July 01, 2023: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Space is the place for science news it seems, with a number of astounding discoveries from the cosmic realm getting us all starry-eyed this week.
The main headlines were the groundbreaking discovery of gravitational waves rippling in the cosmic background, and the first map of the Milky Way made with matter, not light, by tracing the galactic origins of thousands of “ghost particles,” or neutrinos. However, we also had distortions in space-time putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to the test, carbon compounds crucial to life found in star system 1,000 light-years from Earth, rare streaks of light above the U.S. signaling the fast-approaching solar maximum, and an alien planet hiding in our solar system — and it’s not “Planet X.”
Back on Earth, we learned that the the world’s largest crocodile living in captivity has passed a medical with flying colors, we saw an incredible video of a 28-year-old lab chimp seeing the open sky for the first time, and watched a shapeshifting eel with a “remarkably full tummy” swim in the deep sea. Sadly, we also found out that White Gladis, the orca that likely started the attacks on boats in Iberian waters, may have been pregnant at the time of her first strike, and was so hellbent on stopping boats that she neglected her calf once born.
