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I'm talking 16-18 feet tall (4.8-5.5 m), though some could exceed 20 feet (6 m). No, obviously not a human, but the giraffe, the tallest of all land mammals, has its head poised nearly 2 stories above the savannah. What are they thinking, up in those lofty brains? They might be doing their own version of math, at least if we go by a study of 4 giraffes at the Barcelona Zoo. For decades, giraffes were seen as gentle, quiet herbivores with long legs & longer necks, supported by 7 cervical vertebrae (the same number humans have in their necks). But they were never looked upon as thinkers. It turns out giraffes may be capable of basic arithmetic, probability reasoning & memory-based decision-making, placing them among animals with genuine numerical recognition.

To test their cognitive abilities, the researcher, Loidi, placed 2 carrot sticks (their favorite) into a green container with the giraffes looking on. Loidi also placed 2 carrot sticks into a yellow container. Then Loidi added the green container's carrots into the yellow. The giraffe, Nuru, had to remember how many carrots were in each container, track the movement of carrots, & infer that 2 + 2 = 4, which is greater than 3. Nuru chose the yellow container with 4 carrots & ate them. This shows her ability in working memory, addition, & quantity comparison. One other giraffe passed the same test, but 2 others failed. When giraffes had to understand "If I remove carrots, the number gets smaller," they failed. Subtraction requires dissociating quantities, which is cognitively harder than addition for many animals. Even primates struggle with subtraction unless heavily trained.

Giraffes were also shown two bowls of salad. Bowl A had more carrots mixed with greens, while bowl B contained fewer carrots. They consistently chose the bowl with the higher carrot proportion, even when the total salad volume looked the same. This is "probabilistic reasoning," or "ratio discrimination," a form of statistical cognition. How do giraffes compare to other animals known to count? Giraffes perform better than llamas, bison, and rhinos, indicating that their cognitive abilities are superior to those of ungulates (mammals with hooves). However, they are below numerical cognitive abilities when compared to honeybees. They count landmarks during flight & remember them. They can not only add but also recognize subtraction.

Honeybees even understand the concept of zero (a major cognitive milestone). Bees learn that the card with fewer shapes gives them a sugary reward, for example, choosing a card with 1 shape instead of a card with 3 shapes. Then scientists showed them a card with zero shapes vs. a card with 1 shape. If bees understood zero, they should treat 0 as less than 1—and they did; they flew to the empty card each time to get their sweets. Humans don't fully understand zero until around age 4. Yet honeybees—creatures weighing 0.0002 lb (0.1 g)—grasp it. Honeybees outperform giraffes in precision, consistency & abstract numerical concepts.

Wolves can estimate pack size vs. rival pack size, make strategic decisions based on the number of wolves in their own pack to decide if they have enough members to take down a large mammal, track multiple moving individuals, & use approximate number systems similar to primates. Wolves surpass giraffes in social numerical reasoning & dynamic quantity tracking. No contest when it comes to crows. They are among the smartest birds on Earth.

Crows perform both addition & subtraction. They understand symbols representing numbers. They recognize quantities up to 5-7; they use tools & logic & pass tests similar to human toddlers. Crows are far superior to giraffes in mathematical cognition. Parrots, especially African Greys, can understand numbers as symbols, add small quantities, identify same vs. different, perform categorical reasoning & use spoken language. Alex the African grey famously understood numbers up to 6, performed addition & used spoken words to describe quantities. Parrots also outperform giraffes in symbolic & verbal numerical recognition.

But the very best animals in numerical recognition are primates. They can add, subtract, compare ratios, understand numerical symbols, perform multi-step arithmetic, & use working memory for complex tasks. Some primates (chimps, rhesus macaques) can recognize Arabic numerals, perform sequential counting & understand zero. Primates are the strongest non-human mathematical performers. Giraffes in no way surpass them. Even though giraffes aren't the top performers, their abilities are remarkable because they evolved without social hierarchies like primates, they are not tool users, & they are not predators requiring strategic counting. They are huge herbivores (up to 2,600 lb (1,180 kg)) with brains optimized for sensory processing, not math, yet they still show addition understanding, ratio reasoning, probability decision-making & memory for hidden quantities. This makes them far smarter than previously assumed.

