10 weird things scientists calculated in 2021 - Livescience.com

The world is full of beautiful equations, numbers and calculations. From counting beads as toddlers to managing finances as adults, we use math every day. But scientists often go beyond these quotidian forms of counting, to measure, weigh and tally far stranger things in the universe. From the number of bubbles in a typical glass of beer to the weight of all the coronavirus particles circulating in the world, here are 10 weird things scientists calculated in 2021.

Related: Photos: Large numbers that define the universe

Beer bubbles

(Image credit: Brian Hagiwara/Getty Images)

Pouring ice-cold beer into a glass forms lots of tiny bubbles — and thanks to some thirsty scientists, now we know how many. 

These scientists calculated that a half-pint glass of beer produces up to 2 million bubbles, about twice as many bubbles as Champagne makes. But the researchers found that the number of bubbles in a half-pint glass ranged from 200,000 to 2 million, according to their study, published in March in the journal ACS Omega. It turns out that the number of bubbles depends on three factors: the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in the glass, the volume of bubbles and the point at which the CO2 depletes such that no more bubbles form. Also, tiny flaws in the glass would help bubbles emerge from the liquid.

Read more: How many bubbles are in a glass of beer?

Weight of SARS-CoV-2

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

If you were to gather all the particles of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, circulating around the globe into one place, the weight of the tiny, invisible particles would be somewhere between that of an apple and a young toddler, according to a study published in June in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That calculation is based on the estimation that each infected individual carries about 10 billion to 100 billion SARS-CoV-2 particles at the peak of their infection. If there are between 1 million and 10 million infections at any given time, which has been the case during the course of the pandemic, the particles together would weigh somewhere between 0.22 and 22 pounds (0.1 and 10 kilograms).

"Here we are talking about a super-tiny mass of viruses, and they are completely wreaking havoc on the world," the researchers told Live Science. 

Read more: How much does all the SARS-CoV-2 in the world weigh? 

Elephants from space

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Using satellites and artificial intelligence, researchers counted African elephants from space for the first time, according to a study published online in Dec. 2020 in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. The team combined high-resolution images of Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa captured by satellites that orbit 372 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth's surface. This novel technique can survey thousands of miles in minutes, which is much faster than the typical way conservationists count elephants in low-flying planes, a process that can take hours. The researchers say this method could be vital for ensuring the survival of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), a species the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies as endangered. 

Read more: Elephants counted from space using satellites and AI

Acceleration of a finger snap

(Image credit: Nisara Tangtrakul / EyeEm / Getty Images)

Using high-speed cameras and force sensors, researchers figured out the fastest acceleration of the human body: a snap of the fingers. Finger snaps generate maximal rotational velocities of 7,800 degrees per second and a maximal rotational acceleration of 1.6 million degrees per second squared, according to a study published in November in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The acceleration of a finger snap is three times the acceleration produced by a professional baseball player's arm. 

"When I first saw the data, I jumped out of my chair," study senior author Saad Bhamla, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said in a statement. "The finger snap occurs in only seven milliseconds — more than 20 times faster than the blink of an eye, which takes more than 150 milliseconds." 

Read more: Scientists find the fastest acceleration in the human body

Most precise pi ever

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Pi is one of the most famous irrational numbers, which means it can't be expressed as a common fraction and has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point. Researchers in Switzerland have now calculated the most precise value of pi ever, up to 62.8 trillion decimal places. Of course, the calculations, which took 108 days, weren't done by hand but rather with a supercomputer. But don't get too comfortable with this achievement. Because pi is irrational, this record can be broken over and over … forever. 

Read more: Pi calculated to a record-breaking 62.8 trillion digits

Popularity of your friends

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According to the "friendship paradox," an idea that was first formulated in 1991, your friends are typically more popular than you are. But a group of mathematicians came up with a new theory that they say better describes real-world friendships, according to a study published in May in the Journal of Complex Networks. "Averages are often highly misleading or at least can fail to describe people's experiences," lead author George Cantwell, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, previously told Live Science. "Some people are less popular than their friends; others are more so." 

