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What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast.
The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

The next Weirdest Thing LIVE SHOW is happening on February 8 at Caveat in New York City. Livestream tickets are also available! 

FACT: Soda really does taste different in the air

By Amanda Reed

I love enjoying a free carbonated beverage on a plane. Who doesn’t?

However, my Sky-et Coke doesn’t always hit quite the same when I’m among the clouds. It turns out that there’s an actual, physiological reason for the shift in soda taste we experience while flying.

The combination of low air pressure and cabin dryness dulls taste buds and messes with our odor receptors, leading to a decrease in sweet and salty flavor detection of about 30%. The noisy atmosphere of a plane can impact your sense of taste, too. Airlines are very aware of the phenomenon and have sponsored studies on it. 

But if you’re a ginger ale fan, you’re in luck: It’s one of the few carbonated beverages that’s better 30,000 feet in the air. The dulling of our sweet receptors means it comes across as sharper and more flavorful in the sky. Tomato juice is also a popular plane choice, because umami taste receptors don’t suffer the same problems when we’re airborne. 

FACT: Bear attacks can happen anywhere

By Alex Goldman

Almost exactly 109 years ago, the “Sankebetsu brown bear incident” rocked the small Japanese village of Sankebetsu Rokusen-sawa. 

Sankebetsu is a very small part of Hokkaido, which is the northern island of Japan. And it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. 

On December 9, 1915—during a snowy winter—a bear showed up inside a family’s house and attacked them. That would have been tragic, of course, but the story doesn’t end there—this isn’t referred to as an “incident” for nothing.

The next day the locals put together a big search party—and made a lot of attempts to shoot this bear down. Not only did the bear in question escape, but it showed up again and attacked and killed more people. 

This bear—who was probably hungry and desperate after waking up mid-hibernation—was eventually put down. But while Japan would see a sharp drop in their bear population due to over-hunting in the decades to come, bear attacks are now on the rise again. 

FACT: Orcas are bringing back a wild fashion trend from the ‘80s

By Rachel Feltman

Back in the summer of 1987, a female orca in the Puget Sound made a bold fashion choice: she surfaced with a dead salmon on her nose and proceeded to carry it around. 

That kicked off the now infamous dead fish hat trend. One expert told ABC News it was “the cool thing to do for that entire summer” among a few local orca pods. As of last month, the trend seems to be making a comeback. Find out more about this sick fashion trend on the latest episode of The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week.

The post Yes, ginger ale really does taste better on a plane. Here’s why. appeared first on Popular Science.

We can’t believe it’s already the end of another year and time to start setting goals for the next. Ours? Traveling more and learning the languages of each place we visit—well, at least a little. We know resolutions are easier to set than achieve, so we’re getting Babbel.

Practicing 14 new languages with an app instead of taking classes? We’ll do that any day of the week—literally. Especially when our end-of-year sale drops Babbel lifetime subscriptions from $599 to $129.97. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else!

Make a goal for 2025 and stick with it

It’s the world’s best-selling language-learning app for a reason: It works. Reviewers talk about actually sticking with it, unlike free alternatives, and that’s exactly what we need for our resolution.

Babbel motivates us with notifications and a learning streak that we desperately don’t want to break … hopefully it’ll be 365+ days by the end of 2025. It’s also a relief knowing that each lesson takes 15 minutes at most, and we’ll leave knowing more Spanish, French, or German for our upcoming Europe trip.

The speech practice was an unexpectedly great feature, but we love knowing we won’t make a fool of ourselves while ordering hot chocolate in France or pasta in Italy. 

We’re going to pass the time on the plane ride to Europe by taking Babbel review lessons. How? It turns out the app lets you download content ahead of time—we aren’t paying for in-flight Wi-Fi.

Learn a new language next year with our huge sale on Babbel: $129.97 (reg. $599) for a limited time.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages) – $129.97

See Deal

The post Set a New Year’s resolution to learn a new language with our unbeatable Babbel deal appeared first on Popular Science.