Hey, we all need a break sometimes, and it turns out that Southern right whales, baleen whales (filter feeders), are the only whale species known to flip upside down & float at the surface. Only female mothers do this, & scientists examining drone footage have determined the reason for this unusual pose. The posture is used to rest & reduce the strain of parenting from nursing & the stress of mothering. During calving season, mothers do not eat for months. They rely entirely on stored blubber—sometimes up to 20 inches (50 cm)—to fuel birth, lactation & the long migration back to feeding grounds.

Resting upside down is an energy-saving strategy. Lactating mothers have the highest energy demands of any age class, even higher than pregnant females. The inverted posture reduces calf access to the nipple, slowing milk transfer & conserving calories. The drone footage shows their pectoral fins sticking out of the water, body still, & belly facing the sky. No other whale species has been documented resting upside down. The behavior seems tied to their unique mother-calf energy dynamics & the shallow, calm nursery waters they use off southern Australia. Calves are persistent. They nudge, bump & try to nurse frequently. By flipping over, mothers make it physically harder for calves to reach the mammary slits, giving themselves a momentary reprieve.

Disclaimer: Equal to my love of science is my love of music. In fact, I was already undecided about what career path to take when I started playing the drums at the age of 13. I chose science but continued playing the drums, timpani, along with other percussion instruments until my early 30s. Today, as a scientist, I'm discovering how beneficial the pursuit of a musical instrument is for the mind. For decades, scientists suspected that music helped the brain, but now randomized controlled trials, brain scan studies & meta-analyses show measurable improvements in memory, attention, processing speed & mood while reducing stress by reducing cortisol (stress hormone) & increasing dopamine (reward chemical). It also helps with the brain's "executive function," which is your brain's management system—the "CEO" of your thinking. This includes planning, decision-making, task switching, working memory & helps resist impulses (self-control).

Drumming is a physical workout (take my word on it). It's a full-body workout that, when done vigorously, elevates heart rate & breathing & makes you sweat. It raises heart rate to 90-140 beats/min (normal exercise range). That's 1.5-2.3x resting heart rate. This releases brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is like fertilizer for brain cells. It helps neurons grow stronger connections, it protects them from damage, & it supports neuroplasticity (the brain's ability to rewire itself). Fast drumming can burn 200-400 calories/hour (about 840-1,680 kJ/hr) depending on intensity. Drumming involves the arms, legs & core body.

It requires rhythm, timing, memory, coordination (having to move hands & feet in separate rhythms & sequences), & it requires attention. In a small randomized study of 40 adults over age 55, participants did 4 weeks of drumming & memory exercises. They all got faster & more accurate on cognitive tests, and they had increased hemoglobin (Hgb) in the left orbitofrontal cortex.

This was crucial because the left orbitofrontal cortex received more oxygenated blood, which improved decision-making & increased motivation. This region declines with age & is affected by some forms of dementia, so seeing increased oxygenation there suggests drumming may help keep it more active & healthier. Cognitive reserve is the brain's ability to stay functional even when aging or disease causes physical changes. Music—especially playing an instrument—doesn't have to be drums; it helps build this reserve by strengthening neural networks, improving blood flow, enhancing memory pathways & encouraging neuroplasticity. This is why musicians often show slower cognitive decline in older age.

It turns out that many famous scientists were also musicians. Here's the list: Albert Einstein—violin & piano. He practiced violin every day & said it helped him think. He often worked through physics problems by improvising & famously once said, "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician." He often solved problems by imagining patterns as musical structures. The famous Russian composer Alexander Borodin was also a scientist & chemist whose work on aldehydes, a volatile organic chemical, led to the modern development of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. He divided his time with dashes between the lab & the piano, producing symphonies, chamber music, & songs, some of which became a Tony Award winner for Kismet.

