An enormous barrel jellyfish (Rhizostoma pulmo) was found off the southwestern tip of England by a pair of divers who happened to cross paths with it. The barrel jellyfish is a rarely seen species that can grow into the size of a full-grown human. Fortunately, they filmed the whole encounter for all of us to see.

The divers — biologist Lizzie Daly and underwater cinematographer Dan Abbott — shared the encounter in a Facebook video posted Saturday (July 13) as part of the Wild Ocean Week campaign — a series of videos showcasing the oddities of the deep to help raise money for the United Kingdom's Marine Conservation Society.

Daly and Abbott were diving off the coast of Cornwall, U.K., when they saw the giant jelly emerge from the murky water. Also called the dustbin-lid jellyfish, the species is characterized by eight puffy arms capped by stinging tentacles and a large, globular head that lends the creature its unglamorous nickname. Barrel jellyfish sometimes wash up on the shore, Daly told Vice, but it's rare for a diver to swim face-to-faceless-head with one of the massive blobs.

(Image Credit: Lizzie Daly Wildlife/ Facebook)

Social media and television time has been linked with depression. (I guess this statement would not surprise us anymore, as we have seen a lot of research about this for a while now.) However, there is a new research that suggests that not all types of screen time give depression.

Researchers studied 3,826 adolescents entering seventh grade, almost evenly split between boys and girls, over the course of four years in the greater Montreal area. The study, led by Patricia Conrod at Université de Montréal and published in JAMA, looked at how self-reports of depressive behavior correlated with using four types of screens: computer, social media, television, and video games.

Can you guess which of the four does not necessarily give depression? You might be surprised at what the researchers found.

...what’s surprising about the study is that it isolates video games as the one form of screen time that is neutral in its effects on teen depression. That could be because video games often don’t depict teens or people, Conrod said. Social media and television, on the other hand, may be associated with drops in self-esteem because of what Conrod called “images of idealized lives,” which lead kids to compare themselves with the glossy, filtered, unrealistic images they’re shown.

Know more about the findings over at Technology Review.

(Image Credit: Pexels/ Pixabay)

Cephalopods such as squids and octopuses still amaze scientists up to this day because of their sophisticated eyes “that rely on a lens to focus light provide them excellent vision”. The complexity that resulted from their independent evolution have baffled biologists for centuries. Hence, biologists resolved to understand how this phenomenon happened.

Evolutionary developmental biologists have now discovered that the genes that guide the initial formation of legs in us and other vertebrates also guide the formation of the squid’s lens (seen in cross section of eye above). The find is yet another example of how nature recruits genes used for one purpose to do another job for the body.

The squid lens forms as extra-long membranes jutting out for specialized eye cells overlap to form a tight ball. Our lenses are actually degraded cells themselves packed with a clear protein. To learn how the squid lenses form, these researchers carefully tracked where, when, and which genes turn on and off as embryos of Doryteuthis pealeii, a squid commonly served as fried appetizers, develop.

The researchers were shocked to find out that the gene regulatory network for growing limbs were at work in a developing eye. But when they proceeded to add a chemical called WNT (a chemical that naturally prevents this network in many organisms), the lens stopped forming. This confirmed that this limb network is also a lens network.

(Image Credit: Koenig Lab)

One of the hallmarks of human evolution is extended parenting. A new research recently published reveals the parenting habits of one of our earliest ancestors that have gone extinct.

By analyzing teeth over 2 million years old from Australopithecus africanus fossils found in South Africa, researchers have found out that mothers breastfed infants continuously from birth to about one year of age.

Nursing appears to continue in a cyclical pattern in the early years for infants; seasonal changes and food shortages caused the mother to supplement gathered foods with breastmilk. An international research team led by Dr. Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University, and by Dr. Luca Fiorenza and Dr. Justin W. Adams from Monash University, published the details of their research into the species in Nature today.

"For the first time, we gained new insight into the way our ancestors raised their young, and how mothers had to supplement solid food intake with breastmilk when resources were scarce," said geochemist Dr. Joannes-Boyau from the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) at Southern Cross University.

[...]

For decades there has been speculation about how early ancestors raised their offspring. With this study, the research team has opened a new window into our enigmatic evolutionary history.

