Buzz
If you’ve missed the buzz around the latest news, don't worry, we've got everything you need. Click here to discover the major events of the week, with a special focus on the unusual stories that might surprise you.
This week, we've got a variety of fascinating stories. From revelations about the celestial bodies near and far, to the resolution of two long-standing mysteries and the unveiling of a new 3,000-year-old one. You’ll also be amazed by animals scaling skyscrapers and counting to zero. And for the human side of things, we explore the world record for skinny-dipping and the development of the first AI designed to be a psychopath.
10. The Mystery of the Humid Moon
It’s been pointed out before that NASA has not always been the most thorough in preserving its old tapes. Recently, however, researchers were able to uncover hundreds of archived tapes, which they used to unravel a mystery that has baffled scientists for over three decades.
During the Apollo 15 and 17 missions in 1971 and 1972, astronauts installed probes on the Moon's surface to measure its subsurface temperature. The aim was to understand how heat travels from the core to the surface and to determine whether the Moon has a hot core. But over the years, NASA faced an entirely different puzzle: the Moon was gradually warming up, and no one knew why.
The experiment concluded in 1977, but for some reason, NASA only archived the tapes from 1971 to 1974, leaving the remaining data presumed lost.
In 2010, a team led by Seiichi Nagihara from Texas Tech University managed to track down the missing tapes and found 440 of them covering 1975–77 stored at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. After years of extracting and analyzing the data, they discovered that human activities were responsible for the increase in temperature.
The mere act of landing and moving around on the Moon was enough to disturb its surface, exposing darker soil beneath. This darker soil absorbed more heat from the Sun, raising the temperature of the regions measured by 1–2 degrees Celsius (1.8–3.6 °F).
9. World Record for Skinny-Dipping Set in Ireland
More than 2,500 women gathered at Magheramore Beach in Wicklow, Ireland, to take part in the largest skinny-dipping event ever recorded, setting a new Guinness World Record in the process.
The event was organized by Dee Featherstone in support of Aoibheann’s Pink Tie, a pediatric cancer charity. This marks the sixth consecutive year the swim has been held, starting with just Featherstone and 60 friends and family members participating to support her following a cancer diagnosis. This year, 2,505 women braved the chilly waters for five minutes to officially secure the record.
They broke the previous record of 786 set in Perth, Australia, in 2015. However, the Australians are already planning to reclaim the title with a swim scheduled for February 2019.
8. Charlie Chaplin: The Original Meme Creator
Charlie Chaplin has earned a new honor: ‘the inventor of memes.’ A still from his 1922 film Pay Day has gone viral online for its striking similarity to the famous ‘distracted boyfriend meme.’
The contemporary version of the meme features a man walking alongside his partner while glancing at an attractive woman walking in the opposite direction. The accompanying text typically expresses a desire for something forbidden while ignoring what’s already present. The Chaplin scene mirrors this narrative, though the original still was mirrored to better align with the modern meme's style.
The ‘distracted boyfriend’ image originally came from a stock photo with the caption ‘Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl.’ It began circulating as a meme in early 2017, although there’s no indication that either the original photographer or meme creators intentionally drew inspiration from Chaplin’s Pay Day scene.
A similar story surfaced a few months back when people noticed a remarkable resemblance between a modern meme called 'What you think you look like vs. What you actually look like' and an illustration from the 1921 issue of a magazine named Judge.
7. Honeybees Can Count to Zero
A recent study led by a team of scientists from Australia and France, published in Science, revealed that honeybees are the first insects known to grasp the concept of zero. The study showed that they not only distinguish ‘nothing’ from ‘something,’ but also understand zero as the lowest point in a numerical sequence.
In the experiment, researchers attracted honeybees to a screen displaying white cards with two to five dark shapes. Sweet water was used as a reward, and some bees were trained to choose cards with fewer shapes while others were trained to select cards with more. This was based on a previous study which demonstrated that honeybees can count up to four.
After a day of training, the researchers introduced blank cards. The bees quickly recognized these as the lowest in the numerical sequence and consistently placed them at the bottom. Moreover, their accuracy improved as they were shown the blank cards alongside cards with an increasing number of shapes.
The next phase of research involves testing whether this ability is innate or if it can be taught by using both trained and untrained bees together.
6. The Captain Returns
A former US Air Force officer who mysteriously disappeared 35 years ago was recently discovered living under a false identity in California.
Captain William Howard Hughes Jr. was last seen in New Mexico in July 1983 after withdrawing nearly $30,000 from his bank account. The Air Force launched an investigation, but after failing to find him, officially declared Hughes a deserter in December of that same year.
When Hughes disappeared, he was a high-ranking officer with 'Top Secret/Single Scope Background Investigation' clearance. During the Cold War, many speculated that the captain had either been abducted or had defected to the USSR.
Some intelligence reports from the time even connected Hughes to potential sabotage of American and French rocket launches, including the Challenger space shuttle disaster. One officer claimed in an interview that Hughes was 'worth his weight in gold to the Russians.'
In reality, the missing officer had neither defected nor been kidnapped. He simply changed his name to Barry O'Beirne and relocated to Daly City, California. Hughes revealed his true identity while being investigated by the US Department of State. He later explained that he disappeared because of depression related to his time in the Air Force.
