The Weird Science Drop #3 🧪 Thursday 8 May 2025
☠ Amazing creature holds secret to immortality 🖥 We're all living on someone's hard drive 🐊 Crocs do cry 🚨 Plus, criminals are done for
Newborn babies living near trees tend to be healthier. New findings show the tall, green plants were associated with three key measures of a newborn’s health: higher birth weight, lower risk of small-for-gestational-age birth, and decreased risk of pre-term birth.
“Sannu!* Welcome to the third slice of The Weird Science Drop. Science is weird, and here’s the proof. This shiny new newsletter will deliver crazy chemistry, bonkers biology, foolish physics and lots more straight to your inbox every week. So please subscribe. You won’t be mad to, even if the stories featured most likely will be!”
Daniel
Weird Science News ✍
☠ Ever wanted a do-over in life? Scientists have found one animal gives death the slip again and again. When this species reaches a ripe old age, it presses reverse on the ageing process, Benjamin Button-style to go back to a younger self before then hitting play to grow up AGAIN - repeating this cycle over and over. The Turritopsis dohrnii, known as the ‘immortal’ jellyfish, might hold the key to human immortality. Read more on Popular Mechanics
💻 We’re all living in a simulation on someone’s hard drive, so says a new theory that explains gravity as the by-product of a computer trying to keep the universe organised and ship-shape. Dr Melvin Vopson, who came up with the idea, noted rather ominously:
“The process is identical to how a digital computer game, virtual reality application, or other advanced simulation would be designed.”
Read more on the University of Portsmouth’s site
🚀 Mount Everest, you ain’t the tallest of them all anymore. The mighty mountain has fallen short (and by some way) after killjoy seismic scientists (seismicists?) came across two huge mountains hiding beneath the Earth’s surface that are more than 100 times taller. Both are found around 1,200 miles deep in the Earth’s mantle, one under Africa and the other under the Pacific Ocean. Read more on Indian Defence Review
📡 Back in the day, there was nothing the old Soviet Union loved doing more than throwing probes at Venus. Earth’s ‘evil twin’ really didn’t love them back, though, as it’s a hellish place that made melted cheese of landers in minutes. The Soviets launched 29 spacecraft towards Venus, ten of which never made it out of Earth orbit. And one of them - Kosmos 482 - is finally due to crash land this week after 53 years. And because the probe was built super-tough to withstand Venusian conditions, people are worried it won’t burn up in the atmosphere and clobber someone on the head instead. Read more on Science Alert
For all their efforts, the Soviets did manage to capture the only ever photos from the surface of Venus…
Weird Animals - crocodiles rock 🐊
Crocodiles once hung out with dinosaurs 200 million years ago and have survived all the big extinction events that have hit our planet since. They can go underwater for hours, live for a month without food, have a limb severed without fear of infection, live in saltwater and freshwater, and eat just about everything.
Here are some other weird facts about our scaly predator pal…
The largest crocodile species is the saltwater crocodile, found from India to northern Australia and Fiji. It can reach 23ft in length and one tonne in weight.
To ‘cry crocodile tears’ is an expression for depicting fake sadness. But crocodiles really do weep. Their eyes can froth and bubble during feeding as air is pushed through the sinuses, mixing with liquid in the animal's tear glands.
Many times crocodiles stay on the river banks mouths wide open. This is a way to cool off, panting like a dog.
Crocodiles can swim at 25mph. On land they can reach 28mph, but luckily for us they get tired very quickly.
Saltwater crocodiles kill an estimated 2,000 people per year.
While they have big teeth, crocs don't chew. They swallow their food which is then broken down in their stomachs thanks to rocks they swallowed earlier.
Some ancient crocodiles lived mainly out of the water and were actually vegetarian.
The king of the crocs was the Sarcosuchus, an ancient beast about 40ft long and weighing eight tonnes - the length of a bus and the weight of a small whale.
Call the robocops 👮♂️
No crime will go unsolved by 2055 - and it’s all thanks to AI says a former cop. Phil Cleary, who went on to found a forensic tech company, says police of tomorrow will deploy smart robots to sweep crime scenes to spot the barest traces of evidence left by the offender. Writing in The European magazine, Cleary said:
“You won’t see men in white suits at crime scenes anymore. No vans, no tape around the perimeter.
“Instead, forensic bots will handle everything. A technician sets up a sleek AI robotic system that starts scanning the scene with laser-like accuracy, identifying, then providing instant DNA and spray pattern analysis.
“They’ll sweep every inch of the scene with microscopic precision, detecting flakes of skin, hairs, fibres, even the barest trace of DNA.
“Nothing will be missed. Even half a fingerprint will be enough as AI will reconstruct the rest using millions of stored data points.”
Bots will also be able to tell the time of death of any victim, countrywide CCTV systems will start scanning for the criminal, with an army of drones sent to pick them up. So there’s no escape!
Photo of the Week 📷
Here are the sharpest, most detailed images yet of young solar systems where planets are just beginning to take shape. The high-res images come courtesy of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. The amazing snapshots provide a rare glimpse into the earliest stages of planet formation in more than a dozen star systems, revealing where planets emerge, how quickly they form and what materials they're made from.
For your eye holes 👀
Infographic Magic 📊
Cool Quote 🗣
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Richard Feynman
Weird Science Factoid 🤯
There are more than 1,800 known species of flea.
Weird Science Fries on the Side 🍟 (aka the best of the rest)
Say goodbye to toilet paper, its replacement has arrived, and it’s much more effective
Curd your enthusiasm: Secrets of oldest book on cheese revealed
Archaeologists unearth lucky penis pendant near Hadrian’s Wall
Study reveals a simple technique to communicate with your cat
Astronomers may have just found the first real clue to Planet Nine!
About The Weird Science Drop 🚀
Science is weird, and here’s the proof. The Weird Science Drop goes where other, more-sensible newsletters fear to tread. Every week, we grab our trusty white lab coat, bunch of bubbling test tubes and world-ending robot prototype to go in search for the overlooked, under-the-radar and, above all else, most madcap science news, views and research.
About me 👴
Daniel Smith is an old experienced journalist who has worked for a host of news publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. A long, long time ago, he fancied himself as an astrophysicist but instead turned out to be the worst scientist since the man who mapped out all those canals on Mars, that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world by pressing the big red button but is safely behind a desk writing this newsletter, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature.
The most-visited links from the last newsletter 👆
The Weird Science Drop edition: 3
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