Their new equations show that the friendship paradox tends to be stronger in social networks made up of people with different levels of popularity, such as a high school. If a person has two friends in the same social network as a person with 100 friends, in general, the friendship paradox will be stronger than in a network where the most social person has 10 friends and the least social person has three. 

Read more: The 'friendship paradox' doesn't always explain real friendships, mathematicians say

Black holes

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

How many black holes exist in the universe? These mysterious objects are so dense that not even light escapes themt. Astronomers can't detect all the black holes out there, so they turned to theoretical calculations. In a study published in October the preprint database arXiv, a group of researchers calculated that there might be millions of small black holes in our cosmic neighborhood, or the most immediate environment around the sun, according to NASA. The largest black holes, supermassive black holes, are much rarer than the smaller ones; each galaxy usually has only one. All in all, they calculated that black holes hold about 1% of all ordinary matter (not dark matter) in the universe. 

Read more: How many black holes are there in the universe?

Walking around the moon

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

How long would it take to walk around the moon? The answer isn't black-and-white; rather, it depends on a number of factors, including how fast you walk and how much time you spend walking each day. It also depends on whether you take detours to avoid rough topography. At a hypothetical walking speed of up to 3.1 mph (5 km/h), which researchers previously calculated in a 2014 study, it would take about 91 days to walk the 6,786 miles (10,921 kilometers) around the moon, Live Science reported this year. But because it's not possible to walk nonstop for 91 days, the journey would likely take much longer. It's more likely that a person would walk a few hours a day. If a person walked at this speed for 4 hours a day, it would take about 547 Earth days, or about 1.5 years, to walk around the moon.

Read more: How long would it take to walk around the moon?

Satellites orbiting Earth

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

In another article, Live Science explored the question of how many satellites currently orbit the planet. Since Russia launched Sputnik, the world's first human-made satellite, in 1957, thousands of satellites have been lofted. About 10 to 60 were launched annually until the 2010s. Since then, the numbers have increased tremendously: 1,300 new satellites were sent to low Earth orbit in 2020 and more than 1,400 in 2021. As of September 2021, there were around 7,500 active satellites in low Earth orbit, Live Science reported.

Read more: How many satellites orbit Earth?

"Absolute limit" on the human life span

(Image credit: www.victoriawlaka.com via Getty Images)

The "absolute limit" on the human life span may be 120 to 150 years, according to a study published in May in the journal Nature Communications. A group of researchers calculated that limit using a mathematical model, which predicted that after 120 to 150 years, the body would lose its resilience, or the ability to recover from illness and injury. But if future therapies targeted and extended the body's resilience, humans might be able to live longer, the researchers said. The data for the study came from large data sets that contained medical data for more than 500,000 people across the U.S., the U.K. and Russia. The data included blood tests in which the researchers specifically looked for the ratio of two types of disease-fighting white blood cells.

Read more: Human life span may have an 'absolute limit' of 150 years

Originally published on Live Science.

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High-resolution lab experiments show how cells 'eat' - Phys.org

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A new study shows how cell membranes curve to create the "mouths" that allow the cells to consume things that surround them.

"Just like our eating habits basically shape anything in our body, the way cells 'eat' matters for the health of the cells," said Comert Kural, associate professor of physics at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study. "And scientists did not, until now, understand the mechanics of how that happened."

The study, published last month in the journal Developmental Cell, found that the intercellular machinery of a cell assembles into a highly curved basket-like structure that eventually grows into a closed cage. Scientists had previously believed that structure began as a flat lattice.

Membrane curvature is important, Kural said: It controls the formation of the pockets that carry substances into and out of a cell.

The pockets capture substances around the cell, forming around the extracellular substances, before turning into vesicles—small sacs one-one millionth the size of a red blood cell. Vesicles carry important things for a cell's health—proteins, for example—into the cell. But they can also be hijacked by pathogens that can infect cells.

But the question of how those pockets formed from membranes that were previously believed to be flat had stymied researchers for nearly 40 years.

