Aha! moments, bear dentistry, and a stuck Mars rover

Hello, friends!

Dear readers, have any of you watched Season 2 of The Devil’s Plan on Netflix? You know, the one where 14 really smart people get together for seven days to play strategy games (as well as many, many mind games)? Because I have thoughts and need to talk to someone about it. (Also, the snacks look incredible.)

Anyway! Coming up:

🦷 the biggest dental crown you’ve ever seen… on a bear

📹 what you can discover watching the world one attosecond at a time

😴 whether women sleep better with a dog or a cat in the bed.

Let’s go!

read all about it

People with sexual synaesthesia see splashes of colour at the moment of orgasm: “Some people describe their colours as ‘like stained glass in a cathedral,’ while for others, they’re more like ‘artisanal soaps’ or ‘paint being hurled at a canvas’,” Kate Evans explains. (Scientific American)

‘Aha! moments’ help you remember what you learn: “If you have an ‘aha! moment’ while learning something, it almost doubles your memory,” says Roberto Cabeza, psychology professor and author of the study. “There are few memory effects that are as powerful as this.” (Futurity)

Watching the world one billionth of a billionth of a second at a time: “When you can watch molecules and reactions in attosecond time frames, ‘there’s this vast other space that is open to you,’ says Stephen Leone, a physical scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. … With short enough pulses, he says, you can begin to observe the very movements of electrons that underlie the breaking of a chemical bond.” (Knowable Magazine)

📷 360kg Alaskan brown bear Tundra gets a new dental crown – possibly the largest ever created. “He’s got a little glint in his smile now,” says zoo marketing manager Caroline Routley. (AP)

🎥 See the video of Tundra’s dental appointment. (AP)

that time when…

…Mars rover Sojourner starts exploring the red planet, after getting stuck (6 July 1997)

After touching down on Mars two days before, the microwave oven-sized rover was finally freed from its companion lander, Pathfinder, on 6 July 1997.

A partially deflated airbag had blocked its way, while the on-board computers on the lander and rover weren’t talking to each other. Imagine it: millions of miles travelled to reach Mars’s surface, only to get stuck on the off ramp. Zoinks.

Though according to the BBC, after a late-night breakthrough, flight director Chris Salvo could announce to a 70-strong team at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “Six wheels on the ground.”

Sojourner went on to spend 83 days studying Mars, lasting far beyond its planned seven-day mission, where it took pictures and other measurements, squeezing as much science as it could out of its 330-foot journey on the Martian surface.

what’s happening this week?

Your agenda for Monday 30 June – Sunday 6 July.

All times are BST, and all sky views are from London.

look around you

🔭 in a sky near you: At about 10pm on Thursday (3 July), look southwest where the Moon will be making a close pass of the blue-hued Spica, Virgo’s brightest star.

Although Spica appears to be one star, it’s actually a binary system comprising two stars, about 18 million km apart, orbiting each other every four days. (For a feel for how ‘close’ that is, consider we’re 150 million km away from our Sun.)

👀 closer to Earth: Yellow wagtails have been arriving in the UK from Africa since April, breeding mostly in the southern and western parts of the country. They’ll be nesting in wetlands, though you might see them trotting around, foraging for insects in meadows, farmland and marshes.

online talks and events

It’s the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition this week, so there’s a bumper crop of talks and lectures to get into. 🤓

Tuesday 1 July

Unveiling a universe full of black holes, with Professor Manda Banerji, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Tuesday 1 July, 18.15, free

Ingredients for life in space, with Professor Sara Russell and Dr Ashley King, hybrid event by the Natural History Museum, Tuesday 1 July, 18.30, from £5

AI is only responsible when it is democratic, with Dr Chandrima Ganguly, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Tuesday 1 July, 19.00, free

Inside the ideological brain, with Dr Leor Zmigrod, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Tuesday 1 July, 19.45, free

How do plants know when to grow up?, with Dr Jim Fouracre, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Tuesday 1 July, 20.30, free

Demystifying palm oil: what are the effects that it is having on our environment?, with Charlie Osbourne, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Tuesday 1 July, 21.15, free

Wednesday 2 July

Why do some people struggle with maths?, with Dr Kinga Morysani, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Wednesday 2 July, 10.15 and 15.00, free

