Why should an organism, like the green crab spider (Diaea dorsata), have two eyes? In nature, eye number often evolves based on specific environmental and survival needs. Many spiders, for example, have multiple eyes (usually eight), allowing them to detect movement and focus on prey from various angles, even in low light.

In the case of this spider, its visual system with multiple eyes maximizes its ability to detect predators and prey across its environment, providing a critical survival advantage. So, while many creatures, including humans, have two eyes for a stereoscopic vision that enhances depth perception, spiders need a broader field of vision due to their predatory and defensive strategies.

In an image captured at 20x magnification by Pavel Blachowicz, this green crab spider, adorned with eyes, shows how evolution has tailored its visual apparatus for survival in its habitat.

If you’re wondering, no, this isn’t a scene from the latest Alien movie.

What the fisherman is holding is a wolf eel, a fascinating creature found in the northern Pacific Ocean. It can grow up to 2.5 meters long!

Despite its fearsome appearance, the wolf eel mainly feeds on crustaceans and mollusks and rarely hunts fish.

#CheckThisOut #ScienceIsCool #OceanLife #WildCreatures
#science

Why Men and Women Experience Pain Differently

It is well-known that men and women perceive pain and respond to analgesics in distinct ways.

A recent study involved 98 participants, both healthy individuals and those suffering from chronic lower back pain. They were trained in pain-relieving meditation techniques. Some participants received a high dose of naloxone—a drug that blocks opioid receptors—before meditating to improve their well-being.

In men, naloxone completely neutralized the pain-relieving effects of meditation. In contrast, for women, it even slightly enhanced the relief. Meditation showed significant benefits for participants with back pain who did not receive naloxone.

The study concludes that men rely on opioid receptors for pain relief, while women engage other biological mechanisms to manage pain.

#Science #PainResearch #GenderDifferences #Meditation #Neuroscience #Health

🚀 The Largest Prime Number Ever Discovered!

The GIMPS project has identified the 52nd Mersenne prime, which is now the largest known prime number. This mathematical giant has the form and spans more than 40 million digits! The discovery was made possible through distributed computing, with thousands of volunteers worldwide contributing their computing power.

Think you can find the next record-breaking prime? Join the hunt and become a part of mathematical history!

🔗 Learn more at Mersenne.org

Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. Emu Foot: Spot the Difference

In 2008, American scientists studied the fossilized remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and concluded that the closest living relatives of the mighty T-Rex are none other than ostriches and chickens. Evolution certainly knows how to surprise!

#ScienceFacts #TyrannosaurusRex #Paleontology #Evolution #Ostrich #Chickens #Dinosaurs #Emu #ScienceChannel #InterestingFacts #Science

Hydra Under the Microscope

The hydra preys on invertebrates, most often small crustaceans. It extends its tentacles, waiting patiently for its target. When the prey touches the tentacles, it is struck by the hydra’s stinging cells.

#Hydra #Microscopy #MarineBiology #Invertebrates #Zoology #Science

EngineAI Unveils SE01 Humanoid Robot with Natural Gait

The young Shenzhen-based startup EngineAI has announced a full-sized humanoid robot, SE01.

What sets SE01 apart is its unique biomechanics, offering smooth, natural movements with 12 degrees of freedom.

The development team consists of experts from UC Berkeley, Tsinghua University, and the Beijing Institute of Technology.

A friendly shoutout to everyone who used to laugh at awkwardly moving robots — the engineers in China have made their point loud and clear! 🤖

The real fear begins when these machines become indistinguishable from humans. Now imagine if it had the cognitive capabilities of Anthropic’s AI or a 1TB model within the next decade.
There might be no place left for humans — not in manufacturing, services, or even daily life.

#EngineAI #SE01 #robotics #China

A Strange Spider Within a Spider: Cyclosa’s Astonishing Decoy

Something large and bizarre, seemingly assembled from whatever was available – web threads, debris, and remnants – isn’t a creature of nightmares. It’s a decoy.

The real spider, much smaller (only about 5 mm), hides beneath the “abdomen” of its intimidating counterpart.

These clever decoys are crafted by spiders of the Cyclosa genus from the orb-weaver family (Araneidae). Typically, the real spider positions itself on the edge of the web, subtly pulling on the silk threads. This causes the fake spider to move, creating the illusion of a living, menacing predator from afar.