California ground squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi) might look like your run of the mill bushy-tailed rodent. But these squirrels are anything but ordinary. For the first time, they have been observed hunting, killing, and eating other animals–tiny rodents called California voles (Microtus californicus). The predation is described in a study published December 18 in the journal Journal of Ethology and provides the first evidence of carnivorous behavior in this species of squirrels. 

A compilation of California ground squirrels hunting voles in June and July 2024. CREDIT: Sonja Wild, UC Davis.

Most squirrels are omnivores, but are usually seen eating nuts, seeds, and grains. However, some species are known to eat some animal protein. The eastern gray squirrel will supplement its diet with insects, frogs, and bird eggs. But these California ground squirrels appear to have developed a taste for mammal meat. 

The new observations occurred over the summer and were part of the Long-term Behavioral Ecology of California Ground Squirrels Project conducted at Briones Regional Park in Northern California. Out of the 74 observed interactions with voles between June and July 2024, 42 percent involved active hunting by the ground squirrels. 

“Our findings of vole hunting build on reports of infanticide in California ground squirrels, the killing of newly emerged young animals, and isolated events of killing of small prey such as lizards in captivity,” study co-author and University of California, Davis biologist Sonja Wild tells Popular Science. “It is therefore plausible that hunting is innate in these squirrels to an extent. Yet, in our twelve years of conducting observations on hundreds of squirrels we had never observed any incidents of vole hunting before this summer.”

“This was shocking,” study co-author and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire biologist Jennifer E. Smith said in a statement. “We had never seen this behavior before. Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people. We see them right outside our windows; we interact with them regularly. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered-in-science behavior that sheds light on the fact that there’s so much more to learn about the natural history of the world around us.”

Even for seasoned biologists, this observation was quite a surprise. When several undergraduate students came in from the field, they showed the video to study co-author and University of California, Davis biologist Sonja Wild.

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“I could barely believe my eyes,” Wild said in a statement. “From then, we saw that behavior almost every day. Once we started looking, we saw it everywhere.”

Using a combination of direct observations, photos, and videos the team documented California ground squirrels of all ages and sexes hunting, eating, and competing over vole prey between June 10 and July 30, 2024. They noticed that their carnivorous summer behavior peaked during the first two weeks of July. This peak also coincided with a large number of vole sightings in the park reported to the citizen scientist website iNaturalist. The team believes that squirrels’ hunting behavior emerged alongside a temporary increase in the availability of prey. Over the course of the summer, the scientists did not observe the squirrels hunting other mammals.

“The fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and can respond to changes in food availability might help them persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans,” said Wild. 

According to Wild, it also suggests that vole hunting behavior likely emerged in response to the unusual peak in California voles at the team’s field site. This uptick provided easily accessible prey for the squirrels.

Many species are “incredible opportunists,” according to Smith. Raccoons, coyotes, spotted hyenas, and humans are all known to adapt their hunting strategies. For non-human mammals, this flexibility helps them in a landscape that continues to be dominated by humans.

“Through this collaboration and the data coming in, we’re able to document this widespread behavior that we had no idea was going on,” said Smith. “Digital technology can inform the science, but there’s no replacement for going out there and witnessing the behavior because what animals are doing always surprises us.” 

Numerous questions remain unanswered about this pattern. We still do not know quite how widespread hunting behavior is among squirrels, whether and how it is passed down between generations, and how it affects ecological processes and the food web in the area. The team plans to return to the field in summer 2025. The authors are also excited to return to the field next summer to see what impact, if any, this year’s vole hunting may have had on squirrel reproduction compared to the last 10 years.

The post ‘Shocking:’ These squirrels are hunting and eating other rodents appeared first on Popular Science.

If humanity ever makes it to constructing the first permanent buildings on Mars, they will likely need bricks made from Martian regolith—but the construction material may also require blood and other bodily fluids from astronauts themselves.

The explorers tasked with establishing a permanent Martian base will also need to pack strategically. Space will be at a premium aboard the rocket that takes them to Earth’s neighbor, and the mission’s cost and fuel requirements increase in tandem with the amount of cargo. Because of this, the earliest crews will need to rely on the resources around them—which is mostly a lot of rocks and dirt. A millenia-old strategy, however, may help them make the most of other readily available additives.