Know more about this research on PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: Jose Garcia and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University)

The 74th season of Austria’s Bregenz Festival will begin on July 17. The Bregenz Festival is a performing arts festival that celebrates opera for a whole month.

As in past summers, more than 200,000 people will descend on Bregenz, a lakeside city with about 29,500 people at the base of Pfänder mountain. Various performances—this season includes two versions of Don Quixote (one opera and one musical theater), a musical theater performance of François Sarhan's Wunderwandelwelt, Arthur Schnitzler's play La Ronde (which will also be performed as a concert), Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and a series of performances called Musik & Poesie—take place in three different locations, and as is tradition, the prize show is performed nightly on a massive stage floating on Lake Constance, a nearly 40-mile-long lake at the foot of the Alps.

The set for this year’s lakeside show, however, is quite different than previous sets. This year would feature Rigoletto, a tragic opera about a disfigured jester trying to protect his daughter from a lecherous duke. But what makes this set different? Almost every single part of this stage moves.

“The challenge was really to invent something that’s not been seen here,” says this year’s stage director and designer, Philipp Stölzl. “That was a bit of a process; we threw our first idea into the trash can at some point and started again from scratch. We finally ended with a design that offers a lot of movement and transformation, which is really a fresh approach for Bregenz. Most of the previous productions have been rather static, more like sculptures.”

...the set for Rigoletto takes design to the extreme, with a 45-foot-tall jester's head flanked by two hands, one holding a balloon. Every part of the set moves except for the hand holding the balloon. To hold up the massive weight of the head (nearly 40 tons on its own, and hitting abut 150 tons with the machinery attached to make it move), the stage is built on 119 wood and steel piles driven almost 20 feet into the lakebed. The hand on the left, powered by a hydraulic swivel, moves like a human hand and opens to about 37 feet tall. The frill around the jester's neck appears to ruffle in the wind. Speakers for the show are incorporated into the set: five in the head and two in the index finger of the right hand.

More details about this story over at Smithsonian.com.

(Video Credit: VOL.AT - Vorarlberg Online)

Some people have an instant connection with animals the moment they meet. But if there’s something we can agree upon, it would be the way kids connect with these animals. For some reason, they bond with animals in a very special way. The question is: why do kids love animals so much?

The Dodo tried to find some answers with regards to this question, and they found three reasons why. Here is one of them.

Being a little kid is fun, but it can be frustrating, too — you’re still learning words, and sometimes it’s very hard to communicate (leading to tantrums and screaming).

When she first became a parent, Barbara J. King — a professor who’s spent years studying animal emotions — saw firsthand how animals can help kids connect to the world. Her daughter, Sarah, is 25 years old, but as a toddler she was very headstrong and determined. That intensity led to tears and confusion, King said, when Sarah would realize she was too little to do what she wanted or say what she needed to say. 

But Sarah had a very special relationship with Swirl, the family’s beloved gray and white cat — and Swirl worked wonders in helping Sarah understand the big world around her. “[H]aving Swirl nearby helped Sarah moderate her moods,” King writes. “Being with a nonverbal (meowing!) creature may induce in a child a watchfulness, an ability to pick up on body-language cues, and a growing recognition that we human beings have a responsibility beyond just ourselves.”

See the rest on their website.

(Image Credit: filinecek/ Pixabay)

A few weeks ago, an unsuspecting plumber, as he worked on converting the old Centralia High School building into a new space for the City Hope Church, found some wallets stashed in an air duct in what was a women’s restroom. He pulled these wallets out of the bathroom wall as he tore it down for remodeling.

Seth Baltzell, City Hope’s pastor, says the plumber found him in another part of the building and approached him with a cardboard box containing the wallets. It “took me a second to figure out what in the world he was saying,” says Baltzell, who had been hoping that the demolition work might turn up some historical surprises like these.

But why would the wallets turn up hidden in a women’s bathroom wall? As it turns out, these wallets were most likely stolen, and somebody hid them there.

