Ocean Photographer Of The Year 2024 has announced the finalists for this year’s competition, whittled down from some 15,000 entries. Combining shots achieved with the aid of drones and capturing environments some of us might otherwise never see, the competition has brought the oceans to our screens, and picked up a few rather majestic animals along the way.Dramatic wildlife encounters within the category this year include a baitball being devoured from air and sea, eels slithering over rocks at low tide like it’s no big deal, and an iridescent mahi mahi showing off a mouthful. The winners won’t be announced until September 12, but until then, let's dive in and take a look at what we’re dealing with.A fever of rays star in Laura Leusko's entry.Image credit: Laura Leusko, Ocean Photographer of the YearLaura LeuskoBaja California Sur, MexicoWhat do you call a group of rays? A fever! These mobula rays (Mobulidae sp.) were photographed from above by Leusko in Mexico. When the photographer’s drone inched closer, some rays started to jump out of the water, creating this spirited photo that looks as if the fever is following the leader.Eels are more comfortable on land than we first realized.Image credit: Shane Gross, Ocean Photographer of the YearShane GrossD’Arros Island, SeychellesA group of peppered moray eels (Gymnothorax pictus) look for food in a tidal pool at low tide. “Their ability to come completely out of the water is amazing and surprising,” said Gross in a release emailed to IFLScience. Eels are more talented on land than first thought, with the species Echidna nebulosa becoming the first fish documented being able to feed in a terrestrial environment back in 2021.Photographing baitballs is no mean feat.Image credit: Merche Llobera, Ocean Photographer of the YearMerche LloberaBaja California Sur, MexicoIn Llobera’s “The Hunt” we see pelicans diving from the sky in a well-coordinated dance to snatch a meal. The unique perspective of this shot gives us a look at what’s going on underwater, too, where mahi-mahi are darting around at top speed in pursuit of sardines, while sea lions also join the action. As wildlife photographer Bertie Gregory told IFLScience, winding up inside a baitball can be quite a dramatic experience, so achieving a shot like this is a real triumph.Who's for a hingebeak shrimp rave in a barrel sponge?Image credit: Nataya Chonecadeedumrongkul, Ocean Photographer of the YearNataya ChonecadeedumrongkulKoh Haa, ThailandGet a load of these hingebeak shrimps (Rhynchocinetes durbanensis) in the hollow of a barrel sponge. These striking shrimp live in colonies and can put on quite a show. With vivid red and white stripes, they display dance-like movements as they sway back and forth, beaks pointed upwards. Now that’s our kind of party.Ocean Photographer Of The Year 2024 is co-presented by Oceanographic and Blancpain. Keep an eye out for the winners, announced September 12, 2024.

Ever think of a bug getting old? No? Us neither – but it turns out that when it comes to invertebrates, there are some surprisingly long lifespans on the records. When perusing the insect collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, there was one that really caught our eye: a beetle that can live to 50.A beetle quinquagenarian? What a concept. The claim is held by the golden jewel beetle (Buprestis aurulenta), and it’s a beauty. As adults, they boast a glittering green exoskeleton lined with a gorgeous red hue, but despite their beauty, they’ve historically been considered a pest.That’s because golden jewel beetles are wood-boring animals, meaning they view any wood in a property as a hearty meal. They’ve become a difficult pest to manage in their native range of western North America, not least because they’re so good at hiding in wood without any obvious signs from the exterior. Sometimes, the best way to find them is to listen for their chewing sounds.Say what you will about their wood-munching ways, these guys are very beautiful.Image credit: Paradox Media House / Shutterstock.comFor this reason, when golden jewel beetles emerge from a property, it’s generally assumed that they are at least the same age as the building unless there’s been an obvious introduction of potentially contaminated wood since its construction – for instance, building an extension or making repairs with timber that is unknowingly harboring invaders.What’s also interesting about these critters is that the length of time spent hiding in the wood before emerging doesn’t seem to be uniform across the species. In fact, they may even vary significantly within the same brood of beetles.“Some cases of prolonged development time are extrinsically mediated by direct effects the environment, such as Buprestis aurulenta,” wrote Yong Zeng in the University of Florida Book of Insect Records. “Smith (1962) suggested there are innate differences in rate of development amongst individuals of the same B. aurulenta brood; some have short rates of development and others prolonged development under the same environmental conditions.”“Obviously, the poor nutritional quality of dead wood causes significantly prolonged development (Haack & Slansky 1987). As, Howard (1942) pointed out, under these exceptional conditions, the larvae of certain wood-boring beetles (Cerambycidae and Buprestidae) in furniture and manufactured wooden articles may have the longest lives recorded among insects.”An impressive title for the golden jeweled beetle then, but one we still have much to learn about. Another long-lived group of invertebrates are the periodical cicadas, famous for staying underground for prolonged periods with such regularity that we can predict when a cicadapocalypse is coming – even if it takes 221 years.