The decoy itself is a masterpiece of recycling. Cyclosa spiders construct it from leaf fragments, leftover egg sacs, and the desiccated bodies of previous victims. These creations serve as a diversion, tricking predators like paper wasps, birds, or lizards into attacking the decoy instead of the spider. This distraction gives the real spider precious time to escape.

There’s also a hypothesis that these web decorations attract more prey. Organic debris on the web hosts yeast-like fungi, which release chemicals that lure insects into the trap, increasing Cyclosa’s hunting success.

#Science #Biology #Arachnology #Spiders #Nature #Evolution #Insects #Survival #Decoy

The United States receives more Nobel Prizes in science than the rest of the world combined. However, 43% of PhD holders in the U.S. were born abroad.

🌍🎓 #NobelPrize #Science #Education #Innovation #GlobalScience #Immigration #STEM @science

🇺🇸 Texas: A single hailstorm destroyed thousands of acres of solar panels, turning the land into a toxic waste site within minutes.

@science
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#Texas #Hailstorm #SolarPanels #EnvironmentalDisaster #ToxicWaste #ClimateImpact #RenewableEnergy #ExtremeWeather #Sustainability #ClimateChange #SolarEnergy #DisasterRecovery #GreenEnergy

A Jurassic-period colony of sea lilies, spanning nearly 100 square meters, has been uncovered! These ancient echinoderms were meticulously excavated by German paleontologists over 18 years. Now, you can marvel at this incredible fossil at the Urweltmuseum Hauff in Holzmaden.

#Paleontology #Fossils #SeaLilies #Jurassic #Echinoderms #ScienceNews #NaturalHistory #MuseumExhibit
#science

Water in Zero Gravity! 🚀
Astronaut Don Pettit demonstrates the wonders of microgravity by injecting dye into a floating water sphere aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Without gravity, the water takes on a perfect spherical shape, revealing the fascinating behavior of fluids in space. 🌌💧

#Science #Microgravity #FluidDynamics #ISS #Astronomy #Physics #DonPettit #ScienceIsCool #STEM #SpaceExploration

A Strong Contender for the Next Nobel Prize

The startup Iambic has made a breakthrough that surpasses Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold. While AlphaFold, the AI system developed by Google DeepMind, recently earned a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for predicting the 3D structure of how molecules bind to target proteins, this is just the beginning. It’s impressive but not enough to drastically reduce the time (10-15 years) and costs ($1-2.6 billion per drug) required to bring new medicines to market.

Iambic has taken it a step further by developing an AI model that predicts, with remarkable accuracy, how well a human body will absorb a specific drug candidate. The predictions are validated against real-world data, making it a promising tool for pharmaceutical development.

The success of a drug candidate depends on several key properties—pharmacokinetics, efficacy, and toxicity. These are exactly the factors predicted by Iambic’s AI-powered drug discovery platform called Enchant, which boasts a predictive accuracy of 0.74, compared to just 0.58 achieved by previous models.

The Enchant model could potentially cut the costs of drug development in half, allowing pharmaceutical companies to assess a drug’s potential success at the earliest stages of research.

To understand the significance of Iambic’s breakthrough, consider the vast competition in the “AI in Biomedicine” sector, where more than 8,600 companies are racing to unlock the next major innovation (as shown in the chart above). In the sub-segment of “AI-based Analytics Platforms for Drug Development” alone, the number of companies has grown fourfold in the last three years, now standing at 950 competitors (see the chart below).

#AI #DeepPharma #DrugDiscovery #Biotech #Pharmacology #AlphaFold
#science

🚀 Boston Dynamics Unveils Impressive New Demo of Atlas Robot

Boston Dynamics recently released a fascinating video showcasing its humanoid robot, Atlas. In the demo, Atlas autonomously moves engine covers from one container to another—no remote control, no cheats, just pure automation. This subtle dig at other robotics initiatives, like Elon Musk’s Optimus, underscores Boston Dynamics’ commitment to genuine autonomy.

The demo is impressive: Atlas maintains stable mobility, performs complex tasks with minimal errors, and shows a clear capacity for “intelligent” actions. If this isn’t cherry-picking but a real demonstration of Atlas’s consistent capabilities, it might just be the most advanced humanoid robot in the world right now.

#BostonDynamics #AtlasRobot #HumanoidRobots #Robotics #ArtificialIntelligence #Automation #AI
#science