#Science

[shutinthenutouse]

[morbidology]

In 2002, anthropologist Grover Krantz made a unique arrangement for his final resting place: donating his body to the Smithsonian, with a heartfelt condition. Krantz insisted that his cherished Irish Wolfhound, Clyde, accompany him in death. True to his wishes, when Krantz's body was put on display in 2009, Clyde stood faithfully by his side for all to see.

[the-wolf-and-moon]

 NGC 3372, Eta Carinae

[amnhnyc]

Insects are critical to the survival of most other animals, including humans. But many insect species, from beetles to dragonflies to butterflies, are declining in abundance due in part to human activity. For Earth Month, Insectarium host Dr. Jessica L Ware gives tips on small things each of us can do to make a lasting impact and help insects thrive for years to come.

Learn more about insects with Museum Curator Jessica Ware in Insectarium on PBS Terra's YouTube channel.

[jadafitch]

It's salamander season again.

[cosmicexplorersblog]

Space view of moon's shadow on earth during eclipse

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Okay. This is a pretty big deal in the world of mycology. Historically fungi have been divided up into either parasites that siphon resources from plants, mutualists that cooperate with them, or saprotrophs that break down decaying organic matter (plant and otherwise.) The genus in question, Mycena, has traditionally been made of saprotrophic species feeding on decaying wood.

However, what scientists are observing is Mycena fungi displaying primitive mutualistic behaviors, specifically providing living plants with nitrogen and getting carbon in return from a living partner, or getting to chow down on the plant's remains once deceased. This shows a significant level of adaptability that hasn't been observed in fungi beforehand, though given how much we don't know about fungi there's a good possibility this isn't an unprecedented event.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that we're seeing this in Mycena. These fungi are especially opportunistic; in fact, that mushroom growing out of a frog's skin that we saw a while back was also a Mycena species. Perhaps we need to add bonnet mushrooms to raccoons, dandelions, and other hardy generalists as symbols of scrappy survival in spite of environmental pressures.

[grandgardenerinfluencer]

[53v3nfrn5]

Locals gather around lava from a volcano eruption near the city of Reykjavik, Iceland (2021) Photo: Brian Emfinger

[mcromwell]

A longer video featuring @echomary answering my questions about how UV stuff works! And you can watch me color with an absurdly fun colored pencil.

[neat-deadandlive-things]

On a scale of "Lables on the algal cultures in my labs collection", how are y'all doing today?

[theofficialastronomy101]

Clearest photo of Pluto ever taken

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 6164, Dragon's Egg

[apsciencebydan]

Strange little star-fruit of a jagged ambush bug

👀

[amnhnyc]

By studying calcifying organisms, Leanne aims to better understand the impacts of human activity on marine ecosystems. Through her research, she hopes to influence policy that helps protect marine calcifiers in the future.

“Why is this important? The idea is that the more porous the shell, the weaker it is. Mussels need strong, robust shells to protect their inner soft organs—and that strong 3D structure is important for ecosystem function as habitat formers and storm defenses.

Currently, the changes seen in shell porosity are not large enough to influence the material properties, so we aren’t seeing weaker shells just yet. But with further warming in our oceans being predicted, this could potentially lead to even more porous shells, potentially impacting mussels’ function as habitat formers and storm defenses, as well as their ability to protect themselves from predation,” Melbourne explains.

Learn more about her research here.

[obaewankenope]

so idk if any of ya'll knew but apparently Voyager 1 has been out of contact with nasa for the past five months and contact has only just been reestablished! it takes 22.5 hours to send messages to Voyager 1 and another 22.5 to receive messages back. this little machine has been telling us about instellar space (space between systems) for years now and a chip responsible for sending the data packages stopped working so nasa scientists figured a work around that actually managed to work and now, now little Voyager 1 is going to be able to talk to us again.

like i'm so genuinely happy about this and like we really are the generation that fell in love with little robot explorers aren't we