Newsweek Science

1915 was the last time anyone saw Endurance, the ship that famed explorer Ernest Shackleton took to Antarctica, where he and his crew almost died.

However, next January and February, scientists on a research trip to study the ice in the area where the ship sank are hoping to find it. Finding the ancient, broken wreck will require new technology, century-old notes and a lot of luck.

When there’s no real estate in the safe part of town, you might just have to try to make it in the dangerous part. This philosophy is not lost on octopuses, who move to dangerous areas at the risk of losing their babies.

In late 2017, Chinese scientists saw the birth of the world’s first primates cloned by the same method used to clone Dolly the sheep. Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, two adorable crab-eating macaques, took the world by storm, and scientists believe that they are just the first in a long line of monkeys that will be cloned for medical research.

1. Explode it. Fun, but messy. 

2. Drag it out to sea. Sensible, but sometimes it returns. 

3. Compost it. Useful, but it takes a while. 

A man considers crossing a bridge (yes, there is a wooden bridge in there) after driving three and a half hours to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite and getting caught only part of the way through the trail. Bizarre weather, including a winter with a record amount of snow and a summer with record heat brought snowmelt cascading over the trail--something he had never seen in his 20 years of hiking there. 

This man decided not to cross, but a few days later, someone else did. That man slipped and died. 

Imagine that two Facebook users post videos of people “self-immolating,” or setting themselves on fire. Both videos contain graphic footage that’s hard to look at, information about the context, and a caption interpreting it. Maybe one user thinks it’s an important display, and one thinks it’s funny.

‘Head of Edward Mordrake, preserved for posterity by Dr. P. Manvers’

Can this truly be the mummified head of the two-faced legend, Edward Mordrake himself? Whose second head didn’t speak except to whisper sinister things to him at night? And who asked that, upon his suicide, the second face should be destroyed, lest it torment him in the grave.

With optogenetics, scientists created male fruit flies that ejaculate on command under red light. Turns out, they love it, and flies that nut more are less interested in alcohol.

This goat is going viral. But would you believe that some consider him to be one of the world’s most beautiful goats? 

This is a Damascus goat, and yes, he was bred to look like that. 

This is a reticulated python, but not just any reticulated python.