Then there was the "father of quantum mechanics," Werner Heisenberg, who was also a concert-level pianist. Richard Feynman was a physicist & a passionate bongoist & drummer performing in samba bands. Perhaps many of you remember the song "We Will Rock You" performed by Queen & Bohemian Rhapsody. Well, the guitarist & songwriter Brian May of Queen was also an astrophysicist.

One of the greatest mathematicians of all time, Henri Poincaré, laid the foundations of modern chaos theory. Chaos theory is the study of systems governed by rules & patterns, yet small differences in starting patterns can lead to vastly different outcomes over time—a phenomenon called the "butterfly effect"—for example, a butterfly flapping its wings could theoretically influence the weather somewhere else. Poincaré was also a pianist who used musical structure to think about patterns. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the "father of modern neuroscience," played the violin & wrote about the mental clarity it gave him. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for establishing the neuron as the basic unit of the nervous system.

Max Planck, founder of quantum theory, nearly pursued music professionally, playing the organ & piano. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, was the first to apply quantum concepts to atomic & molecular structure, earning him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 through his model of the atom with electrons occupying specific orbits around its nucleus. He was an accomplished pianist who believed music helped him understand abstract concepts. Charles Darwin played the flute, & even though he had a self-confessed lack of musicality, that did not prevent music from influencing his work, including playing the piano & the flute to attract worms.

Darwin discovered that earthworms cannot hear music the way humans can (duh), but they can feel vibrations, helping earthworms to know what is happening around them. The worms reacted, moved, changed posture & retreated or emerged, perhaps sliding away from his dreadful playing. The experiment showed that worms use vibrations to avoid predators & find food. After his flute experiment, he said, "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals other than earthworms that have played so important a part in the history of the world."

The last scientist that comes to mind is Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields, and the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Curie discovered polonium & radium (two elements), & she developed the theory of "radioactivity," a term she actually coined. But she was also an accomplished pianist who could play Chopin waltzes & Bach preludes & fugues at 10. She was not a virtuoso but played competently throughout her life.

A major league professional eating competition, similar to the Nathan's hot dog eating event, used goats. The only professional goat-eating competition in the world is this one, called The Graze-Off. Since these goats compete under Major League Eating rules, timed (for 3 minutes), judged, & officiated, it's considered professional. A goat named Mallomar defended his title by eating 1.5 packets of invasive weeds (0.75-1.5 lb (0.34-0.68 kg) of fresh mugwort & knotweed) in the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) contest. To make the contest fair, the packets are standardized using identical portions & weighable bundles. Mugwort & similar weeds grow fast & form dense mats. By helping the Riverside Park Conservancy manage invasive vegetation along challenging terrain and freeing up staff and volunteers' time to concentrate on other aspects of restoration, the goats demonstrated a talent that is put to use. The goats are all rescue animals employed seasonally to clear mugwort.

Can you guess which animal it is without looking? It's the echidna, the platypus's spiky cousin. Although their spines look like porcupine quills, they are not the same. Echidna spines are modified hairs made of keratin, a fibrous structural protein, which is also found in our nails, hair & the other outer layer of our skin. Their spikes are stiff & sharp, but they do not shoot out like porcupine quills. They use them to help with cooling in the hot Australian & New Guinean climate. They're also used for camouflage, scent-holding & burrowing stability. Like platypuses, echidnas are monotremes, meaning they're mammals that lay eggs. They are the only mammals that do that. Although echidnas are not marsupials, the mother develops a temporary pouch needed to keep her baby, called a "puggle," safe & warm. That's because echidnas do not build nests.

After she lays her egg, it is maneuvered into her pouch, where the egg hatches after 10 days. Their eggs are about 1.4 cm (0.55 in) long—like a small grape. The puggle stays in it for 6-8 weeks, but when its spine starts growing, the mother places it in a burrow & her pouch disappears. Her pouch is created by tightening the skin & muscles around her belly. After the puggle leaves, the pouch relaxes & disappears. Platypuses do not have a pouch since they live in water, where a pouch would be useless & could even be dangerous. When the puggle hatches, it weighs less than 0.5 g (0.02 oz). That's less than a mini marshmallow or a paperclip, both of which weigh 2 g (0.04 oz).