"It was a controversy in cellular studies," Kural said. "And we were able to use super-resolution fluorescence imaging to actually watch these pockets form within live cells, and so we could answer that question of how they are created.

"Simply put, in contrast to the previous studies, we made high-resolution movies of cells instead of taking snapshots," Kural said. "Our experiments revealed that protein scaffolds start deforming the underlying membrane as soon as they are recruited to the sites of vesicle formation."

That contrasts with previous hypotheses that the protein scaffolds of a cell had to go through an energy-intensive reorganization in order for the membrane to curve, Kural said.

The way cells consume and expel vesicles plays a key role for living organisms. The process helps clear bad cholesterol from blood; it also transmits neural signals. The process is known to break down in several diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

"Understanding the origin and dynamics of membrane-bound vesicles is important—they can be utilized for delivering drugs for medicinal purposes, but at the same time, hijacked by pathogens such as viruses to enter and infect cells," Kural said. "Our results matter, not only for our understanding of the fundamentals of life, but also for developing better therapeutic strategies."

Emanuele Cocucci, an assistant professor in Ohio State's College of Pharmacy, co-authored this study, along with researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, Iowa State University, Purdue University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Not as simple as thought: How bacteria form membrane vesicles

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More information: Nathan M. Willy et al, De novo endocytic clathrin coats develop curvature at early stages of their formation, Developmental Cell (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2021.10.019

Provided by The Ohio State University

Citation: High-resolution lab experiments show how cells 'eat' (2021, December 30) retrieved 31 December 2021 from https://ift.tt/3sHKwWs

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More than 500 new species, including colorful beetles and a 'hell heron,' discovered in 2021 - CNN

Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

(CNN)Shrimplike creatures, an extinct dinosaur called the "hell heron" and colorful beetles are among the 552 new species described this year by scientists at the Natural History Museum in London.

The researchers were largely restricted from traveling to international field sites or visiting other museum collections due to the pandemic, but they persevered to reveal a wealth of species new to science, both living and extinct. The museum, which holds 80 million specimens in its collections, has a staff of 300 scientists.

Dinosaur discoveries included giant carnivorous predators called spinosaurs, armed with crocodile-like skulls that helped them hunt down prey in the water as well as on land on the Isle of Wight 125 million years ago.

Two new species of spinosaurid dinosaurs were discovered from fossils found on the Isle of Wight: one named "hell heron" and the other the "riverbank hunter."

The first of the two spinosaurids was named Ceratosuchops inferodios, which means "horned crocodile-faced hell heron." In life, the dinosaur sported horns and bumps across its brow region. The spinosaurid also likely hunted in a way similar to herons, which can catch prey in the water as well as on land.

The second spinosaurid is Riparovenator milnerae, or "Milner's riverbank hunter." Both predators likely reached about 29.5 feet (9 meters) in length and had skulls measuring 3.2 feet (1 meter) long. Spinosaurid fossils have been uncovered around the world, but they may have evolved in Europe before migrating to other areas.

A decades-old fossil from the Isle of Wight, often called the United Kingdom's dinosaur capital, also led to the discovery of Brighstoneus simmondsi, an iguanodontian with an unusual snout.

Fossils finds elsewhere revealed the earliest ankylosaur from Africa, a Chinese sauropod and the oldest carnivorous dinosaur to be found in the UK.

This illustration shows Pendraig milnerae, the earliest carnivorous dinosaur from the UK.

"It's been a fantastic year for the description of new dinosaurs, especially from the UK," said Susannah Maidment, a senior researcher in paleobiology at the Natural History Museum, in a release.

"These specimens are parts of a vast palaeobiological jigsaw puzzle that allows us to understand environments of the past and how they changed over time."

Other ancient creature discoveries in 2021 included spiders trapped in amber, a plant-eating crocodile relative and a "Jurassic mouse" that once ran between the feet of dinosaurs 166 million years ago in what is now Scotland.

All creatures great and small

Earth is home to a vast array of small shrimplike crustaceans called copepods. They are found across the globe, from mountain lakes to ocean trenches, and scientists discovered 291 new species of copepods in 2021.

