Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
NASA has launched its largest planetary mission spacecraft to date, Europa Clipper to investigate the potential for human habitat in Jupiter's moon. Based on previous researches, Europa is expected to contain a massive subsurface ocean under its icy upper crust. Thus, scientists are targeting Europa for astrobiological research. The mission worth $5 billion carried spacecraft from earth to Europa for a 2.9-billion-km-long journey, to be completed in five and a half years. This is NASA’s first mission to study an ocean world beyond Earth. An initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper spacecraft is in good health and operating as predicted.
Researchers from Northwestern University found hundreds of viruses living in your toothbrush and showerheads. Study lead Erica M. Hartmann said: “The number of viruses that we found is absolutely wild. We found many viruses that we know very little about and many others that we have never seen before. It’s amazing how much untapped biodiversity is all around us. And you don’t even have to go far to find it; it’s right under our noses.”
The study further revealed that toothbrush contains more microbes than showerhead as the former one comes in contact with a wide range of bacteria from our mouths, food particles, and environmental microbes.
REMspace achieved the first-ever communication in dreams. We have already succeeded twice (on September 24th and October 8th, 2024). More details soon pic.twitter.com/piM1wmWltY
— Michael Raduga (@MichaelRaduga) October 8, 2024
Credit - X/@MichaelRaduga
Remember the Christopher Nolan's sci-fi spectacle Inception where dreams were shown to be manipulated, shared, and even constructed? Now, a California-based startup named REMspace claimed succesful experiment involving two persons communicating in their dreams. The participants were both lucid dreamers indicating they are aware during dreaming while still asleep. This type of dreaming is observed during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep when the brain is active and dreams are also vivid. The first participant heard the word 'Zhilak' and repeated it loudly, which was captured by the sensors and later sent to another dreamer. Meanwhile, the second dreamer confirmed listening to the same word after waking up.
It's a remarkable milestone bridging the gap between the conscious and subconscious worlds.
An international team of researchers revealed that the quantity of carbon absorbed by land has reduced drastically in 2023, which was also the hottest year on record. This prompted forests, plants, and even soil absorbing less amount of carbon during the same period. This is also associated with melting sea ice, which is exposing algae-eating zooplankton to harmful sunlight. As a result, those planktons remain deeper underwater for longer duration, interrupting their vertical migration. Consequently, this is affecting carbon storage process.
“Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end,” said Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