Ancient Roman concrete is known for its excellent resiliency, strength, and even self-healing properties. But masons often used other key ingredients in the brickmaking: blood and urine. Knowing this, a research team from Iran’s Kharazmi University recently mixed and tested multiple potential building materials using various combinations of sediment found on Mars, as well as other easily obtainable components.

[Related: Inside the project to bring ‘self-healing’ Roman concrete to American shorelines.]

“Ancient Romans utilized organic additives, including animal blood, primarily to improve the durability and workability of their mortar,” they wrote in a subsequent study published in the journal, Acta Astronautica. “Although it is a bit strange, blood can be utilized to create strong concrete or bricks for onsite construction on Mars.”

Depending on the region of the planet, Martian soil contains the right chemical composition for multiple types of concrete. After compiling geological data collected by past Mars landers and orbiters, the team identified 11 potential concrete options for future astronauts. These included geopolymer and magnesium silica mixtures. They then created simulated building material samples using a 3D printer, stress tested them, and recorded the results.

According to the team, a sulfur-based concrete will likely be the most reliable initial material for buildings on Mars. But researchers also suggest that another, more outlandish contender could be AstroCrete, a modern form of Roman concrete that contains additional, human-sourced ingredients.

“The production process is simple. Aggregates (Martian regolith) bind together through contact with human serum albumin (HAS), a protein found in blood plasma,” they write.

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The team theorizes that a single astronaut could produce enough HAS to make the amount of AstroCrete necessary to construct a single-occupancy dwelling in about 72 weeks. To increase the AstroCrete’s compressive strength and plasticity while also lowering its brittleness, the study authors offer another possible additive—urea extracted from sweat, tears, and urine. An additional major benefit of AstroCrete is that it requires no water to mix, which is especially useful given the planet’s almost entirely arid conditions.

Researchers stressed that mission engineers and astronauts will need to consider much more than just sulfur-based concrete or AstroCrete when planning a base on Mars. Numerous other challenges, such as the planet’s exposure to ultraviolet radiation, deadly climate, low gravity, and lack of water may all prevent humans from permanently living there. Success, the authors explain, therefore “hinges upon the development of low-cost and practical solutions,” including “onsite construction utilizing in-situ resources emerges as the most promising approach.” Resources that may include the blood, sweat, and tears of the first Martian visitors.

The post Researchers propose building homes on Mars with human blood appeared first on Popular Science.

The reports of mystery drones above New Jersey began on November 18th. It didn’t take long for other residents across multiple states to claim seeing similar events. The Department of Homeland Security, FBI, FAA and the Department of Defense have since received more than 5,000 drone sighting reports over the last few weeks alone. But according to them, only about two percent of the events potentially warrant further investigation. And although not mentioned in their December 16th joint statement, the sightings definitely have nothing to do with a conspiracy theory called Project Blue Beam that has reemerged online.

According to Monday’s press release, expert analysis of the “technical data and tips from concerned citizens” already resulted in attributing the vast majority of sightings to “lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.” Authorities added they have not yet identified “anything anomalous,” and they do not believe the events are national or public safety risks.

The recent wave of supposedly unidentified uncrewed aerial vehicles began last  after New Jersey residents reported multiple drones flying over the state. Similar sightings have now been documented nearly every evening across New York, Ohio, and elsewhere, prompting bipartisan calls for immediate investigation into the matter. Some state politicians and governors have even claimed the drones may pose a national security threat, while New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew went so far as to contend the machines are controlled by an Iranian “mothership” off the East Coast. (They aren’t.)

Similar in Netcong NJ pic.twitter.com/h78D4U4kj9

— Joanne Cuomo (@JoanneCuomo) December
16, 2024

If history is any guidance, the explanation behind the sudden proliferation of sightings may be something much more mundane. As 404 Media explained on December 12th, a nearly identical situation occurred across Colorado in the winter of 2019-2020. The events were largely chalked up to Starlink satellite constellations, low-flying aircraft, hobbyists, and ironically, remote-piloted devices deployed by law enforcement to investigate the original reports.