Brain surgery without scalpels, with Dr Tom Gilbertson and Dr Isla Barnard, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Wednesday 2 July, 11.00, free

The energy makeover – science, sustainability, and you, with Professor Magda Titirici, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Wednesday 2 July, 12.00, free

How to make a woodland, with Dr Robin Hayward, online event by the Linnean Society, Wednesday 2 July, 12.30, free

Smart surgical gloves – precision at your fingertips, with Professor Manish Tiwari, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Wednesday 2 July, 13.00, free

The PhotoSYNTH and accessible music making, with Zen Olenski and Tim Yates, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Wednesday 2 July, 14.00, free

Thursday 3 July

Fighting superbugs with tiny warriors, with Dr Franklin Nobrega, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Thursday 3 July, 12.00, free

The future of plastics, with Dr Iman Mohagheghian, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Thursday 3 July, 13.00, free

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory – big data and transformational science, with Chris Pearson, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Thursday 3 July, 14.00, free

Pollution detectives – Daphnia at work, with Dr Katie Reilly, hybrid event at the Royal Society, Thursday 3 July, 15.00, free

Friday 4 July

Seeing the unseen – from quantum mysteries to quantum microscopes, with Dr Emma Pearce and Toby Severs, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 11.00, free

Bioplastics from the deep – how seaweed is reshaping packaging, with Luke Barnett, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 12.00, free

Seismic sense – from spiders to elephants, with Dr Alice Morrell, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 13.00, free

The future of weight management to improve health, with Professor Tricia Tan and Professor Jonathan Valabhji, online event by Imperial College London, Friday 4 July, 13.00, free

Quantum: for you, with you, with Dr Yashna Lekhai, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 14.00, free

NanoGlow – lighting up a sustainable future, with Dr Anastasiia Zaleska, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 15.00, free

Art, science, and ‘X-ray vision’, with Hugh Turvey, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 16.00, free

Digital voices – technology for an inclusive world, screening and Q&A with Justin Edgar and Keron Day, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 16.30, free

Bringing the dead alive, with Dr Erica McAlister, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Friday 4 July, 17.00

Celebrating 200 years of benzene: from whale oil to aromaticity, with Judy Wu, hybrid event by the Royal Institution, Friday 4 July, 19.20, from £5

Saturday 5 July

Bridging games, art and science, with Robin Baumgarten, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 12.00, free

Stolen body parts, entrapment, paralysis – unseen battles in the ocean world, with Dr Aditee Mitra, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 13.00, free

Using generative AI for planning and action in robotics, with Professor Ingmar Posner, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 14.00, free

Springboards and waterslides – how pitcher plants trap insects, with Dr Ulrike Bauer, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 15.00, free

Salty secrets – the search for life on Mars, with Dr Martha Gibson, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 16.00, free

Can origami made of DNA help us kill superbugs?, with Dr Ioanna Mela, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Saturday 5 July, 17.00, free

Sunday 6 July

Digging the dirt on some of the world’s oldest fossils, with Dr Ross Anderson, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 11.00, free

Other worlds, with Dr Amy Bonsor, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 12.00, free

The secret sense of birds, with Dr Carla du Toit, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 13.00, free

Trailblazing scientists – celebrating 80 years of women Fellows, screening by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 14.00, free

Building a digital heart with AI, with Dr Abhirup Banerjee, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 15.00, free

The birth of planets, with Dr Farzana Meru, hybrid event by the Royal Society, Sunday 6 July, 16.00, free

we finally know…

…that women sleep better with dogs than with their partners (or cats).

Source: An examination of adult women’s sleep quality and sleep routines in relations to pet ownership and bedsharing (Anthrozoös, 2018)

we need answers

Last week I asked:

(Hope you don’t mind me getting a bit etymological here.)

The answer is… the last one. The too-short pastry, the éclair, takes its name from the French for lightning, while all the others take their names from thunder: the reindeer is Donner (German for thunder), the dinosaur is the brontosaurus (the Greek brontē means thunder), and the Norse god is Thor (another Germanic word for thunder).

until next week…

Historically coming in black or white, what object, pressurised to about 1.9 bar (27 psi), has since 1972 been most often seen in a colour known as “optic yellow”?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x