Echidna moms have no nipples; instead, milk oozes from mammary gland patches on their skin, which the puggle laps up like a sponge. This adaptation is common with platypuses as well. Both have cloacae & both have low body temperatures (90°F (32°C)). The cooler body temperature helps them survive when it gets hot but makes them slow movers. Ancient echidnas were bigger & faster, some the size of a small dog. Echidnas & platypuses both have 10 sex chromosomes (5 X-like & 5 Y-like), arranged in a chain, not a simple pair like humans, XX (female) or XY (male). So monotreme males are XXXXX-YYYYY, while females are XXXXXXXXXX.

The differences include that echidnas live strictly on land, while platypuses live in the water. Platypuses have strong electroreception; echidnas have weak electroreception. Echidnas have spines; platypuses have fur, & platypuses have venomous spurs; echidnas do not.

Monotremes split from other mammals over 160 mya. They kept some reptile-like traits (egg-laying) but also evolved mammalian traits (hair, milk). When echidnas are threatened, they dig straight down, leaving only their spines exposed. They can bury themselves in seconds. Echidnas eat ants & termites using a sticky, fast tongue that shoots out like a frog. Their tongue is 7 inches long (15-18 cm) & covered in glue-like saliva, which is capable of flicking 100+ times per minute. This lets them "vacuum" up insects like a biological conveyor belt. Echidnas have no teeth, so they crush their prey between keratin pads in their mouths & then swallow the mashed insect paste. Echidnas self-anoint, meaning they rub scents from soil, plants, & their snot onto their spines, likely used for parasite control & social signaling because during breeding season, echidnas follow scent trails.

Since grade school, we've always understood (and snickered) that there is more than one kind of fart. There's the high-pitched "Whistler," the stomach-rumbling "Growler," the stealthy "Crop Duster," and, of course, the "Silent-But-Deadly" one. While thorough & expansive, these nicknames don't really add much to the scientific curriculum around flatulence—and no, your friend asking, "WTF did you eat?" while frantically waving their hands in front of their face doesn't count as scientific inquiry.

In steps science with researchers from the University of Maryland, who created the Human Flatus Atlas (HFA), a nationwide scientific project that has asked volunteers to put on wearable sensors by attaching a small smart device near their blowholes, in the hopes of discovering farting frequency & what types of flatus they produce, what type of gut microbes they have & how diet affects gas output. Flatulence is a natural byproduct of the digestive process. Your digestive tract creates gases such as CO₂, methane, nitrogen, oxygen & hydrogen. All of these gases are odorless, but when hydrogen combines with sulfur compounds—watch out. Those are the so-called "silent-but-deadly" farts. They smell like rotten cabbage or rotten eggs. It comes after you eat high-protein meats, onions, garlic, or cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts.

HFA found that most humans produce 14-23 farts a day, which is considered "normal." Then there are the "Hydrogen Producers," which they define as people producing 40-50 flatulence events per day. Finally, there are the "Zen Digesters," who are people with a fiber-rich diet yet don't seem to ever produce much gas. They don't produce gas because their gut bacteria convert fiber into short-chain fatty acids instead of gas. Some gases have a "sweet" smell, akin to the sweet corn-like aroma, beetroot, & certain truffles caused by dimethyl sulfide. But only a small subset of people produce enough dimethyl sulfide to shift the odor profile to "sweet." They're really the limited-edition collector's item of flatulence.

We've all heard about Mary Mallone, better known as Typhoid Mary. She was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland, during a period of post-famine poverty, mass emigration & limited opportunities for women. She grew up in a household where sanitation was poor & water sources were contaminated, & she became infected with typhoid fever. She immigrated to NYC, arriving alone at the age of 14-15, part of the massive Irish wave fleeing poverty. NYC was not much better than her hometown. It was overcrowded, filthy, full of tenement flats & plagued by waterborne diseases. She first worked as a laundress, then discovered she could earn far more as a cook—the highest-status job available for immigrant women.

