Buzz
Once again, it's time to take a look at some of the more peculiar and offbeat stories that crept into the news cycle this week. Click here for the serious updates from the past few days, or keep reading for the stranger side of the headlines.
This week, the animal kingdom was full of surprises, including some crafty birds, a group of cows fighting crime, and a particularly aggressive squirrel. Meanwhile, scientists were uncovering the secrets of cheese and spaghetti, and exploring a bizarre planet where titanium exists as vapor.
10. Brilliant Scientists Crack the Sneaky Spaghetti Puzzle
MIT researchers solved a decades-old enigma by discovering how to break a spaghetti stick cleanly in two.
This long-standing puzzle has stumped both scientists and everyday people alike. Even Richard Feynman tackled the issue in 1939 but couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation. The fun part? Anyone can try it at home. Simply take one spaghetti stick, hold it by both ends, and bend it. While sometimes it will snap in half, most of the time it will break into three or more pieces.
In 2005, a team of physicists from France introduced a new theory to explain the forces involved when bending a thin, long object like spaghetti. They suggested that the first break occurs at the center, where the curvature is strongest, causing a 'snap-back' effect that results in further fractures. This breakthrough earned them the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize, though they were unable to figure out how to prevent this phenomenon.
MIT's latest study revealed the solution: twisting the spaghetti. Researchers created a special machine to ensure consistency in their experiment. They found that twisting the stick to a specific degree and then bending it slowly would result in a clean break in two.
9. Rooks in the Workplace
A French theme park has employed rooks to help with waste management by training them to gather and dispose of trash.
Rooks, along with other members of the Corvidae family, are often considered among the most intelligent animals on Earth. At the Puy du Fou theme park in Les Epesses, they've found a clever use for their smarts. The birds have been trained to pick up discarded cigarette butts and small trash. Once they've gathered the debris, they drop it off into special bins that reward them with bird food nuggets for their efforts.
The initial trial involved six bird cleaners, and now even more have joined the ranks. It remains to be seen whether this technique will spread to other locations.
8. Naked Protest Against Unruly Tourists
As more Europeans in tourist-heavy cities voice their opposition to the massive cruise ships that flood their streets with thousands of passengers, a Norwegian politician decided to make his own statement by greeting a ship's passengers in the buff.
Svein Ingvald Opdal, a 71-year-old member of Norway's Green Party, was vacationing with his wife in Olden when he grew frustrated after seeing three cruise ships bring 11,000 tourists to a village of just 500 people. He chose to give the next ship an unforgettable reception—by stripping down and greeting the tourists nude.
Opdal described his act of protest as a 'spontaneous gesture that [he] did mainly for fun.' While his wife took a photo, she was too shy to share it online. Instead, Opdal posted it for his 460 Instagram followers. The cheeky stunt quickly gained attention and made headlines worldwide.
7. New Horizons Detects Hydrogen Wall
NASA researchers revealed that the New Horizons spacecraft has encountered a phenomenon they are calling the 'hydrogen wall.' This barrier was detected by the spacecraft's 'Alice' instrument, which is an ultraviolet imaging telescope and spectrometer that captures data about Pluto's atmosphere.
As New Horizons continues its journey toward the edges of the solar system, Alice has observed ultraviolet light emanating from the distance. Scientists suspect the light is being scattered by a hydrogen wall, a mix of hydrogen atoms from our solar system and distant sources. If proven true, this wall might mark the point where the solar wind collides with interstellar winds. The New Horizons team plans to study this area twice a year with Alice in hopes of uncovering more details.
Launched in 2006, the New Horizons probe's primary mission was to conduct a close-up flyby of Pluto, which it successfully achieved in 2015. Now, it's on its way to the Kuiper Belt to explore some intriguing objects. Eventually, it will exit the solar system around 2040.
6. Attack of the Vicious Baby Squirrel
While many animals may appear friendly or harmless, some are surprisingly dangerous. Of course, none are quite as fearsome as the baby squirrel. A man from Karlsruhe, Germany, learned this the hard way when he had to call the police to rescue him from one of these little menaces.
The police responded to a call from a person being chased relentlessly by a baby squirrel. Using a box of leaves, they managed to lure it away, and once contained, the squirrel immediately fell asleep. Officers shared a few photos of the tiny rodent online, hoping to make it their new mascot. Initially, they named it Karl-Friedrich, but after realizing it was female, they changed the name to Pippilotta, after Pippi Longstocking's full first name.
Animal experts explained that the squirrel was displaying behavior typical of a young rodent who had lost its mother and was seeking a replacement. Pippilotta is thriving now and has a new playmate, a male squirrel named Bjorn. She is scheduled to be released back into the wild in September.
5. Archaeologists May Have Found the Oldest Cheese in the World
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has revealed the discovery of a dairy product from an ancient Egyptian tomb, which could potentially be the oldest cheese known to man.