A colossal solar storm that erupted in April last year completely obliterated part of the Earth’s magnetic field, morphing the planet’s magnetosphere and causing it to grow “wings”. As a result of this spectacular rare event, a two-way highway between the Sun and Earth temporarily opened up, sending charged particles in both directions and sparking auroras at both ends.Describing the wild phenomenon in a new study, researchers explain that the Earth typically moves through the magnetized solar wind at a velocity that exceeds the so-called Alfvén speed, which denotes the speed at which magnetic waves travel through a plasma. The result, they say, is similar to that caused by “supersonically fast fighter jets creating sonic shocks in the air,” whereby the Earth’s super-Alfvénic motion produces what’s known as a bow shock.In a series of posts on X about the event, NASA explains that a bow shock is “like the frothy waves at the front of a boat as it cuts through the water.”Occasionally, however, low density plasma spewed out by the Sun in a kind of eruption called a coronal mass ejection (CME) can cause the Alfvén speed to exceed that of the solar wind. When this occurs, the bow shock disappears and the Earth’s magnetosphere loses its typical “windsock-like” shape, instead developing what are known as Alfvén wings.According to the study authors, these wings magnetically connect our planet to the part of the Sun from which the CME erupted, acting as “highways for Earth's plasma to be lost to the Sun.”And that’s exactly what happened on April 24, 2023, when an enormous CME caused auroras to become visible all the way down in the southern US. “At one point, while surrounded by the storm, a part of Earth’s magnetic “shield” briefly dissipated,” explained NASA in its X thread.“With the bow shock (momentarily) gone, the magnetic field within the solar eruption — still rooted to the Sun — fused with Earth’s magnetic field,” continued the agency. “Particles trapped by Earth’s magnetism suddenly had an escape — a direct path to the Sun!”“In other words, the usual one-way flow from the Sun to Earth suddenly went both directions: For about two hours, Earth was also spewing particles back into the Sun!... If you had super-vision, you might even have witnessed an aurora on the Sun, as particles from our planet collided with the Sun’s atmosphere.”  IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.In reality, this solar aurora would have been far too dim to see against the brilliance of the Sun, but the rain of charged particles was detected by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft, which flew threw the Earth’s Alfvén wings.Despite being rare in our corner of the Solar System, Alfvén wings are actually pretty common elsewhere in the universe. In the realm of gas giants, for instance, these magnetic wings allow for charged particles to reach Jupiter from its moons Io and Ganymede, producing the enormous planet’s gorgeous ultraviolet auroras.The study has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists analyzed archival data from the WISE space telescope and made an important discovery. They have discovered a strange object that is flying through our galaxy at a staggering speed of 600 km/s (15% the speed of light). For comparison, the Sun rotates around the center of the Milky Way at a speed of 220 km/s. There are two options for what this strange object with unique properties could be. The results of the study have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, reports Gizmodo. The discovered object was named CWISE J1249 and observations using ground-based telescopes allowed astronomers to get a little closer to solving the mystery of this ultra-fast object. It is not yet clear exactly what CWISE J1249 is. It can be either a small star or a brown dwarf, that is, an object that has the characteristics of stars and planets. Whatever it is, it is moving extremely fast and on a unique trajectory, and it looks like the object will soon leave the Milky Way and fly off into intergalactic space. This object not only flies through space at a speed of 600 km/s, but also has unusual properties. Analysis of the data showed that CWISE J1249 contains less iron and other metals than other known stars and brown dwarfs. This means that this object is one of the oldest in the Milky Way. So far, scientists are inclined to believe that CWISE J1249, which flies at a distance of about 400 light years from us, may be a hypervelocity star. And perhaps this is a subdwarf star. Such stars have a very small mass and a lower temperature than the Sun. Moreover, subdwarfs are the oldest stars in our galaxy. Scientists have created simulations based on existing data to figure out what caused this object to gain such enormous speed. CWISE J1249 could be part of a binary system. But when another star exploded as a supernova, it gave the object a strong push and it began to accelerate. Another explanation could be that CWISE J1249 was a member of a globular cluster, a closely related cluster of stars. Black holes are believed to exist at the centers of such star clusters. Sometimes they can create a double system. If CWISE J1249 came close to a binary black hole, then the complex dynamics of interactions between the objects could eject the star from the globular cluster. Astronomers will continue to monitor the strange object to determine exactly what it is and why it is traveling