sloth unleashed

"Exploded" view of a computer model of the Antikythera mechanism, showing how it might have worked.

The ooze produced by C. explodens is booger yellow and has a spicy smell. (Scientists called the species “yellow goo” until 2018, when it received its much more respectable, and intimidating, scientific name.) While the gunk doesn’t appear to be especially poisonous, it is extra-sticky and stops opponents in their tracks like an on-demand liquid fly trap. It’s also antimicrobial, suggesting that the ants might have used it for keeping their nests clean before this deadlier function evolved.

In order to maximize impact, these mini bug bombs will strategically set themselves off after glomming onto an opponent’s leg or head. For a few ambitious ants observed by researchers, this meant gluing themselves to grasshoppers an estimated 20 times their size.

Their blood equivalent, hemolymph, forms a viscoelastic fluid that covers wounds.

A major attraction of Dorset, England, is the Cerne Abbas Giant, a 180-foot-tall figure of a naked man wielding a large club carved with chalk into a hilltop. A pair of historians offers a strong case that this figure was originally meant to represent Hercules from Greek mythology, perhaps to inspire West Saxon armies, who could have used the site as a muster station. They outlined their arguments in a recent paper published in the journal Speculum. The authors also found a possible early reference to the giant in texts dating back to the mid-11th and early 12th centuries, a period in which the carving may have been reinterpreted as representing Saint Eadwold of Cerne.

“It’s become clear that the Cerne giant is just the most visible of a whole cluster of early medieval features in the landscape,” said co-author Helen Gittos, an early medieval historian at the University of Oxford, told The Guardian. “I think we’ve found a compelling narrative that fits the giant into the local landscape and history better than ever before, changing him from an isolated mystery to an active participant in the local community and culture.”

As reported previously, the Cerne Abbas Giant's generously sized erect phallus has earned it the nickname "Rude Man," which undoubtedly contributes to its popularity as a tourist attraction. Archaeologists have long speculated about exactly when and why the geoglyph was created.

Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) nod off more than 10,000 times a day for an average of 4 seconds at a time, researchers have found. The short snoozes, which add up to more than 11 hours of daily sleep, seem to be enough to fulfil at least some of the restorative functions of sleep, according to a study published today in Science1.

Both of the superconductivity papers Ranga Dias published in Nature are now gone.

1. Second place: a matchstick igniting by the friction surface of a matchbox.
2. Sunflower pollen on an acupuncture needle.

The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you accept Nature as She is—absurd.

Spotted skunks perform impressive handstands to appear twice their size and ward off would-be predators. ROBERT YONE

For the bazillionth time, vaccines do not cause autism—and dog autism is not a thing.

A robotic landing craft from India successfully touched down in the southern polar region of the Moon on Wednesday, making the rising space power the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.

The Vikram lander from India's Chandrayaan 3 mission landed at approximately 8:33 am EDT (12:33 UTC) after a nail-biting final descent broadcast to the world by India's space agency.