The tomb belongs to Ptahmes, a powerful official under Seti I, and is located in the Saqqara necropolis near the ancient city of Memphis. Discovered in 1885, the tomb was later lost beneath desert sands. Archaeologists from Cairo University rediscovered it in 2010 and have been meticulously examining the artifacts within ever since.
Among the recovered items was a jar containing a solid white mass, along with a piece of canvas fabric that likely served as a cover. The contents were analyzed at the University of Catania in Italy using mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography. The analysis identified peptides that revealed the substance as a dairy product made from both cow and sheep or goat milk. The canvas covering's design further suggested that the item was meant to preserve a solid, not a liquid, leading researchers to conclude that it was indeed cheese.
The sample showed traces of Brucella bacteria, which causes brucellosis—a disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans, typically through the consumption of unpasteurized dairy products.
4. The Cookie Battle Heats Up
An age-old rivalry in the cookie world was reignited recently when Hydrox announced it had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing Oreo of using sabotage tactics to push customers toward their brand.
Hydrox first hit the market in 1908, and just four years later, Oreo arrived, sparking what would become a long-standing feud. Unfortunately for Hydrox, the battle was lopsided from the start, with Nabisco, the parent company of Oreo, wielding enough influence to dominate the market. Oreo became the top-selling cookie in the U.S., while Hydrox was left far behind and even disappeared from shelves for nearly 20 years.
After returning to the market in 2015 under Leaf Brands, Hydrox now claims that its competitor, Oreo, is actively hindering its sales. The accusation involves Oreo's sales reps, who not only stock their own biscuits in stores but also reportedly hide or relocate Hydrox products to make them harder to find. Oreo, owned by Mondelez International (which also owns Nabisco), is accused of these underhanded tactics to maintain its market dominance.
3. What’s It Like On The Hottest Planet Ever Discovered?
Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) revealed that one planet is so intensely hot that its atmosphere contains vapors of iron and titanium.
This planet, known as KELT-9b, is located 650 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation. Discovered last year, it orbits its star, KELT-9, at a distance 30 times closer than Earth is to the Sun. This proximity has raised its temperature to over 4,000 degrees Kelvin, not quite as hot as the surface of our Sun, but still significantly hotter than other stars.
The exact nature of the planet's atmosphere under such extreme conditions remains uncertain, but scientists at the University of Bern have speculated that most molecules would exist in atomic form. They also predicted that atomic iron could be observed as a gas using telescopes.
A few months later, the FOUR ACES1 team from UNIGE took a closer look. As KELT-9b passed in front of its host star, light from KELT-9 streamed through the planet's atmosphere. Using a spectrograph to split the light into its constituent colors, they were able to study the chemical makeup of the atmosphere. Not only did they confirm the presence of iron vapor, but they also detected titanium vapor in the atmosphere, just as predicted.
Hot Jupiters are a category of exoplanets similar to Jupiter, but unlike our gas giant neighbor, they orbit much closer to their stars. This proximity results in short orbital periods and significantly higher surface temperatures. Scientists have been pushing for a new category called 'ultra-hot Jupiters' to classify planets like KELT-9b. The challenge lies in their belief that under these conditions, most of these exoplanets would evaporate entirely.
2. The Ancient Recipe For Embalming
For the first time, extensive tests on a complete ancient mummy have uncovered the recipe for the early Egyptian embalming techniques. This process predates the fully developed mummification process by 1,000 years and was a foundational aspect of ancient Egyptian culture.
The mummy in question was housed at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, and dates back to 3700–3500 BC. What sets this mummy apart is that it has never undergone any conservation treatments, allowing researchers to study its chemical composition in its original form from thousands of years ago.
In 2014, an international team of scientists, led by Dr. Stephen Buckley from the University of York, began investigating ancient embalming techniques. Their work initially focused on analyzing textiles used in mummy wrappings, which, despite being dated to 4000 BC, were found to contain embalming agents. Following this, the team conducted a chemical analysis of the Turin mummy, uncovering the ingredients involved in the process.
The basic embalming formula includes plant oil, a gum derived from plants, a balsam-like plant or root extract (likely from bulrushes), and resin from conifer trees, possibly pine. This mixture was believed to have antibacterial properties, offering protection against decay.
1. Bovine Justice Is Served
A group of cows played an unexpected role in bringing a fugitive to justice, chasing the suspect across their pasture and ultimately driving him into the hands of the law.
A woman named Jamie Young stole an SUV in Florida and led police on a pursuit before crashing the vehicle into a stop sign in a rural area of Seminole County. She fled the scene on foot, hoping to escape the officers by running through a nearby pasture.
Around 20 cows were grazing in the pasture, and they weren’t exactly thrilled by Young’s intrusion. They began chasing her across the field, even launching mock attacks as they went after her. Eventually, Young abandoned her efforts to outrun the police and leaped over a fence to avoid the herd.
For the authorities, the sight of the stampeding cows became a clear marker of where their suspect had gone. They were able to arrest Young shortly after she vaulted the fence. To make matters worse for her, a helicopter from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office was monitoring the entire chase from the sky, capturing the entire event on camera.