While these creatures are tiny, they are a vital source of food for fish and krill and critical to Earth's carbon cycle and ecology. A collection spanning six decades, created by French marine zoologist Françoise Monniot and her late husband, marine biologist Claude Monniot, provided the basis for the perfect pandemic project.

"Copepods are not only free-living but many are parasites, and they can be found living in virtually every other major animal group," said Geoff Boxshall, merit researcher in the museum's department of life sciences, in a statement. "Completing the series of papers became my lockdown project when I was unable to enter the Museum."

Eurythenes atacamensis, a crustacean related to shrimp, was found scavenging in the Atacama Trench off the coasts of Peru and Chile.

In addition to wasps, moths, crabs and flies, researchers also found 90 new species of beetles, including shiny purple and green ones from India and a large-jawed species from the Philippines.

And scientists finally solved the mystery of a bush cricket from Southeast Asia. They first heard its unusual, beautiful song in 1990, but didn't connect the two until now.

There are five new species of plants from eastern Africa, called jewelweeds or touch-me-nots. These plants typically have pink or white blossoms, but some have begun to produce red flowers to make themselves more visible to birds.

These colorful jewelweeds, or touch-me-nots, can be found in eastern Africa.

The scientists also determined 10 new reptiles and amphibians, including a snake called Joseph's racer. A 185-year-old painting helped researchers describe the species.

Rhabdophis bindi is a new species of snake from India and Bangladesh that lives in tropical evergreen forests.

Unfortunately, some of the species discovered are also likely extinct, highlighting the importance of recognizing and understanding every creature on our planet.

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Nits on ancient mummies shed light on South American ancestry - Phys.org

A mummified adult man of the Ansilta culture, from the Andes of San Juan, Argentina, dating back approx 2,000 years. Credit: Universidad Nacional de San Juan

Human DNA can be extracted from the 'cement' head lice used to glue their eggs to hairs thousands of years ago, scientists have found, which could provide an important new window into the past.

In a new study, scientists for the first time recovered DNA from cement on hairs taken from mummified remains that date back 1,500-2,000 years. This is possible because skin cells from the scalp become encased in the cement produced by female lice as they attach eggs, known as nits, to the hair.

Analysis of this newly-recovered ancient DNA—which was of better quality than that recovered through other methods—has revealed clues about pre-Columbian human migration patterns within South America.  This method could allow many more unique samples to be studied from human remains where bone and tooth samples are unavailable.

The research was led by the University of Reading, working in collaboration with the National University of San Juan, Argentina; Bangor University, Wales; the Oxford University Museum of Natural History; and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Dr. Alejandra Perotti, Associate Professor in Invertebrate Biology at the University of Reading, who led the research, said: "Like the fictional story of mosquitos encased in amber in the film Jurassic Park, carrying the DNA of the dinosaur host, we have shown that our genetic information can be preserved by the sticky substance produced by headlice on our hair.  In addition to genetics, lice biology can provide valuable clues about how people lived and died thousands of years ago.

"Demand for DNA samples from ancient human remains has grown in recent years as we seek to understand migration and diversity in ancient human populations. Headlice have accompanied humans throughout their entire existence, so this new method could open the door to a goldmine of information about our ancestors, while preserving unique specimens."

Nit of human louse showing the cement covering the egg shell and hair shaft, including a human cell (nucleus, arrow). Fluorescence microphotograph in the UV light, specimen prepared with a fluorescence dye that binds to DNA (DAPI). Nuclei of cells and bacteria, Riesia -primary symbiotic bacterium of lice, show signal (arrows). Credit: University of Reading

Until now, ancient DNA has preferably been extracted from dense bone from the skull or from inside teeth, as these provide the best quality samples. However, skull and teeth remains are not always available, as it can be unethical or against cultural beliefs to take samples from indigenous early remains, and due to the severe damage destructive sampling causes to the specimens which compromise future scientific analysis.

Recovering DNA from the cement delivered by lice is therefore a solution to the problem, especially as nits are commonly found on the hair and clothes of well preserved and mummified humans.

