Jan 27: Oil sands pollution, Megalodon shrinks a bit, planet with a tail and more
Writing stimulates brain connectivity, the aftermath of a giant underwater volcano
On this episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:
Oil sands produce more air pollution than industry's required to report, study says
The volume of airborne organic carbon pollutants — some of the same pollutants that lead to smog in cities — produced by Alberta's oil sands have been measured at levels up to 6,300 per cent higher than we thought. John Luggio, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the cutting edge techniques they used in their new study picked up many pollutants industry hasn't been required to track. Mark Cameron, from Pathways Alliance, the industry group representing several oil sands companies, agreed that these findings warrant further review.
Megalodon was enormous — but perhaps less husky than we'd thought
The extinct shark megalodon was likely the largest predatory shark to ever swim the oceans, but a new reconstruction suggests it was not quite the behemoth we thought it was. Scientists had assumed it was beefy and thick like a modern great white shark, but a new study says the evidence suggests it was a slim, sleek killer. Philip Sternes, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Riverside, in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal biology, worked with a team of 26 international scientists on the study featured in Palaeontologia Electronica.
Astronomers find a planet with a massive, gassy tail
Observations of a large, Jupiter-sized exoplanet closely orbiting a nearby star have revealed that the planet has a huge, comet-like tail. The 560,000 kilometre-long tail seems to be a result of the powerful stellar wind from the star stripping the atmosphere away from the gaseous planet and blowing it out into space. The find was made by a team at University of California, Los Angeles, including astrophysicist Dakotah Tyler, and was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Put down your laptop, pick up your pen — writing stimulates brain connectivity
A new study looking at the activation of networks in the brain associated with learning and memory suggests that writing by hand results in much more brain connectivity than typing on a keyboard. This adds to the evidence that writing by hand is a memory aid. Audrey van der Meer, a professor of neuropsychology and director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, led the work, which was published in Frontiers in Psychology
The aftermath of a record-smashing volcano: Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai two years later
In January 2022, the largest underwater volcanic eruption ever recorded devastated the seafloor of the southwestern Pacific. A tsunami washed ashore in nearby Tonga — causing significant property damage, but thankfully taking few lives. Kevin Mackay, a marine geologist from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, said this blast broke many records, including the loudest sound, highest eruption and fastest underwater avalanches ever recorded. He said we're still feeling the heating effects from it today due to the water vapour it shot into the stratosphere.