“Mass hysteria” aerial sightings date further back than the UFO panic of the 1940s and ‘50s, or even Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast panic in 1938. In the late 19th century, for example, thousands of Americans claimed to have seen a massive “cigar shaped” dirigible floating across the sky in what would eventually be named the “Great Airship Wave” of 1896-1897. Nevermind that the era’s technological abilities prevented anything of that size from existing.

Modernity hasn’t lessened some people’s susceptibility to such influence. If anything, an internet flooded with misinformation from bad actors and uninformed influencers may be making it worse. One prominent rightwing columnist previously fired from Buzzfeed for plagiarism has claimed without evidence the US is secretly using experimental drones to locate a missing nuclear weapon or radioactive waste. Joe Rogan, meanwhile, also recently echoed the theories on his popular podcast.

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And then there’s Project Blue Beam. First publicized in 1994 by Canadian conspiracy theorist Serge Monast, Project Blue Beam falsely asserts that an international cabal is planning to stage a faked extraterrestrial invasion. Once deployed, the villainous New World Order government will use it to help replace the world’s Abrahamic religions with a totalitarian, New Age belief system. A favorite theory of former InfoWars figurehead, Alex Jones, the latest drone sightings prompted at least one prominent Trump ally to revive the baseless conspiracy claim on social media.

It may be comparatively unexciting, but there is no evidence supporting the holiday season’s drone sightings’ link to nuclear cover-ups, staged alien invasions, Iran, or anything else nefarious. If anything, the reports indicate that the public’s ongoing drone fears simply echo a longstanding American tradition of mass panic.

The post Sorry, but the mystery drones are pretty normal (probably) appeared first on Popular Science.

A rescued green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) named Charlotte is getting the gift of better mobility this holiday season. Charlotte is one of many endangered turtles suffering from bubble butt syndrome, a serious injury which has partially paralyzed his back flippers and causes him to swim with his backside up instead of flat. Thanks to a team of volunteers, engineers, and 3D printing experts, the roughly 25 to 30 year-old reptile living at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut is the new recipient of a custom harness to help him regain some functionality and mobility.

What is ‘bubble butt syndrome’?

While the name may sound silly, bubble butt syndrome (or positive buoyancy syndrome) comes with some serious injuries to a turtle’s spine. It is typically caused by a strike from a boat that can lead to irreparable damage in the turtle. NOAA estimates that hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are struck by boats every year. Most rescued sea turtles with bubble butt syndrome cannot be released back into the wild due to their mobility issues.

“For turtles in general, their spine runs directly underneath the shell,” Claire Bolster, an aquarist at the Mystic Aquarium and Charlotte’s current handler, tells Popular Science. “So when turtles are hit by boats, most often the injuries go to their spines because it is directly connected. With the spine getting hit, the nerves to the gastrointestinal system also are impacted. They can also lose function of the rear flippers since those nerves are also damaged.”

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Air then has a higher chance of getting trapped in the gastrointestinal system and causes the turtle to swim in a direction more perpendicular to the seafloor instead of straight ahead. Charlotte’s injury partially paralyzed his rear flippers and he struggles to control his buoyancy while swimming. This is why aquarium visitors will frequently see Charlotte swimming with his head down. 

“You can kind of see where the air is trapped, depending on the day, based on which way his shell is tilted as he’s floating,” says Bolster.

Turtles like Charlotte with positive buoyancy syndrome (also called bubble butt syndrome) have difficulty maintaining their buoyancy when they swim. CREDIT: Mystic Aquarium.

According to Charlotte’s original intake form after he was stranded off the coast of Georgia, he was likely hit by a boat sometime around 2006 or 2007. He arrived at the Mystic Aquarium in 2008 as a juvenile who was not yet mature. It’s difficult to determine the sex of turtles, so the team assumed the still-young Charlotte was a female. As Charlotte has matured, it became apparent that he is male, which is why the team uses he/him pronouns. 