The research team extracted DNA from nit cement of specimens collected from a number of mummified remains from Argentina. The mummies were of people who 1,500-2,000 years ago reached the Andes mountains of the San Juan province, Central West Argentina. The team also studied ancient nits on human hair used in a textile from Chile and nits from a shrunken head originating from the ancient Jivaroan people of Amazonian Ecuador.

The samples used for DNA studies of nit cement were found to contain the same concentration of DNA as a tooth, double that of bone remains, and four times that recovered from blood inside far more recent lice specimens.

Dr. Mikkel Winther Pedersen from the GLOBE institute at the University of Copenhagen, and first author, said: "The high amount of DNA yield from these nit cements really came as a surprise to us and it was striking to me that such small amounts could still give us all this information about who these people were, and how the lice related to other lice species but also giving us hints to possible viral diseases.

"There is a hunt out for alternative sources of ancient human DNA and nit cement might be one of those alternatives. I believe that future studies are needed before we really unravel this potential."

A human hair with a nit attached to it with 'cement'. Credit: University of Reading

As well as the DNA analysis, scientists are also able to draw conclusions about a person and the conditions in which they lived from the position of the nits on their hair and from the length of the cement tubes. Their health and even cause of death can be indicated by the interpretation of the biology of the nits.

Analysis of the recovered DNA from nit-cement revealed and confirmed:

• • The sex of each of the human hosts
  • A genetic link between three of the mummies and humans in Amazonia 2,000 years ago. This shows for the first time that the original population of the San Juan province migrated from the land and rainforests of the Amazon in the North of the continent (south of current Venezuela and Colombia).
  • All ancient human remains studied belong to the founding mitochondrial lineages in South America.
  • The earliest direct evidence of Merkel cell Polymavirus was found in the DNA trapped in nit cement from one of the mummies. The virus, discovered in 2008, is shed by healthy human skin and can on rare occasions get into the body and cause skin cancer. The discovery opens up the possibility that head lice could spread the virus.

Analysis of the DNA of the nits, confirmed the same migration pattern for the human lice, from the North Amazonian planes towards Central West Argentina (San Juan Andes)

Morphological analysis of the nits informed that:

• • The mummies were all likely exposed to extremely cold temperatures when they died, which could have been a factor in their deaths. This was indicated by the very small gap between the nits and scalp on the hairs shaft. Lice rely on the host's head heat to keep their eggs warm and so lay them closer to the scalp in cold environments.
  • Shorter cement tubes on the hair correlated with older and/or less preserved specimens, due to the cement degrading over time.

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More information: OUP accepted manuscript, Molecular Biology And Evolution (2021). DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab351

Provided by University of Reading

Citation: Nits on ancient mummies shed light on South American ancestry (2021, December 29) retrieved 29 December 2021 from https://ift.tt/3JqVlSD

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NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Milestones - 2021 Year in Review - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA clears Axiom crew for 1st private mission to International Space Station - Space.com

The astronauts launching with the first private crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) next year have cleared all their medical evaluations. 

NASA and its international partners approved the four-person crew for Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), which is scheduled to launch on Feb. 28, 2022. The Ax-1 crew includes Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe, according to a statement from NASA. The crew was approved by NASA and the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, a coalition of five international space agencies that decides who flies to the International Space Station and each crew member's role for the mission. 

"We've made great progress on our 1st private astronaut mission with @Axiom_Space to @Space_Station! Axiom Mission 1 astronauts Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe cleared medical evals and are approved by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel," Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said in a tweet. 

Related: Space tourism took a giant leap in 2021: Here's 10 milestones from the year 

We've made great progress on our 1st private astronaut mission with @Axiom_Space to @Space_Station! Axiom Mission 1 astronauts Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe cleared medical evals and are approved by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/OV25PJUZl7December 20, 2021

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Receiving approval from the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel and passing medical evaluations represent major milestones in sending the first private astronaut mission to the orbiting lab, according to the NASA statement.

