New Star Coming, Mars Frost, Elephants Have Names, Twin Tornadoes
Plus: Bicycles vs. Mopeds vs. Cars: Which is Most Efficient?
Welcome back to the Aha! Science weekly newsletter, celebrating science by revealing amazing discoveries and images from our world and beyond and exploring life’s most intriguing, strange and unexpected questions. These featured articles include “friend links” to Aha! stories on Medium so you can read them even if you’re not a Medium member.
Tornadoes Behaving Badly: Mysterious, Ominous New Twists
Scientists are puzzled by the emergence of larger, more concentrated tornado outbreaks, including twin tornadoes and twisters in parts of the country that used to be relatively tornado-free. The writer digs into why, revealing what's known and what remains mysterious.
While Tornado Alley has consistently been susceptible to severe weather, new areas are developing into hotbeds of activity. In recent decades, tornadoes have begun migrating eastward by 400 to 500 miles.
—Kathleen Murphy
Bicycles vs. Mopeds vs. Cars: Which is Most Efficient?
After biking 200 miles from Seattle to Portland, this writer got to wondering how efficient peddling is compared to gas-powered mopeds, motorcyles and cars. The result is a fun and instructive analysis of gas mileage vs. the equivalent food as fuel, and how we all might think about getting around on the daily.
For the bicycle, I rode about 30 miles (48 km) with a fitness tracker. The route was flat and low-traffic on a calm day. I rode alone so there’s no drafting (coasting behind another cyclist can improve efficiency by up to 40%). I’ll equate 29,000 food calories to 1 gallon of gas.
—Matt Traverso
New Star to Create Once-in-a-Lifetime Cosmic Show
Amateur and professional astronomers are on the edge of their seats awaiting the imminent eruption a new star, a nova, that almost anyone in the Northern Hemisphere will have a chance to see. Well, it's not really a new star, and we're not 100% certain it'll blow. Find out why all the excitement, when the event might happen, and how you can prepare to spot the star before it quickly exits the night sky stage.
Dubbed T CrB by fans, the pair of stars last flashed onto the scene in 1946. Since then, they’ve been quietly circling around each other 3,000 light-years away, too dim to spot with the naked eye between eruptions, which occur every 80 years or so.
—Robert Roy Britt
Speaking of which…
Could a Supernova Destroy Earth?
Death via supernova isn’t an imminent threat. But in the grand scheme of cosmic time, it’s just one more way our world could end. This delightful, frightful story digs deep into the important role that exploding stars play in the creation of everything from planets to you and me.
Supernovae play an important role in the evolution of space, responsible for creating natural elements heavier than iron, including important metals like gold, copper, zinc, and nickel. In fact, many of the materials Earth is made of would not exist without these explosions. Supernovae also send shockwaves that trigger the birth of newborn stars in clouds of interstellar gas and dust. They release energy and radiation at levels that are hard to imagine from our human perspective.
—Rebecca Jean T.
Elephants Call Each Other by Name
Across the animal kingdom, vocalizing and recognizing names is thought to be rare. It’s been found in parrots, sperm whales and dolphins, however. Male bottlenose dolphins learn to use and remember the whistled names of both friend and foe. Now the use of distinct names has been discovered in elephants—at a surprisingly elevated intellectual level. Here’s how scientists made the discovery:
By identifying the acoustic signature of various elephant “words,” the researchers would broadcast a word they thought represented a specific elephant’s name. Sure enough, the right elephant would recognize its name and answer back enthusiastically or head over to the researchers. The elephants did not respond to the broadcasted names of other elephants.
—Robert Roy Britt
Why Does Pizza Taste So Good?
Evolution made us naturally drawn to foods that are fatty, sweet, rich and complex. Pizza is all that. And while it might seem like a simple food, the science that goes into making pizza amazing is pretty complex.
Pizza toppings are also packed with a compound called glutamate, which can be found in the tomatoes, cheese, pepperoni and sausage. When glutamate hits our tongues, it tells our brains to get excited — and to crave more of it. This compound actually causes our mouths to water in anticipation of the next bite. Then there are the combinations of ingredients…
—Jeffrey Miller
In addition to this weekly newsletter, I also post cool science news briefs and amazing new images to the Aha! Science Substack site…
12 Straight Months of Record Warm Global Temperatures... Sets a Record
Your Cousin, the Sea Lamprey
From the Aha! archives
Is There a Foolproof Cure for Hiccups?
Does Everyone Fart? How Often?
Out There: Beyond Aha!
Big, fat, flat, 7.3-foot-long strange fish washes ashore in Oregon (NBC News)
4,000-year-old 'Seahenge' was built to 'extend summer’ (Live Science)
Shackleton’s ship found at the bottom of the sea. He died on it in 1922 at age 47. (Royal Canadian Geographical Society)
If you find this newsletter interesting, please support my ongoing efforts at this labor of love by subscribing, and forward it to anyone you think might enjoy a few Aha! moments in their life. Because science is cool.
Cheers,
Rob