Mary proved to be skilled, reliable, & sought after by wealthy families. She made delicious ice cream, especially peaches & ice cream. It was sweet, creamy & refreshing, considered a luxury among wealthy households in the early 1900s & was often served at summer gatherings. I'm sure it was great except for one thing—it could kill you. Why? Because Mary carried a bacterium known as Salmonella enterica serovar. Typhoid fever is carried only by humans, which is why asymptomatic carriers like Mary Mallone were so dangerous: the bacteria have nowhere else to hide except inside people. This is unusual because many pathogens jump between species, but S. Typhi is locked into humans.

Don't get confused with the "regular" Salmonella that causes food poisoning. That one is called Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis, & interestingly, a person can be a carrier of that one too without presenting with symptoms of infection (asymptomatic). It's also not typhus, which is a bacterial infection spread by fleas, mites, or lice.

Handwashing & hygiene were not that common in the early 1900s, especially among working-class immigrants. Soap was not always available, running water was inconsistent, germ theory was still new, & many people did not believe invisible microbes could cause disease. So Mary didn't wash her hands, even after she went to the bathroom, & because S. Typhii spreads by the fecal-oral route, she infected everything she handled. This made Mary's famous delicious peaches & ice cream notoriously dangerous. She had to peel peaches, mix the ice cream, & handle everything by hand.

Every household she worked for became sick. They then fired her, but she moved on. She never connected the dots & claimed it was not her causing disease to spread because she felt just fine, thank you very much. She was finally tracked down by Dr. George Soper in 1907 & told her what she was doing. She became maniacal, grabbed a meat cleaver & chased him out of the house. She screamed that she was healthy. When police came to arrest her, she hid, she fought, & she ran, biting officers & kicking & screaming. It took 5 police officers to finally cuff her & restrain her.

She was then sent to North Border Island, a quarantine hospital. She lived alone in a small cottage for 3 years. Individuals such as her may have the bacteria in their gallbladders, where it can be continuously expelled. She, of course, refused gallbladder removal, still insisting she was healthy, but was eventually released after she promised not to cook again for others. But guess what? No surprise—she broke her promise first, changing her name to Mary Brown & going back to cooking. The Sloane Maternity Hospital hired her, & it wasn't long before she infected 25 nurses.

On January 26, 1972, JAT Airlines flight 367, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, exploded over Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) due to a briefcase bomb in the baggage compartment. JAT was the national carrier for the former Yugoslavia, now Serbia. The aircraft broke apart at 33,300 ft (10,160 m), killing all 28 passengers except for one—a 27-year-old flight attendant, Vesna Vulović. She fell 33,300 feet and miraculously survived. She is officially recognized for surviving the highest fall without a parachute. Falling from that height is about 1/3 of the way to where space begins, or 26 Empire State Buildings stacked end to end.

Her speed of falling was 120 mph (193 km/h). That's the fastest speed a body can fall through the air when the downward pull of gravity is balanced by the upward push of air resistance. You can't go faster because the air eventually pushes back hard enough to stop further acceleration. The only reason she survived is that she was pinned inside part of the fuselage, which crashed onto a snowy, forested hillside, reducing impact forces, which equals being hit by a car at highway speed times many multiples concentrated into a single instant.

The fall took 3 minutes, & she reached terminal velocity (120 mph/193 km/h) long before halfway down. A rescuer found her barely alive & severely injured. Her injuries included skull fractures, two broken legs, a crushed pelvis, several broken ribs, internal bleeding & temporary paralysis from spinal damage. She was in a coma for months. She spent 16 months in recovery & rehab & eventually regained the ability to walk, though with lasting pain & mobility limitations. Vesna became a national symbol, received international recognition, & later became a peace activist in Serbia. She died in 2016 at age 66.

I'm talking about the tragic death of Senator Graham (who I liked very much) & why Senator Graham collapsed so fast. Senator Graham did not have a heart attack. He died from an aortic dissection, which is a completely different medical event. Our arteries have three layers, & in Graham's case, one of the sections tore. Blood pressure forces blood into the tear. The inner layer gets pushed inward towards the aortic artery. Blood blasts between layers & blood flow to the brain & organs collapses. Consciousness is lost in seconds. Collapse is instant.