Connor will serve as the Ax-1 pilot, López-Alegría will be mission commander and Pathy and Stibbe will be mission specialists. López-Alegría is Vice President of Axiom Space and a former NASA astronaut who has flown to space four times before, including commanding ISS Expedition 14. Connor is an American entrepreneur and non-profit activist investor. Pathy is a Canadian businessman and philanthropist, and Stibbe is an investor and former Israeli Air Force pilot. 

The crew will be taking part in microgravity experiments during their eight-day mission aboard the ISS. A total of 25 experiments will focus on science, education and outreach, including research on the impact of space travel on senescent cells and heart health. Some of the planned research projects stem from Connor's long-time partnerships with Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, according to Axiom. 

Related stories:

Recently, NASA also gave the green light for a second Axiom crewed mission to the space station. That flight, known as Ax-2, is currently aiming to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida between in late 2022 or early 2023. Axiom has contracted with SpaceX to launch four crewed missions to the ISS using Crew Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets. 

Ax-1 is part of the Houston-based company's long-term plan to expand access to low Earth orbit; Axiom is one of several companies working to build a commercial space station to succeed the ISS. 

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

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Live Science's best of 2021: Writers' choice - Livescience.com

What makes a science news story stand out? At Live Science, our reporters and editors cover a broad range of topics, and each year brings plenty of opportunities for each of us to share some of the strangest, most unexpected and most interesting science around.

Of the many hundreds of stories that we wrote about in 2021, some were truly unforgettable. From an immortal bee army to a dinosaur's perfectly preserved butthole, here are the stories that Live Science's writers just couldn't stop thinking about.

Pupil 'flex'

A close-up of an eye. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Yasemin Saplokoglu, Staff Writer: Some people can wiggle their ears, some can lick their elbows… and it turns out, some people can grow and shrink their pupils on demand.

My favorite story to write this year was a case study on a 23-year-old student in Germany who can directly control his pupils like a muscle, something that was previously thought to be impossible. It was previously known that some people could change their pupil size when they wanted to but by using indirect methods, such as by thinking about the sun. But it was thought to be impossible that someone could control the pupils directly like a muscle, just by concentrating on the eye. The student, referred to in the study by his initials D.W., told the researchers he could feel gripping when his pupils were constricting, and relaxing when they were dilating. 

After publishing this article, I received so many emails from readers saying that they could do this too! I still get them sometimes. It's incredibly fun to find out that something which was thought to be impossible is actually much more common than we think.

Read more: Man can change his pupil size on command, once thought an impossible feat

Twisties and yips

Simone biles mid-twist during a vault at the Tokyo Olympics. (Image credit: Getty/ MARTIN BUREAU / Contributor)

Nicoletta Lanese, Staff Writer: My favorite story this year delved into the neuroscience of movement, which I'm a huge nerd about, and also featured one of my favorite Olympic events: gymnastics. Gymnast Simone Biles, the certified G.O.A.T., made headlines during this year's Olympics when she came down with a case of the "twisties," meaning she lost sense of where she was in the air during a trick. Other athletes have reported a similar disconnect between brain and body, called the "yips," where they suddenly can't execute the skills they honed in practice. I spoke with experts about the complex motor learning that goes into training these skills in the first place, and what likely goes wrong when an athlete gets the twisties or yips.

Read more: What's happening inside Simone Biles' brain when the 'twisties' set in?

Ancient beasts in a garden

Teeth from a mastodon skull unearthed in the foothills of the Sierra in California. (Image credit: , Chico (University Photographer Jason Halley/California State University)

Jeanna Bryner, Editor-in-Chief: When a person accidentally stumbles upon what ends up being a huge discovery, reporters like me take notice. And this year, the serendipitous find was giant in many ways: A park ranger who was ambling through a forest in California uncovered what ended up being a petrified forest chock-full of the fossilized remains of dozens of prehistoric behemoths, including a stunningly preserved mastodon skull, an extinct camel, rhinos, giant tortoises and even a monstrous 400-pound (181 kilograms) salmon ancestor. 