It’s probably not possible to know what happened with total certainty, but the “best we could tell” is that a thief was trying to “ditch the evidence” of the crimes, says Baltzell. In the clearest sign of sticky fingers at work, none of the wallets contained any paper currency when they were found, though they still hold a trove of precious personal effects. Then there’s the apparent fastidiousness with which the wallets were hidden: behind brass sheets insulating the duct within the wall, according to Baltzell. Surely they were being secreted.

In an attempt to return these wallets to their rightful owners, the pastor posted photos of the wallets on Facebook.

Find out what happened next on Atlas Obscura.

(Image Credit: Seth Baltzell)

Messaging apps like Telegram are Facebook-owned WhatsApp are difficult to tamper with as they use end-to-end encryption. But once there is content downloaded to your Android phone, the apps become vulnerable to eavesdropping and malicious changes if there is malware on the phone.

WhatsApp by default stores downloaded attachments, like images and audio clips, in what Android calls “external storage,” where it’s accessible by other apps with the right permissions, according to Symantec. Telegram will also do so if you enable a “Save to Gallery” option in the app, Symantec reports.

That means that other apps can read and modify those attachments, potentially even before you see them in the messaging tool or open them in another app. As Symantec points out, that could let malicious apps alter images or audio messages you receive or even, say, edit payment information in invoices to steal money.

Thankfully, there is a way to avoid the danger of having your files altered. Know more about this on Fast Company.

(Image Credit: LoboStudioHamburg/ Pixabay)

For her Adidas collection, fashion designer Stella McCartney has unveiled two prototype products that recycles old clothing into new ones. In an attempt to address waste in the fashion industry, McCartney and Adidas partnered with textile innovations company Evrnu to create the biodegradable dress and the world’s first fully recyclable hoodie.

The ‘Infinite Hoodie,’ is made using 60 percent nucycl fibre, a material created from the threads of old garments. the process breaks down the cotton to its original polymer, which is extracted to become liquid pulp before being processed using a 3D-printer-like machine to create a new yarn.

[...]

The second product adidas by Stella Mccartney has debuted is a prototype ‘biofabric tennis dress,’ created in partnership with bolt threads. the company specialises in bioengineered sustainable materials and fibres, and has developed the tennis dress using a cellulose blended yarn and microsilk, a protein-based material that is made with renewable ingredients, like water, sugar, and yeast.

‘Fashion is one of the most harmful industries to the environment,’ said Stella McCartney in a statement. ‘We can’t wait any longer to search for answers and alternatives. By creating a truly open approach to solving the problem of textile waste, we can help empower the industry at large to bring more sustainable practices into reality. With adidas by stella mccartney we’re creating high performance products that also safeguard the future of the planet.’

Is this the future of clothing? I sure hope this will be.

(Image Credit: Adidas / Stella McCartney)

Digestion starts in the mouth, and not in our digestive system. This is why we need to chew our food well. If we don’t, then we put unnecessary burden to our stomach, and we put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation.

Saliva contains amylase, the enzyme that helps to chemically break down food. There is also mechanical digestion, the physical action of breaking down food. If food does not stay in the mouth long enough, it is not exposed to amylase to break down the carbohydrates – there is very little carbohydrate digestion in the stomach, and if food gets there without being properly digested, the stomach has to work harder. There are also some things the stomach cannot digest. If bits of food enter the top of your small intestine still quite whole, it can lead to bloating and discomfort.

So before you swallow your food, make sure that it is chewed well. And take your time as you eat.

(Image Credit: congerdesign/ Pixabay)

When hunting insects, a praying mantis depends on precision targeting. Thankfully, this insect has the ability to see in 3-D, which makes their deadly surgical strikes accurate. (They are the only insect known for being able to see in 3-D). But how do they see in this way? This is what scientists investigated, and they were able to identify nerve cells that help a praying mantis in calculating depth perception.

In the new study, neuroscientist Ronny Rosner of Newcastle University in England and colleagues used a tiny theater that played praying mantises’ favorite films — moving disks that mimic bugs. The disks appeared in three dimensions because the insects’ eyes were covered with different colored filters, creating minuscule 3-D glasses.

As a praying mantis watched the films, electrodes monitored the behavior of individual nerve cells in the optic lobe, a brain structure responsible for many aspects of vision. There, researchers found four types of nerve cells that seem to help merge the two different views from each eye into a complete 3-D picture, a skill that human vision cells use to sense depth, too.