While handlers like Bolster do not want to ascribe human traits to the animals in their care, she would describe Charlotte as “stubborn, but also very curious.”

“He’s definitely very engaged with turtle scratches,” says Boster. “They have so many nerves that run through that top shell and scratching serves as enrichment. He tends to stay put when we are doing that, so we take that as a sign that he’s enjoying it.”

Designing the turtle harness

To try to help Charlotte, there had been some attempts at making him a rehabilitation device or harness. However, Charlotte had some other ideas. 

“The vet staff was joking around calling him ‘Charlotte Houdini’ because of all of the devices they’ve tried over the years,” Nick Gondek, an engineer and principal at 3D printing company Adia, tells Popular Science.

Eventually, the Mystic Aquarium sought the expertise from Adia. The company previously made custom orthotic boots for an African penguin at the aquarium, but had never worked on a project with a turtle. Adia also joined forces with the computational design team at New Balance Athletics. In addition to creating the athletic shoes, New Balance also has experience creating custom designs that can be printed with a widely available 3D printer from Formlabs. 

[ Related: How does 3D printing work? ]

“The problem we’re trying to solve seems pretty simple,” says Gondek. “We have to weigh down the back end of the turtle and do so in a way which has adjustability for this air pocket that’s trapped in the GI tract.”

However, even a problem that sounds simple on a paper needs every bit of expertise it can get. Even if that knowledge comes from a budding scientist in high school. Gabriela Queiroz Miranda had been working on a weighted belt that could be used to help sea turtles with bubble butt syndrome while at Minnetonka High School in Minnesota. Her design even won her the prestigious 2019 Naval Science Award and she was a finalist for the Intel ISEF International Science Fair Award the same year. 

“I am very passionate about creative problem solving and sea life, so I sought to combine the two in creating a solution for buoyancy that was better for the animals in captivity,” Queiroz Miranda, now a ride and safety engineer at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, tells Popular Science.

She was brought onto the team at the start of the project in 2019, where she shared her award-winning design and knowledge with the team from New Balance and Adia. 

“From there, we began setting parameters for Charlotte by identifying her key needs, including her specific shell geometry, buoyancy challenges, and viability of material implementation,” says Queiroz Miranda. “We scanned her shell and used the data to design a harness tailored to her unique requirements.”

Some early solutions lead to infections within the shell, so the team had to come up with a way to attach the weights without causing an infection. It also had to be comfortable, but not super easy for Charlotte to shimmy out of. The end result is the custom harness mechanism that Charlotte is using today. In all, it took five years and several tries to get the design right.

Charlotte seen getting used to swimming in his new weighted harness. CREDIT: Mystic Aquarium.

Charlotte’s new harness is made from Formlabs Nylon 11 CF Powder. This carbon fiber-filled material works when an object needs to be strong and stiff, yet also remain lightweight. 

“Charlotte got like the Ferrari of turtle harnesses when he was fitted,” laughs Godnek. 

The team used the Formlabs Fuse 3D printer, partially because of its track history with printing big things for animals. They were previously used by ZooTampa in Florida to create a prosthetic for a large hornbill. Charlotte currently weighs 138 pounds and he will keep growing, so the harness needed to fit his frame. 

A better quality of life

The team at Mystic has already started seeing positive results from the harness. It is being used as a form of physical therapy, where Charlotte wears it for a few hours every day. As a result, his back flippers are starting to move a bit more and his tail is beginning to straighten out a bit. 

“It is a common thing for an adult male green turtle to have a fully flat tail,” says Bolster. “His is currently curved underneath due to his injury and we’re seeing a little bit more of that tail straightening.”

The harness is also helping Charlotte equalize his buoyancy and no longer sleeps with his butt in the air. Sea turtles generally sleep at the surface of the water or underneath rocks or reefs in the wild. 

“We’re also seeing him able to swim a little bit more neutrally buoyant, which is a very positive sign, because we can see him returning to a typical turtle behavior,” explains Bolster.

