosaur that roamed the seas 202 million years ago. And in terms of size, the marine reptile can rival the largest currently living animal, the blue whale.
“It was great to discover part of this huge ichthyosaur. I am very proud to have played a part in such a scientific discovery,” he said.
Meanwhile, in India, paleontologists at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee have unearthed evidence of a different large reptile: a prehistoric snake longer than a school bus.
Long time ago
Archaeologists have pieced together the puzzle of a dramatic dynastic collapse after finding charred remains in an ancient Mayan pyramid in Guatemala.
The research team uncovered the charred bones of four adults in a chamber beneath a temple, along with lavish decorations and weapons, leading them to believe the people were of royal descent.
The team said that a new type of leader likely emerged during a time of political and social change for the Mayans, and the bones were burned as a deliberate sign of disrespect.
Separately, two 5,500-year-old skeletons found at an archaeological site in southwestern France belonged to women buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, possibly using an Italian Mafia-style torture method.
other worlds
For the first time, astronomers have detected a rainbow-like effect called splendor on a planet outside our solar system.
Scientists using the Cheops space telescope noticed an unexpected glow in the atmosphere of WASP-76b. An artist’s rendering depicts this phenomenon, which appears as colorful, concentric rings of light and has so far only been observed on Earth and Venus.
The blazing exoplanet, located 637 light-years away, is also intriguing because one side is constantly pointing toward a sun-like star, causing molten iron to rain down from its clouds.
In a separate study, scientists found that the bright, white heart seen on Pluto’s surface was formed by an ancient, catastrophic collision with another planet.
All Over the Universe
A star’s unusual wobble has led astronomers to what they call a cosmic “sleeping giant” in the Milky Way.
The Gaia space telescope has detected the largest known stellar black hole in our galaxy, or a black hole formed as a result of the collapse of a giant star.
The celestial heavyweight, called Gaia BH3, has a mass almost 33 times that of our sun and is just 1,926 light-years away.
fantasy creatures
Scientists made a remarkable discovery when they accidentally submerged a particular species of hibernating bumblebee: Queen common eastern bumblebees can survive underwater for up to a week.
It is possible for queen bees that hibernate alone during the cold season after the drones and worker bees die to enter a state of suspended growth called diapause, which helps them survive.
Meanwhile, as billions of cicadas are expected to emerge this spring after spending more than a decade underground, scientists expect some of the insects to be manipulated by a zombified fungus.
The pathogen was discovered by West Virginia University associate professor Dr. It turns cicadas into “death salt shakers,” as Matt Kasson describes them.
discoveries
Take a closer look at these surprising stories:
— Budget cuts threaten the program that can retrieve rare samples collected by the Perseverance rover from Mars. Now NASA is calling for creative ways to return them to Earth.
— Excavations in South Australia have uncovered three new species of giant kangaroos that lived millions of years ago, and one of them was nearly twice the size of the largest living kangaroo today.
NASA expected the debris it launched from the International Space Station to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, but a piece of the space debris survived the fiery reentry process and crashed into a house in Naples, Florida.
— Camels once roamed what is now Canada, but 17,000 years ago they crossed the Bering land bridge and completely re-adapted to living in the desert. People too can learn from their transformations.
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