Greg Francek first noticed a wood-like structure poking from the ground; upon closer inspection, he realized the smooth protrusion was one end of a petrified tree. After finding a second, third, fourth and more of these tree remains, Francek realized he was in the middle of a petrified forest. I would’ve loved to have been there when he spotted the stunning window into the area’s past. His finding opened up a treasure trove for paleontologists and geologists. Over the past year, these scientists have unearthed hundreds of animal fossils representing dozens of species. These animals would have lived some 10 million years ago when the area was covered by an oak forest on the outskirts of the sea. 

Read more: Forest ranger stumbles onto garden of ancient beasts in California foothills

Poop-eating plateau pikas

A plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) outside of a nest hole, in Sichuan Province, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. (Image credit: Nature Picture Library / Alamy)

Patrick Pester, Staff Writer: My favorite science story this year was about plateau pikas eating poop to survive Tibetan winters. The small, rabbit-like animals can't hibernate and don't migrate so scientists set out to understand how they cope with winters on high-altitude meadows in Asia, where temperatures fall to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees Celsius). The 2021 study found pikas slow their metabolism and, in some cases, eat domestic yak poop. Chowing down poop may help pikas spend less energy than they would foraging their own food and access water and nutrients that are scarce in winter.

What I loved most about the story is that biology professor John Speakman and his colleagues spent 13 years studying the creatures, while getting to know the local yak herders. Pikas were thought to directly compete with yaks for food, so this research can be seen as a feel-good story of an animal adopting a very unexpected survival strategy to make the most of human activity. 

Read more: Real-life Pikachus eat yak poop to survive Tibetan winters

So big, it shouldn't exist

A simulation of the giant arc structure located in the Bootes Constellation (Image credit: Alexia Lopez/UCLan)

Tia Gose, Assistant Managing Editor: My favorite story of the year was about a 3.3 billion-light-year arc across the cosmos that is so big, it shouldn't exist. The structure, aptly named the Giant Arc, spans a 15th of the observable universe, and yet we only discovered it this year. The cosmic behemoth's sheer size challenges the cosmological principle, a long-held assumption stating that at large scales, matter is uniformly distributed. (According to this principle, there are limits to how big a structure can get.) 

Astronomers spotted this gargantuan structure serendipitously, while they were constructing a cosmic map using light from quasars, or ultrabright galactic cores that beam radio waves. I love this story because it highlights the vastness of the universe and shows that even some truly big discoveries are hiding in plain sight. It reminds me there are likely infinitely more strange and mysterious objects lurking in the universe just waiting to be found.

Read more: 'Giant arc' stretching 3.3 billion light-years across the cosmos shouldn't exist

Caterpillar-drinking butterflies

Parantica cleona, an Indonesian butterfly, contemplates its next meal. (Image credit: Yi-Kai Tea)

Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer: One of the things that I love the most about covering animal science is that the natural world is a neverending source of beauty and wonder — but it's also a place steeped in unmitigated horror. And nowhere was that more true in 2021 than in the discovery that butterflies slash open the bodies of caterpillars to slurp out their insides. 

Researchers in Indonesia watched seven species of milkweed butterflies as they sipped on "wounded and oozing caterpillars." Sometimes these grisly meals lasted for hours.

The butterflies used tiny claws on their feet (yes, butterflies have claws) to scratch wounds in caterpillars' bodies, and then lapped up the liquid that oozed out. What fascinated me about this was why the butterflies were doing it: because caterpillars are basically stuffed full of full of chewed-up milkweed residue, and butterflies are attracted to certain compounds in milkweed as protection against predators and for producing pheromones that attract females. Caterpillars are brimming with milkweed goodness, and that makes them an irresistible (if somewhat gruesome) snack.

Read more: Milkweed butterflies tear open caterpillars and drink them alive

Mysterious Mexican mangroves

Scientists have uncovered the secret origins of a mysterious landlocked mangrove forest in Mexico. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Harry Baker, Staff Writer: My favorite story this year was about a mysterious mangrove forest in the heart of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. 

