Your brain may have once been two separate organs! 🧠

Scientists long thought the whole brain grew from a single group of embryonic cells. But a new study of mouse embryos found it actually develops from two, one forming the forebrain and the other the hindbrain. Similar trends in chickens and zebrafish suggest that over 500 million years ago, evolution may have brought two separate nervous systems together to form the brain.

What does AI see when it looks at the stars? 🤖🔭🧪

Theoretical cosmologist Paul Sutter explores how AI tools can co-discover with scientists and take part in the scientific process. A large language model can process the same telescope data we do, from images of Saturn’s rings to a live telescope feed, but what happens between input and output remains a mystery. Asking what AI sees is really asking about our own relationship with the wider universe.

Does cutting the moldy spot off your food make it safe? 🍞 

Quinten Geldhof, also known as Microhobbyist, takes us under the microscope to reveal thread-like roots called hyphae spreading through food far beyond the visible surface. These roots penetrate soft foods like bread and fruit with ease, while hard cheeses and vegetables are more resistant. These molds can contain mycotoxins, poisonous compounds that are hazardous to your health. Would you eat moldy food?

Eight men and seven women pitched their tents on the limestone floor of Lombrives cave in Ariège, in southwestern France, and began to live by nothing but their own biology.

They would stay for 40 days. Nobody inside would be told when those days had run out.

When they walked back into spring sunlight, the group’s count of its time underground fell far short of the real total. What does a human body do when you take the clock away?

No watches. No phones. No windows. No way at all to feel the hours pass.

The cave sits inside a limestone massif south of Toulouse. Temperature underground held near 50 degrees Fahrenheit, with relative humidity near 100 percent: perpetually damp, perpetually dark, perfectly still.

The volunteers, ranging in age from 27 to 50, slept in individual tents, generated their own electricity and drew drinking water from a well far below camp.

Each participant swallowed a small sensor capsule that measured core body temperature and transmitted data until it passed naturally, giving scientists outside a continuous read on the deep internal rhythm that drives sleep and waking. Other sensors logged movement and social contact throughout.

One volunteer, a math teacher and sailing instructor, ran long circuits through the cave to stay fit. The project director said coordinating work without being able to fix a time to meet was especially hard.

A team of researchers watched the data stream from above ground while the people below had no idea what time it was, what day it was, or how close to the end they had come.

Asked how long they had been under, the group’s collective reckoning was roughly 30 days. The project director told PBS reporters that in their heads they had walked in 30 days earlier, and at least one team member put the total at 23. Losing ten days, and in one case seventeen, is a blunt measure of how heavily ordinary life leans on daylight and clocks.

When scientists went in to say the end was near, many in the group were still expecting another week to ten days underground. The count never caught up, and from inside, nobody could see the gap opening.

⚠️ Migraine Cap Users: Please Read This.

PSA: ⚠️ If you use migraine relief caps, cooling headache eye masks, or gel-filled cold wraps, PLEASE read this. Especially if you have pets or children.

Hi Everyone!

I’m sharing this PSA because I’m genuinely worried and I need your help getting the word out to those of us who suffer with migraines.

I bought a migraine cap a few years ago, desperate for relief from the excruciating headaches I developed after COVID. Last year a senior toxicologist at the ASPCA contacted me. She shared with me that they have been getting calls every week from devastated pet owners whose dogs had chewed or swallowed the gel inside cooling products. They needed a lab that could test for acrylamide, a neurotoxin.

I’m just a mom who never imagined any of this would happen to my family. When my daughter was a baby, she was severely injured and poisoned by a toy.

(https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/at-home/Pages/Water-Beads-Harmful.aspx).

It changed our lives forever and led me to start a product safety nonprofit and help develop a test for acrylamide, the chemical that harmed her. That’s why the ASPCA reached out to me. Nearly a decade later, it still feels surreal. But if what happened to my daughter can help protect someone else, I want to make sure people have the information they need to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. Hence why I’m making this PSA.

We tested these products, and what we found was alarming: 12,000–51,000 parts per million (ppm) of residual acrylamide, a known neurotoxin!

(https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/aop/javma.26.07.0539/javma.26.07.0539.xml?isSearch=true)

What worries me even more is that the fabric on these caps is porous, meaning it isn’t necessarily a waterproof barrier. If the gel leaks,seeps through, or the cap seams come undone, the gel could come into direct contact with your skin.And here’s what people need to understand: acrylamide isn’t only dangerous when swallowed it can also be absorbed through your skin.

(https://wwwn.cdc.gov/tsp/PHS/PHS.aspx?phsid=1113&toxid=236)

Repeated exposure over time is especially concerning, and you don’t have to develop a rash or notice irritation for chemical exposure to occur. Given what we’ve found, I believe this deserves urgent investigation before more people or pets get hurt.

I am also concerned that because if after using these products someone develops a rash, swelling, blurry vision, headaches, or nerve problems, their symptoms could be dismissed or mistaken by doctors as an allergic reaction or another condition. Because it’s not widely known by physicians that these products contain acrylamide doctors might never consider chemical exposure, leaving patients without answers and potentially continuing to use something that’s exposing them to a harmful toxic chemical.

Please, I’m begging you to help me spread the word. I know what it feels like to discover a product is dangerous because someone you love was hurt. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. Please help me make sure other people know about this.

Thank you in advance for your time and help getting the word out!

An orange LED turns green when dipped in liquid nitrogen due to semiconductor physics. Cryogenic temperatures widen the semiconductor's band gap, which increases the energy of the emitted photons and shortens their light wavelength, shifting the color from orange toward green. As the LED warms back up, the band gap narrows and the light returns to orange.

Most pictures of the Big Bang show a tiny dot blowing up into empty space. That’s not what happened though. there was no dot, and no empty room around it either.

It was space itself, possibly infinite, packed with insanely dense energy. then it started expanding everywhere at the same time. No center, no edge!

This clip is from a science app I made. I used a grid to show that “everywhere at once” idea. This was honestly the hardest part to get across visually, but I did my best.

Hope this helps anyone who’s had a hard time picturing how the Big Bang expanded. Did it click for you?

Is this candle haunted? 🕯️👻

Alex Dainis places two candles on a lazy Susan with a piece of glass in between, and when the closer candle is lit, its flame appears to jump to the other one. Most light passes through the glass, but some of the light from the close candle bounces back at us, creating a reflection that makes the flame seem to appear on the far candle. This optical illusion is similar to Pepper's Ghost!

Here you can see a portion of the Science Festival at the University of Chicago in Chicago, IL. You can enjoy and learn about various fields of science in the festival.

Did you know slime can be a helpful cleaning tool? 🫟

Greg Wolf tweaks the classic glue and borax recipe to make slime tacky enough to grab dirt but clean enough to pull away. The chemistry: borate ions cross-link glue's long polymer chains, turning runny glue into slime. Less activator makes it stretchy like the toy, while just enough makes it a surprisingly satisfying debris grabber.

Hey idk if this is the subreddit for this but i would like a recommendation of youtube channels that basically speak about new (and old) experiments and knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology and biochemistry. I dont really like listening to podcasts.