The final goal of this project is to help other turtles in need, by bringing this up to scale and creating a way that aquariums and rehabilitation centers can digitally create harnesses for the turtles they bring in. 

“Engineering wise, I think it [this project] was a great reminder about usability,” says Queiroz Miranda. “The users here are sea turtles and veterinarians, so the device has to be easy for the veterinarians–who are not engineers–to adjust as needed, and comfortable to actually improve the quality of life for the sea turtles.”

The post Sea turtle with ‘bubble butt syndrome’ gets a 3D-printed custom harness appeared first on Popular Science.

Have recent gas prices had you pondering how you might be able to cut commute or travel costs? Here’s an idea: swap your car for a bike! Traditional bikes definitely have limitations, but you could go for a greener (in more ways than one) option, like this e-bike that comes with pedal assist.

Meet the SWFT EDGE, an all-terrain e-bike that might be the more practical (and fun!) alternative to driving. You can zip around your neighborhood and potentially avoid bumper-to-bumper traffic when you grab it for $799.99 (reg. $999)—that’s 20 percent off while supplies last. 

Imagine ditching the mind-numbingly bad rush hour traffic and horrible drivers and even reaching your 2025 or current fitness goals with this quick swap—that’s exactly what switching your car for this transportation method could lead to.

Have a longer commute to the office or live somewhere with lots of hills? Use the SWFT EDGE’s throttle to power through without making your legs feel as though they’re on fire. You could get an instant power boost and zoom up to 0mph—and get to your destination quicker. There’s even pedal assist to help you climb hills like Lance Armstrong!

Since there are three pedal assistance levels, choose them depending on your riding conditions. Whether you’re cycling through an unevenly paved street, grass, or pebbly paths, this e-bike can get you to your destination. It’s even the ideal off-road ride, thanks to its high-tread tires, suspension fork, and disc brakes that give its stopping power a boost.

Don’t forget to switch on the mounted LCD headlight so pedestrians, drivers, and other bikers can see you as you whiz by. You can also keep up with your ride stats, which will be shown on the integrated LCD display so you can see how fast you’re going.

Ride this e-bike up to 53 miles before its battery dies. It takes only 4.5 hours to recharge fully, so plug it in when you’re home, and your bike will be ready to get you to the office, grocery store, or gym the next day.

You might just revolutionize your commute—and hit your 2025 movement goal—when you swap your car for the SWFT EDGE all-terrain e-bike with pedal assist, now $799.99 while inventory is still available!

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

SWFT EDGE 350W e-Bike with 44-Mile Range & 20MPH Max Speed

Only $799.99 at Popular Science

The post The secret to saving on gas … and reaching your fitness goals in 2025 appeared first on Popular Science.

You’ve heard the stories: Someone taught themselves to code, built an app, and their life hasn’t been the same. Ever heard of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk? Their success all started with lines of code. Want a chance at the same kind of future?

We put together this beginner’s coding bundle with Microsoft Visual Studio Pro and online courses so you can teach yourself how to code. This could be the New Year’s resolution you’ve been looking for. Get it while it’s on sale for $55.97 (a $1,999 value).

Here’s what you can create

This bundle comes with 15 online coding courses that cover a little of everything. You get lifetime access to them all, so you can take your time watching video tutorials and always refer back to course materials.

Those who want to build websites can learn full-stack development with Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, C++, SQL, and more. Visual Studio Pro allows you to edit running pages, which shows you code changes in real-time.

Are apps more of what you had in mind? We get it—Facebook and Bluesky are all the rage right now, and you could jump on the heat. Take courses on Flutter and Dart to create apps for iOS and Android platforms.

More reasons why Microsoft Visual Studio Pro is an excellent development environment for beginners: you can create apps across multiple platforms and use hot reload capabilities to see code edits without having to reload the app. This saves an incredible amount of time.

Visual Studio also has tons of features, like code autocomplete and autocorrection, to help you spot and prevent errors. Plus, Live Share collaboration features are great if you’re collaborating on projects.