Normally, mangroves only grow in saltwater conditions along tropical coastlines or in estuaries. But these particular mangroves live in freshwater more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the nearest ocean. This ecological enigma had baffled scientists for years, until a new study this year finally uncovered the mangroves' mysterious origins.

It turns out that the forest took root in the area around 125,000 years ago when sea levels were much higher than they are today. After the sea level dropped, the mangroves were able to adapt to living in a freshwater system and evolved into a one-of-a-kind ecosystem. 

I enjoyed this story because it shows the power of evolution on a much larger and faster scale than we normally see.

Read more: Mysterious Mexican mangrove forest is 'trapped in time' hundreds of miles from the coast

The 'perfect' and 'unique,' dinosaur butthole

This drawing shows how the dinosaur Psittacosaurus may have used its cloacal vent (aka butthole) for signaling during courtship. (Image credit: Bob Nicholls/Paleocreations.com 2020)

Laura Geggel, Editor: I've covered a lot of dinosaur news — the discovery of new species and investigations into how dinosaurs grew and behaved — but never have I written about a fossilized butthole. Scientifically, it's known as a cloacal vent — a multipurpose "backdoor" opening used for pooping, peeing, breeding and egg laying. This is the first preserved dinosaur nether region on record, and the researchers apparently struck gold because it's not like any other known to science. "It's its own cloaca, shaped in its perfect, unique way," study lead researcher Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. 

It helps that this well-preserved booty belongs to a cutie: Psittacosaurus, a bristly tailed, Labrador-size, horn-faced dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). Psittacosaurus may be long gone, but you've got to appreciate how its derrière is shedding light where the sun don't shine.

Read more: 1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says

The ultra-rare planet in Orion's nose

GW Orionis has three stars centered within three wobbly rings of dust. Astronomers think there could be a rare, three-sun planet in the mix too. (Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada, Exeter/Kraus et al.)

Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer: The idea of anything hanging out "in Orion's nose" is inherently funny to me. All the better if that thing happens to be the rarest type of planet in the entire universe: A single world orbiting three suns simultaneously.

That's why my favorite story this year was about the star system GW Orionis (or GW Ori) – located 1,300 light-years from Earth at the tip of the Orion constellation's nose. The star system looks like a giant orange bullseye made of three wobbly, concentric rings of space dust. At the center of those rings are two stars tightly orbiting one another; a little further out, a third star orbits that binary pair. Triple-star solar systems aren't unheard of, but GW Ori is special because scientists are pretty certain that there is an enormous, Jupiter-sized planet lurking in one of the system's dusty rings – the only triple-sun (or "circumtriple") planet in the known universe. 

That's incredible – and so are the researchers' images and illustrations of the ultra-rare system. Eat your heart out, Tatooine! 

Read more: Exceptionally rare planet with three suns may lurk in Orion's nose

Bee creates immortal 'clone army'

The Cape honeybee worker has been shown to clone itself millions of times. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Ben Turner, Staff Writer: Looking back into the history of the natural world, it’s always tempting to view the process of evolution through the lens of the apparent perfection it creates. Take the biomechanical clockwork of the human eye; or the sculpting of a hummingbird’s beak to drink the nectar from the thinnest flower; or the apparent artist’s mania that not only finesses a butterfly mimic’s wings to appear as a leaf, but even adds markings to resemble caterpillar-chomped holes.

My favorite story this year is about how in the short-term, evolution is random, messy and even a little ugly. It’s about how a genetic fluke in a South African bee species enabled its workers to create perfect copies of itself, and how the species was subsequently transformed into an immortal army of parasitic clones.

The bees ended up developing all kinds of weird and sneaky strategies, from hatching plots to insert their clones into positions of power to completely taking over other hives with their entitled, layabout offspring. It plays out like an all-bee version of "Game of Thrones," and, given the insects’ complete lack of genetic diversity and consequent susceptibility to disease, the finale is likely to be just as disastrous. 

Ecologically terrible though it may be, this story digs into fascinating questions about the balance between sociality and selfishness, and how evolution’s perfection is only visible in the long-run.

Read more: Single bee is making an immortal clone army thanks to a genetic fluke

Originally published on Live Science.

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