5. Daredevil Raccoon In Action
If you've ever imagined a cross between Spider-Man and Rocket Raccoon, your imagination might just be spot-on. Earlier this week, a fearless raccoon was spotted in St. Paul, Minnesota. The raccoon spent much of Tuesday climbing the walls of a 23-story building before finally reaching the rooftop safely by Wednesday morning.
The raccoon was first seen perched on a ledge near the building's ground floor. Building staff created a makeshift ramp with planks in an attempt to coax the animal down. But instead of climbing down, the little critter began scaling the walls, spending much of the day climbing up and down, pausing occasionally on ledges to take naps.
Local media broadcasted the entire ordeal live, drawing an increasing crowd at the base of the building to cheer on the 'trash panda.' The raccoon became a sensation, even earning the nickname MPRraccoon after the nearby Minnesota Public Radio building.
By 3:00 AM, the raccoon finally made it to the roof, but it took another five hours for officials to safely bring it down. To avoid frightening the raccoon into climbing down the building again, Wildlife Management officers set a trap and waited patiently, using tempting cat food to lure the critter inside.
4. An AI’s Best Friend Is His Mother
MIT scientists developed the first artificial intelligence with psychopathic tendencies, naming it Norman after the notorious character from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Norman was immersed in the darker parts of the internet, particularly a subreddit focused on violence and death. Using image captioning, researchers trained the AI to generate and learn from text descriptions of images. Afterward, Norman underwent a standard Rorschach test, and his responses were compared to those of a conventional AI.
In one inkblot, where the other AI saw 'a person holding an umbrella in the air,' Norman interpreted it as 'a man shot to death in front of his screaming wife.' In another inkblot that depicted 'a black-and-white photo of a baseball glove,' Norman described it as 'a man murdered by machine gun in broad daylight.' And so on.
Initially launched as an April Fools’ prank, Norman soon became a subject of serious study. MIT researchers claim it offers a valuable case study illustrating how easily AI can be corrupted by biased data fed into its learning algorithm. Now, anyone can participate in the study by taking the same inkblot test. Their responses are then given to Norman to see if it’s possible to fix a rogue AI.
3. A Supermassive Appetite
In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have observed a supermassive black hole devouring a star and ejecting a jet of material at a speed of one-fourth the speed of light. This study, published in Science, marks the culmination of over a decade of data collected from telescopes worldwide.
The black hole resides in Arp 299, a pair of colliding galaxies nearly 150 million light-years away. With a mass equivalent to 20 million Suns, it consumed a star approximately two to six times the mass of our Sun.
The phenomenon was first detected in 2005 by a team at the University of Turku in Finland. Astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Spain, also studying the same region, soon confirmed the event. Initially thought to be a supernova, later infrared observations revealed it was too bright to be a nova. Scientists eventually identified it as a tidal disruption event (TDE).
A TDE occurs when a star ventures too close to a supermassive black hole. The star is torn apart, with half of it spiraling into the black hole’s debris disk, and the other half cast into the void of space. While TDEs are rarely detected, some scientists believe they happen frequently. This is the first time we've directly observed the key stages of a TDE, including the eruption of particles at its conclusion.
2. Back From The Dead
A woman in Tokyo was left stunned when her husband, presumed to be 'dead' for a year, suddenly appeared on her doorstep.
The man had gone missing in June 2017 from the Katsushika Ward of Tokyo. Three days later, a body matching his description was found and handed over to his wife. She, along with two other relatives, positively identified him. The family went ahead with the cremation of the body. However, earlier this month, the woman reported that her husband had returned unharmed in May. So far, the police have not revealed any details regarding the man's disappearance.
Authorities later determined that the body belonged to a different man of similar height and age, who had gone missing around the same time. They issued an apology for the mix-up, explaining that bodies are typically returned to their families after a visual identification when the death is not related to a crime. However, this does not clarify how three relatives of the ‘resurrected’ husband could have mistakenly identified the wrong body.
1. The Mysterious Identity Of The King
A rare and intriguing archaeological discovery has both excited and baffled scholars. It’s a statue of a king’s head, remarkably well-preserved, dating back to the ninth century BC. Yet, the identity of the king and the kingdom he ruled remains a mystery.
The 5-centimeter (2 in) statue was unearthed in Israel, at the Abel Beth Maacah site near the Lebanese border. Crafted from faience, a material frequently used in ancient Egypt and the Near East for figurines, the statue’s head is in outstanding condition despite a missing piece from its beard, offering exceptional craftsmanship compared to other Iron Age art.
The central question is: Who does this statue represent? Scholars suggest it could be a Near Eastern king from the Bible. During the ninth century BC, Abel Beth Maacah was located at a crossroads between three significant powers: the Israelite Kingdom, the Aramean Kingdom, and the city of Tyre.
The Old Testament lists this city as one of those conquered by the Aramean king Ben Hadad. Could the statue depict him? Perhaps, but it could also represent King Ithobaal I of Tyre or a ruler from Israel. The debate continues, with the excavation team hopeful that further evidence will be uncovered at the site.