Scientists have identified a new species of colobus monkey that looks like it's wearing rouge. The monkey is known as the Colobus congoensis—the orange-lipped "Likweli" monkey—endemic to a tiny rainforest region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Likweli is a local name that means "the bright-faced one." It is roughly the size of a small dog, about 18-24 inches (45-60 cm), with a tail that's longer than its body, about 24-30 inches long (60-75 cm), used for balance in the canopy. The monkey weighs 10-20 lbs (4.5-9 kg); its vivid orange-cream patch is also found around its nostrils, & a white patch has been noted on the rump. The orange-cream patch is so bright that it is visible from 30-50 ft (9-15 m) away, but because they live so high up in the canopy, they are difficult to spot. It strangely produces loud, frog-like roars & snorts like a piglet when annoyed. Most colobus monkeys produce softer vocalizations. It's likely to be endangered due to its extremely restricted range (656 mi² (1,700 km²)). Threats include logging, habitat fragmentation & potential hunting for monkey meat.

This one is a new species of colobus, which now makes it the 7th recognized colobus species & only the 5th new African species described in 75 years. Genetic analysis shows it diverged from its closest relatives 4-5 million years ago. Locals describe it as "shy" & rarely approaches humans. The animal was first spotted by local people in 2008 but not confirmed until 2026 after extensive surveys & photographic documentation. The discovery required 18 years of intermittent fieldwork. The species description was published July 15, 2026, in PLOS One. Local knowledge helped scientists locate the species. This is a classic case of ethnoprimatology: local knowledge guiding scientific discovery. It probably contains multiple female groups & single infants. There's no detail yet, but it's inferred to resemble other colobus monkeys. Their bright red lips help the species instantly recognize each other & help keep the colony together.

It's a canopy specialist, rarely touching the ground. It moves on branches too thin for larger monkeys. It shares the forest with bonobos, okapi, & forest elephants. It lives in a national park that's bigger than its entire range. Its range is smaller than the city of Los Angeles. It's so rare that many Congolese people have never seen it. Its isolation is caused entirely by rivers, not mountains. It's a living example of river-driven evolution. It's part of one of the world's least explored regions. Its call echoes through the forest like a distant engine. It's one of the few monkeys discovered through sound first. Its calls helped researchers track it in the canopy. It's so elusive that some researchers thought it was a myth. It can leap 10-15 ft (3-4.5 m) between branches. It's a master of silent movement despite its loud roar & snorts.

A junk food diet caused a teen's permanent blindness. The problem first showed up in a 14-year-old boy in the UK. Tests revealed he was unusually tired, had mild anemia & low levels of vitamin B12. B12 is important for maintaining the health of red blood cells (RBCs) & the nervous system. A few years later, he was diagnosed with a severe deficiency in B12. Humans can't make vitamin B12 internally (endogenously); we must get it from exogenous (external) sources, meaning food, supplements, or injections. The boy was prescribed vitamin B12 shots, but he stopped taking them. Without it, the body eventually runs out & critical systems begin to fail, especially the nervous system, including the optic nerve.

A pill bug is a tiny land-dwelling crustacean that looks like a miniature armored tank & can roll into a ball, usually a small, gray, oval creature, about 1/2 in (1-1.5 cm) long, that lives in damp soil, under logs, rocks & leaf litter. These small crustaceans (called isopods) are related to the giant isopods in the ocean. Both share a segmented, armored exoskeleton, usually 14 legs, a flattened body shape & similar ancestry. Bathynomus is a deep-sea giant that lives in the dark, deep ocean about 900 meters (2,950 feet) below the surface. It can grow larger than a football (11 inches/28 cm), but depending on the species, it can reach 30-50 cm (12-20 in) in length, weighing several pounds. There's hardly any food down there because at 900 m depth, there's no sunlight, & food arrives only as tiny falling debris known as "marine snow." As a result, some isopods have to go 5 years without eating. How?

