Tag Archives: Astonishing

Challenge Your Mind with These Astonishing Scientific Riddles!

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(1) You are invited to join the periodic table. The legendary figures and the elements named after them comprise the 12 Titans (titanium), Prometheus (promethium), and Thor (thorium). Additionally, Nobel laureates and their elemental counterparts include Ernest Rutherford (Rutherfordium), Marie and Pierre Curie (Curium), and Albert Einstein (Einsteinium). The “noble gases” are uncommon gases situated at the far right of the periodic table.

(2) The inscription on the card reads Noel (or more precisely NO)eL). N signifies Newton, O represents the most prevalent blood type, e denotes a mathematical constant, and the L. on the label points to Carl Linnaeus as the namer of the species.

(3) Element 47 has been utilized since ancient days. Silver halide is prevalent in photography, and silver itself is employed in mirrors. Silver ions or compounds are often found in wound dressings for their antibacterial qualities. Silverware contributes calories through the use of utensils like knives, forks, and spoons. If your festive tree displays shiny glass ornaments, the luster likely originates from a fine layer of silver on the inside.

(4) The reference is to the carol of the bells. These figures also highlight astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, physicist John Stewart Bell, and inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

(5) Gingerbread could be a valid guess. Our dishes share the first two letters with the most frequent letters. metric prefix, which is a term that modifies a number by a power of 10, regularly scales up from diminutive (nano) to massive (giga). They include: nano (10-9), micro (10-6), mm (10-3), det (100 – equal to 1), km (equal to 103), mega (106), and giga (109).

(6) These are descriptions of Ada Lovelace, Mary Anning, Hannah Fry, and Mitochondrial Eve. Notably, Mary Anning is the only individual without a palindromic first name. Hence, she will not be returning next year as her name reads the same forwards and backwards.

(7) Integrate the energy symbol E and the unit symbol eV (electronvolt) with Mendel to arrive at Mendeleev. Gregor Mendel demonstrated the inheritance of traits through a sequence of pea breeding experiments in the 1850s and 1860s, while Dmitri Mendeleev formulated the initial periodic table by organizing elements according to their atomic weights.

(8) Three clues pertain to Makemake, Tweet, and Meme. Each of these terms consists of repeating components that decrease by one letter each time, logically succeeding MM (2000 in Roman numerals).

(9) The Christmas pudding is aflame! The brandy should be heated before pouring so that the ethanol vapors from the alcohol do not ignite and scorch the pudding.

(10) The central theme of Grandma’s show was music. Hints include classical, rock, pop, and ultimately, punk and emo.

(11) The answer is cheese. Humans have produced cheese in various forms for over 7000 years. Its flavor and texture arise from the many bacteria, molds, and yeasts that inhabit it.

(12) The answer is bizarre. Each clue leads to a word containing “nuts”: star nuttation, nutria, minute, nutrition. These items might end up in your stocking or be present on the festive table post-dinner.

Source: www.newscientist.com

Uncovering the Astonishing Facts about Ancient Bead-Like Fossils

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Paleontologists have determined that a mysterious fruit first discovered in the 1970s is the oldest known frankincense fossil. Scale bar = 2 mm.
Credit: Stephen Manchester

Mysterious fossils discovered in India in the 1970s have been identified as part of the Frankincense family, suggesting a Southern Hemisphere origin and reshaping our understanding of plant evolution. In the early 1970s, paleontologists working on the outskirts of an Indian village discovered tiny bead-like fossils embedded in the gray chert that dotted the surrounding fields. The site was notorious for the discovery of hard-to-identify plant fossils, including the fruits of extinct creatures. The fossils have been named “Enigmocarpon”.

The new fossils proved to be similarly frustratingly unwieldy. More plants were discovered in India in subsequent decades, but scientists were unable to determine which type of plant they belonged to.

A breakthrough in fossil identification: Now, researchers say they have solved the mystery. Stephen Manchester, curator of paleobotany at the Florida Museum of Natural History, used CT scanning technology to create his 3D reconstructions of the original fossil specimens and other specimens collected since then. He showed this to his colleagues and noticed something strange about his five triangular seeds inside.

Before the widespread use of CT scans in paleontology, these small fossils, less than 10 mm in diameter, were particularly difficult to study and identify. “When I showed him the 3-D images, he said, ‘Those aren’t seeds. They’re pyrenes,'” Manchester said with Walter Judd, curator of botany at the Florida Museum. I remembered the conversation. Pyrene is a woody dispersal pod that provides an additional layer of protection to the seeds. Distinguishing between seeds and pyrenes requires close scrutiny, especially when they are the size of a snowflake.

“If we had a specimen that broke in just the right plane, we would have been able to identify it, but we couldn’t identify it with the material we had,” Manchester said. Although they may look like seeds, these woody structures are actually pyrenes, similar to the stones found in peaches and date palms.

Frankincense family connection: Only a few plant groups produce pyrene, and even fewer have fruits containing five seeds arranged in a pentagram. Through a process of elimination, Manchester and Judd determined that the fossils belonged to the frankincense family, an extinct member of the Kansas family. Fossilized trees, leaves, fruits, and flowers of this family have been found elsewhere in India, often sandwiched between thick basalt slabs created by the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s history.

Geological background and importance: At that time, India was an island off the southeast coast of Africa. India’s continental plate slowly moved toward Europe and Asia, breaking the seal of a thin layer of Earth’s crust as it passed through Madagascar. The fossils were preserved during a quiet period between eruptions, which makes it the oldest fossil of the Kansidae family ever discovered, and has important implications for the origin of the family. Scientists have a good idea of ​​when this group of plants first evolved, but it’s still unclear where they came from.

Source: scitechdaily.com