Learn how to code with this $55.97 bundle, only on sale for a limited time (a $1,999 value).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 + The 2024 Premium Learn to Code Certification Bundle – $55.97

See Deal

The post Guide: How to become a self-taught coder appeared first on Popular Science.

Despite not being particularly mammal-looking, the earliest true mammals began to rise about 200 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still roaming Earth. However, the therapsids still had important features seen in mammals today. These include a hole on the sides of the skull for the jaw muscle to attach shows and bones that would eventually evolve into inner ear bones mammals are known for. 

Now, a team of scientists have found a new fossil that is the oldest of its kind and might even be the oldest therapsid ever discovered. This somewhat dog-like sabertoothed predator is described in a study published December 17 in the journal Nature Communications.

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Meet the gorgonopsians

While this new species does not have an official scientific name yet, it is a member of a clade of therapsids called the gorgonopsians.

“Gorgonopsians are more closely related to mammals than they are to any other living animals,” Ken Angielczyk, a study co-author and paleomammaologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, said in a statement. “They don’t have any modern descendents, and while they’re not our direct ancestors, they’re related to species that were our direct ancestors.”

The oldest known gorgonopsians lived roughly 265 million years ago. However, the new fossil is from 270 to 280 million years ago, beating them by five to 10 million years.

[ Related: New fossils of tiny, toothy early mammals could be a major missing link. ]

“It is most likely the oldest gorgonopsian on the planet,” Josep Fortuny, a study co-author and head of the Computational Biomechanics and Evolution of Life History group at the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) in Spain, said in a statement.

The fossils were found in Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea. At the time of the gorgonopsians, Mallorca was not an island at all. It was part of the supercontinent of Pangea. Here, it likely lived alongside ancient herbivorous reptiles that may have been a part of the gorgonopsians’ diet.

Lots of bones

Among the fossil remains found in Spain, the team studied a nearly complete leg. From this appendage and its vertical position, the team believes that it moved more vertically. Unlike reptiles–who move more horizontally–gorgonopsians had their legs positioned more vertically, possibly moved in a way that was intermediate between reptiles and mammals. This was a more efficient way of walking and even running.

“The large number of bone remains is surprising,” Rafel Matamales, a study co-author and curator of Spain’s Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals (MUCBO | MBCN) said in a statement. “We have found everything from fragments of skull, vertebrae, and ribs to a very well-preserved femur. In fact, when we started this excavation, we never thought we would find so many remains of an animal of this type in Mallorca.”

The bones also allowed the team to reconstruct what the animal looked like and determine a little bit about how it may have lived.  

“If you saw this animal walking down the street, it would look a little bit like a medium-sized dog, maybe about the size of a husky, but it wouldn’t be quite right. It didn’t have any fur, and it wouldn’t have had dog-like ears,” says Angielczyk. “But it’s the oldest animal scientists have ever found with long, blade-like canine teeth.” 

From these fierce saber teeth, the team believes that this gorgonopsian species was a top carnivorous predator in its day.

Knowing where we came from 

Since this fossil gorgonopsian predates its closest relatives by roughly tens of millions of years, scientists now have a new understanding of when these mammalian ancestors evolved. This crucial stage in mammal’s evolutionary history can even tell us a bit about where our own species came from. 

“Before the time of dinosaurs, there was an age of ancient mammal relatives. Most of those ancient mammal relatives looked really different from what we think of mammals looking like today,” says Angielczyk. “But they were really diverse and played lots of different ecological roles. The discovery of this new fossil is another piece of the puzzle for how mammals evolved.”

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Allergies are on the rise, however, there’s still a great deal we don’t know about what causes them. A new study published on December 17 in Frontiers on Microbiology investigates how allergic rhinitis and asthma might be affected by our nasal mycobiome—or in less technical terms, the fungi that live in our noses.

Our airways interact constantly with our environment. This makes their immune response a vital defense against disease. We’ve long been aware that the nasal cavity can function as a reservoir for bacteria, and that if pathogenic bacteria establish themselves there, they can spread to other parts of the respiratory tract and cause respiratory illnesses.