Supergiant isopods have a massively enlarged stomach taking up 2/3 of their body cavity. This lets them gorge when food is scarce. They can store huge amounts of nutrients. One captive individual ate 5.7 lb (2.6 kg) of food in one sitting. Eating that much food in one sitting is like a human suddenly eating their entire body weight in a single meal. It's biologically impossible for us but normal for a supergiant isopod. The isopods eat any large organic debris that sinks, as well as dead fish, whale carcasses & squid remains. They're basically the cleanup crew of the deep sea. They have an extremely slow metabolism in the deep, cold seawater. This means they can burn energy very slowly; they can stretch stored nutrients for years—their organs operate in "low-power mode."

They also have evolved a gene called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 1 (ND1). The gene converts nutrients into usable energy, ATP (adenosine triphosphate)—the primary energy-carrying molecule in cells—controls how efficiently cells extract energy & regulates energy flow during starvation or stress. The fact that they have the ND1 gene is highly unusual because they didn't inherit the gene from their parents; rather, they picked up the gene from bacteria, known as horizontal gene transfer (DNA moving sideways between different species instead of down the family tree). The isopod borrowed a tiny piece of "survival software" from bacteria millions of years ago, installed it into its own DNA, & now uses that bacterial tool to conserve energy in the deep sea.

Bacteria are masters of surviving harsh conditions such as low-oxygen environments, low nutrients, extreme cold & high pressure. The deep sea is exactly like that. So the isopod's bacterial ND1 gene helps it extract more energy from tiny bits of food, run its metabolism slowly, survive years without eating, & stay alive in cold, oxygen-poor water. This gene is the main reason they could go 5 years without eating. That's like a human suddenly having a gene from yogurt bacteria.

A naked mole-rat queen produces one special oily chemical, isopropyl myristate, found only on her skin. Other females smell it. That smell switches their reproductive hormones, making them infertile. Scientists expected a complicated mix of pheromones, like bees, but instead found one single molecule doing the entire job. Unlike bees, naked mole rats are born with working ovaries. They're fully capable of becoming queens, but the queen's scent keeps them shut down. If the queen dies or disappears, the smell fades, & suddenly several females begin producing hormones again. They fight, and one becomes the new queen. With bees, worker bees do have ovaries, but they are tiny, underdeveloped, & normally switched off by the queen's pheromones. When the queen bee is present, workers cannot reproduce; when she is gone, some workers' ovaries reactivate, but they can lay male eggs only.

Naked mole rats are very interesting rodents. They are one of the strangest mammals ever studied: they barely age, resist cancer, survive without oxygen for extended periods (up to 20 minutes), feel little pain, live like ants with a queen, communicate in dialects & break almost every rule of mammalian biology. They live over 30-37 years, which is astonishing for an animal the size of such a small hamster. They're 3-4 in (7.5-10 cm) long, weighing 1-1.5 oz (30-45 g). This is far longer than a mouse or hamster (2-4 years). They are one of the longest-lived rodents known. Their bodies show almost no signs of aging: stable metabolism, strong protein control & an unusually robust immune system. They are essentially immune to spontaneous cancer. They rarely develop cancer. A key mechanism is high-molecular-mass hyaluron, basically extra-thick, super-stretchy body jelly that protects naked mole-rat cells from crowding & turning cancerous.

They have evolved pain insensitivity to acid & capsaicin-like stimuli (the hot chemical in hot peppers). This helps them survive in underground tunnels filled with CO₂, which forms carbonic acid, a mild acid. They can survive for 20 minutes without oxygen because, like plants, they change their metabolism to fructose when oxygen in their tunnels disappears. Their metabolic switching shields them from heart damage during oxygen deprivation. Oxygen disappears in tunnels because they live 6-12 ft underground (2-4 m) in huge, crowded mazes only 1-2 inches wide (2-5 cm) without almost any airflow, just enough for one rat at a time. A colony can have 20-300 mole rats, so every breath they take uses oxygen & adds CO₂. In a tight tunnel, this quickly changes air composition.