The team stated that their research findings suggest that a praying mantis’s vision is more sophisticated than what some scientists thought.

Amazing!

(Image Credit: Newcastle Univ., U.K)

You’ve heard of the saying “great things come in small packages.” Well, it looks like this saying proves itself once again through these tiny worms.

Thought to be silent creatures, scientists were astonished by the sound these little polychaete worms made, with the sound going up to 157 decibels (which is more intense than a jet taking off). Sounds around 130 decibels already are painful and damaging to the ears.

While this creature already has an ear-damaging sound, the snapping shrimp can do better with their 189 decibel snap which they use to stun prey (this is a noise capable of breaking glass, by the way).

If the shrimp uses their loud sound to stun prey, what do the worms use their sound for?

Find out on Science Alert.

(Video Credit: Science Magazine/ YouTube)

A new research led by Queen Mary University of London confirmed that salt intake in China is among the highest in the world, with the adults consistently consuming up to 10g of salt a day, which is more than double the recommended limit.

The systematic review and meta-analysis, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, also found that Chinese children aged 3-6 are eating the maximum amount of salt recommended by the World Health Organization for adults (5g a day) while older children eat almost 9g/day.

Excess salt intake raises blood pressure, a major cause of strokes and heart disease, which accounts for approximately 40 per cent of deaths in the Chinese population.

[...]

The trends found in this latest study partially contradict those of earlier studies which found large declines of salt intake across the whole of China. The researchers say these latest results are far more robust than the previous estimates which have relied on surveys of people's dietary habits. The team instead determined salt intake exclusively with the use of data from urine samples taken over a 24 hour period.

I can’t imagine how much their love for salt is if they consume that amount consistently.

(Image Credit: onefox/ Pixabay)

Collective punishment is when a group of people, in this case, a group of students (can be a class, or the whole grade), is punished for the actions of a few. Usually this is done by teachers to promote a stronger sense of cohesion in the class.

The idea is that by the whole group taking responsibility for each individual’s actions, the group will be brought closer together.

This is a common strategy in sports and the military. In a classroom situation, the theory is that the whole class may bond and will accordingly act more responsibly in the future.

However, this type of punishment does more harm than good. It is unlikely to improve a child’s behavior. It only makes kids hate school.

While we might see initial compliance from collective punishment, there are two main reasons why this strategy should be dropped. First, it’s morally questionable and second, it’s unlikely to produce more positive behaviour in the long run.

The idea [that] a group should be responsible for the actions of an individual is fundamentally at odds with the theories of individual responsibility in western, liberal societies. Legally and morally, each individual has ownership for their own actions and must bear the consequences of those actions individually.

On a more basic level, it is not fair or reasonable to punish one child for the actions of another. Both of these moral concerns would not be acceptable in wider society, so why would they be acceptable in a school environment?

Know more about this topic over at The Conversation.

(Image Credit: klimkin/ Pixabay)

“By 2050, it is expected that our global population will be close to 10 billion people,” says Thomas King, CEO of Food Frontier. “We literally can’t feed the world using the methods that we’re using,'' he continues.

“There is a public opinion being raised against a lot of farming practices. That’s a good thing,” states Mark Post, a professor of physiology. “But those changes in practices will lead to more expensive meats. That’s where solutions like cultured meat come in, and offer [the] best of both worlds.”

You see, we need a large amount of crops to feed the animals. According to Post, for each kilo of cow, we need 8 kilos of crops. For each kilo of chicken, around 2.5 kilos. For each kilo of pig, somewhere in between. They also use 30% of the freshwater. In other words, before we get to eat their meat, we have to take care of them for a very long time. This is why scientists push for cultured meat, which they believe would be very much cheaper.

“This technology is extremely promising,” states Post. “If we really can reduce the amount of land we need for agriculture by 90%, freshwater by 90%, energy by about 60%, and probably elimination of 20% contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. This technology is going to change the world.”

Know more about this by reading the article and watching the video over at Nautil.us.

(Image Credit: Robert-Owen-Wahl/ Pixabay)