Hello, friends!

I’m made by the coordinated action of thousands, though I sound like a North American greeting. What am I?

Answer in a moment, but first…

1. Scientists found sugar in interstellar space. A team of researchers led by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra sniffed out the molecular signature of the erythrulose, a sugar that’s found in raspberries. “It opens the possibility for life to develop on other worlds in a similar fashion to what it did in on Earth,” says Jiménez-Serra.

+ Raspberry sugar? Was this development predicted by The Gobsmacking Galaxy, my favourite book when I was 9?

2. Oats began as a weed that grew alongside wheat. The then-weed got so good at mimicking the wheat it grew alongside – yep, weeds mimic “useful” plants to avoid being pulled – that it became a crop itself.

+ This slime mould designs the Tokyo railway system in pursuit of oats. (Video)

3. AI has given rise to a third type of thinking, beyond fast and slow, called “cognitive surrender”. This is where we stop thinking completely and let AI take the wheel.

+ As we automate more critical systems (including nuclear power plants), and hand more tasks over to robots (including surgery), we must account for these quirks in human psychology.

4. An optical illusion renders this font invisible to AI.

+ What colour is this dot?

5. Christopher Nolan cast a Viking longship in The Odyssey. “We needed something wooden-hulled, built with ancient technology that could be out there in open ocean water, in giant swells… And the Draken has crossed the Atlantic,” Nolan told the Los Angeles Times. The Draken is made of overlapping oak planks sealed with tar.

+ Research suggests that Vikings could take their long trips (odysseys?) around Europe because they’d worked out how to make tar on an industrial scale.

Science talks and lectures from Monday 20 July to Sunday 26 July.

(All times are BST.)

Mineral and earth pigments in art and architecture, with Dr Ruth Siddall, Geological Society, Tuesday 21 July, 18.00, free #geology #materials

Discoveries at the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, with Michele Dougherty, Royal Institution, Friday 24 July, 19.20, pay what you can (minimum £5) #astronomy

This week, let’s just watch Sam Neill being lovely as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park for two and a half minutes 🥲.

Did you get it? The answer to the riddle is: a Mexican wave.

Thanks for coming, and see you next week! x

PS: Say hello to these two baby capybaras, Longleat’s newest arrivals.

PPS: Jude Bellingham’s grandad, William Bellingham, on a 1987 episode of Mastermind. Specialist subject: History of Nigeria 1900-1966.