麻豆传媒

Twisteddoodles on a relatable test tube

This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles

Life

Artist’s tulip photos capture transience of life

Two seagulls above aircraft wing

Do winged animals ever suffer comparable mishaps to aircraft?

2R067KD The Great Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt. It was built more than 4,500 years ago to guard the pyramid of Khafre at Giza.

How long will it be until the pyramids in Egypt weather away?

B1PP5G Spiral Galaxy M74 i. Image shot 2008. Exact date unknown.

What makes galaxies spin in a certain direction? Part two

GUILIN, CHINA - OCTOBER 16: Juri Hollmann of Germany and Movistar Team leads the peloton during the 4th Gree-Tour of Guangxi 2023, Stage 5 a 209.6km stage from Liuzhou to Guilin / #UCIWT / on October 16, 2023 in Guilin, China. (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

This week鈥檚 new questions

Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image) By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard NASA???s James Webb Space Telescope, the universe has been framed in its infrared glory. Webb???s near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details. Myriad stars are spread throughout the scene. The stars primarily show up in near-infrared light, marking a contribution of Webb???s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Near-infrared light also reveals thousands of newly formed stars ??? look for bright orange spheres that lie just outside the dusty pillars. In mid-infrared light, the dust is on full display. The contributions from Webb???s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are most apparent in the layers of diffuse, orange dust that drape the top of the image, relaxing into a V. The densest regions of dust are cast in deep indigo hues, obscuring our view of the activities inside the dense pillars. Dust also makes up the spire-like pillars that extend from the bottom left to the top right. This is one of the reasons why the region is overflowing with stars ??? dust is a major ingredient of star formation. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Newly formed stars are especially apparent at the edges of the top two pillars ??? they are practically bursting onto the scene. At the top edge of the second pillar, undulating detail in red hints at even more embedded stars. These are even younger, and are quite active as they form. The lava-like regions capture their periodic ejections. As stars form, they periodically send out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for mi

Society

Why ‘existential humility’ may be the answer to today’s culture wars

How much hair is the right amount to cut off? Depends who you ask

Tom Gauld on the adventures of AI-Chessbot-5000

Twisteddoodles on ways to make a research journal more appealing

This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles

Chemistry

Homemade malt is the key to baking the perfect loaf of bread

Is there a limit to how small an adult arthropod can be? If so, why?

Would whisking cold water up from the ocean depths help with warming?

Are gnats attracted to eyeballs, or do we just notice these ones most?