However, bacteria aren’t the only things that can take up residence in our nasal cavities. Our noses host multiple species of fungi—and as Luis Delgado, one of the study’s authors, tells Popular Science, “The role of the fungal communities residing in the upper airways in rhinitis and asthma is practically unknown.”

It’s no surprise that fungi live in our noses; every time we breathe in, we inhale startling quantities of fungal spores. How many? “Fungal spores have been calculated to represent more than 50,000 spores per cubic meter of air during specific fungal seasons,” Delgado says. However, most of these spores simply come and go; we breathe them in, and then breathe them out again. As Delgado explains, being exposed to a variety of spores might even be beneficial, as demonstrated by what he calls “the farm effect,” where people who grow up in “natural[ly] microbe-rich and microbe-diverse environments” like farms prove less susceptible to asthma and allergies.

Some of these spores do take up root in our noses, and in their study, Delgado and his team investigated whether there are any differences in the mycobiomes of people who suffer from allergic rhinitis, asthma, or both conditions, and those of people who do not have either condition. Their research found that “seven to ten of the 14 most abundant fungal genera in the nasal cavity differed significantly” between sufferers of these conditions and a control group.

It’s tempting to conclude that the fungi found in people with asthma and/or allergic rhinitis, but not in the control group, might be responsible for these conditions. However, Delgado cautions against drawing such direct conclusions: “Causal relation may not be inferred with our study design and results.” He also notes that “[while] the nasal cavity is a major reservoir for allergenic or opportunistic fungi (i.e. those that may be pathogenic in special circumstances), we should note that local/airways fungal infection and even fungal … sensitization/allergy are the exception, and not the rule, in the clinical presentation of allergic rhinitis and asthma.”

Nevertheless, the study’s results provide tantalizing hints that there is some relationship between the mycobiome and these conditions. It also raises questions about the theory of a “single airway disease,” which suggests that distinctions between allergic rhinitis, asthma, and similar conditions are largely arbitrary, and that all these conditions are manifestations of a combined airway inflammatory disease. This idea was advanced in the early 2000s and remains influential today–most notably, Delgado says, it “forms the basis of ARIA (Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma) guidelines, currently widely used in the diagnostic and combined management of these diseases.”

However, as Delgado explains, several recent papers have challenged this idea, “suggest[ing] that rhinitis alone and rhinitis with comorbid asthma may represent two distinct diseases with different allergen sensitization.” There are several distinct differences between the two conditions and their responses to various treatments—and as it turns out, there are also distinct differences in the mycobiomes of participants suffering from only allergic rhinitis, those with asthma alone, and those with both conditions.

There also appear to be differences in the way the various species of fungi interact in each case. Delgado explains, “Interestingly, it was the group with rhinitis and comorbid asthma that showed a higher and more diverse mycobiome network with multiple positive and negative (competition) interactions among fungal taxa; healthy controls and rhinitis patients showed fewer significant interactions, all of which were positive (the connected microorganisms may benefit from the presence of the each other).”

This hints at an area for future research, especially because, as Delgado points out, “Previous research has shown that changes of the patterns of co-abundance and exclusion can be indicative of underlying disease processes that may be disrupting the ‘healthy’ fungal connectivity and structure networks.” In other words, the differing nature of mycobiomes might be—to some extent, at least—a symptom of these conditions, rather than a cause.

There’s also the question of how the various bacteria and fungi in our nasal cavities might interact: “We did not address bacterial/fungal (micro/mycobiome) interactions in this study,” says Delgado. “[These] are possibly essential in a healthy respiratory microbiome network—or, on the other hand, may have specific positive or negative interactions facilitating airways inflammation and disease expression. Deciphering candidate fungal–bacterial interactions would be an interesting follow-up of our study.”

In truth, the intimidatingly complex interactions of the various denizens of our nasal passages will most likely take years of research to untangle. Nevertheless, this research suggests that to understand exactly why some of us are cursed with noses more susceptible to allergic conditions than others, we’ll have to get familiar with our nasal fungi.

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