They're "naked" because they lack fur, which would be useless—and even dangerous—in a cramped, hot, abrasive underground world. They look like they've been through a wringer because their skin is built for scraping against dirt all day. They cannot regulate their body temperature like most mammals. They behave more like cold-blooded reptiles, huddling, moving to warm tunnels, or relying on colony heat.

Naked mole rats have 4 huge front teeth that stick out like Bugs Bunny. These teeth are so important that 1/4 of all their jaw muscles attach directly to them. They use them to dig huge tunnels that can stretch 2-3 mi (3-5 km) & reach 2 meters (6.5 ft) deep. They use their incisors for carrying food & objects, fighting & grooming, picking up bedding, moving pups, & defending the queen. They can move their incisors independently like chopsticks. These tunnels are not straight lines—they're branching mazes with food-searching corridors, nursery chambers, sleeping chambers, waste chambers, emergency escape routes, & the queen-centered royal chambers.

One of the few eusocial mammals (a high degree of social organization in which a single female produces offspring and nonreproductive individuals care for the young) is the naked mole rat. Workers dig tunnels & gather food; soldiers defend the colony from snakes; everyone cooperates like a living machine. In short, they're mammals that live like a hive.

The parasite is called Cyclospora cayetanensis, a microscopic parasite (a protozoan known as a coccidian). It infects the small intestine & causes watery, explosive diarrhea. The outbreak is linked to imported produce, especially shredded lettuce from Mexico supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico to Taco Bell restaurants in at least 5 U.S. states. Taylor Farms has now pulled the product. This cyclosporiasis outbreak has already become the largest in U.S. history, with thousands of cases counted by individual states, with Michigan having the highest number at 2,640 as of July 13. It's hard to say exactly how many cases there are, because there's a 6-week lag between the time the illness begins & it is reported to federal health authorities. Other types of Cyclospora have been found in baboons, cats, vipers, moles, rodents & even millipedes & centipedes. But C. cayettanesis only infects humans.

It is spread through human feces, & people get it either by eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water. Once you swallow their eggs, called "oocytes," they take over your gut. They lay their eggs in the intestinal wall, which you expel when you poop. Other than lettuce, other foods associated with the disease are raspberries, basil, cilantro & snow peas, but any raw produce can be contaminated if grown or washed with unsafe water, including pre-cut fruit mixes. The only way to kill the parasite is to cook the food at 160°F (71°C). Freezing or washing will not kill it. As for leafy greens like lettuce, avoid buying bagged or pre-mixed salad; instead, buy a whole head of lettuce & throw away the first few layers of leaves. Symptoms include nausea, fatigue, stomach cramps, gas, loss of appetite, low-grade fever, bloating, & frequent & sometimes explosive bowel movements. Unfortunately, cyclospora-caused diarrhea can last for weeks & sometimes even longer than a month.

A person I know is currently on day 5 of running to the bathroom over 40 times a day, and nothing is solid. The dangers include severe dehydration, electrolyte imbalance & weight loss. Now for some good news: a Cyclospora infection can be treated by a 10-day course of antibiotics such as Bactrim or Septra. Most people's symptoms resolve within a week. It is not life-threatening for most people but can cause severe illness in younger or older people, as well as those with weakened immune systems. Even during this outbreak, you really don't have to avoid eating fruits & veg. They're essential for heart health, gut health, immune function & longevity. Avoiding them entirely would cause more harm than the outbreak risk.

It's a robot dog called Kaist Hound that was trained using reinforcement learning to use 2 pre-learned gaits: trot-stable, careful, and good for stairs or uneven ground. 2. Bound-fast and springy, good for clearing obstacles like logs, which it can easily bound over. It sees the world with laser scanning to measure distances & terrain height, as well as cameras to see shapes, edges, & obstacles. Instead of waiting for a human to tell it what to do, the robot dog scans the terrain, predicts what movement is safest & switches gaits instantly. This is the breakthrough: real-time autonomous adaptation. It weighs 100 lb (45 kg). That's the weight of a medium-large dog, but with far more strength & stability.