so fast that it could escape our galaxy. The post Strange object discovered flying through space at incredible speed appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Billions of years ago, Mars may have been a vastly different world, and scientists using the Perseverance rover are continuing to reveal the Red Planet’s ancient secrets. A recent study published in the journal AGU Advances reports that rock samples collected from Jezero Crater on Mars may be older than the earliest evidence of life on Earth. These rocks contain minerals typically formed in water, leading scientists to speculate that they might hold the remnants of ancient Martian life, according to Interesting Engineering. The Perseverance rover gathered seven rock samples from the western flank of Jezero Crater. Scientists analyzed images captured by the rover and chemical data from the samples to identify the minerals present. Locations in Jezero Crater where the rover collected rock samples. Credit: NASA The analysis revealed that the rocks contain water-formed minerals, indicating that they were likely deposited in an aquatic environment. Among the discoveries were carbonates, which form in sediments when water is present. On Earth, carbonates are known to build reefs and are considered ideal for preserving microbial fossils. The findings confirmed that the rocks indeed bear traces of water, suggesting that Jezero Crater was once a habitable environment. This supports the hypothesis that the crater once hosted a large, liquid-water lake. While the duration of the lake’s existence remains uncertain, it likely provided conditions conducive to the potential emergence of life. The rocks found on Mars suggest that the Red Planet had habitable conditions for at least some period of time. However, the rover’s instruments did not detect clear evidence of organic matter—the fundamental building blocks of life—in the rock samples. While organic matter is often linked to life, it can also form through geological processes. Nevertheless, scientists believe that these mineral-rich rocks offer the best chance for detecting signs of ancient Martian life. When these samples are returned to Earth by the Mars Sample Return mission in the next decade, more detailed analyses will be possible. Researchers also propose that these Martian rocks could be older than the earliest signs of life on Earth, potentially dating back to around 3.5 billion years ago, when they may have been deposited in an ancient lake. The study’s authors suggest that these are the oldest rocks ever found that could have formed in an aquatic environment, possibly containing fossils or traces of ancient microorganisms. In addition to carbonates, the rock samples also contained sulfates, indicating the presence of highly salty water in Jezero Crater at some point. If the entire lake was salty, it would have been inhospitable to life. However, if only the bottom layer was salty, it could have helped preserve remains from the less salty upper layers as they sank to the bottom. The post Conditions for Life on Mars May Have Existed Earlier Than on Earth appeared first on Anomalien.com.

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Four years after Fortnite was removed from the App Store, iPhone users can once again take advantage of this battle royale in the EU, as Epic Games re-released its most famous games through its Epic Games Store. For Android users, Fortnite is back again globally. Thanks to the EU's Digital Markets Act, Epic Games could launch its game store and add its battle royale game. "We are really grateful to the European Commission for not only passing the DMA and enabling store competition but also going in and robustly holding Apple and Google's feet to the fire to ensure that they can't just obstruct competition," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told Reuters and Bloomberg reporters in a press conference. The company's CEO told them that Epic may have lost up to $1 billion in revenue after Fortnite was removed from the App Store. This happened because the company didn't want to pay the 30% fee for Apple and Google's stores. While the experience of downloading the game isn't as seamless as it should be, Sweeney says, "Once you go through the 15 horrible steps to get the store on your device, it works really nicely." Besides Fortnite, the Epic Games Store is launching with Rocket League Sideswipe and the new Fall Guys for mobile. These are all free-to-play games with in-app purchases. In December, the store will welcome third-party game developers, and in early 2025, the company wants to offer its self-publishing tools for iOS and Android developers. Epic expects to add 100 million new mobile users by the end of the year. Currently, the company has 75 million monthly active users in its PC store. That said, Epic couldn't be happier about returning to mobile, as there's a large community playing gaming on smartphones. Later this fall, the Epic Games Store is expected to return to the iPad, as Apple's tablet will also be covered by the DMA's rules. Don't Miss: Apple announces iPhone sideloading, third-party payments, and more for EU The post Fortnite is back for iPhone in the EU and globally on Android appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $699 Apple Watch Ultra 2, self-bagging trash can, $349 Dyson V8 Plus vacuum, more Today’s deals: Crazy-fast mini PC for $670, $45 Ninja blender, $34 Roku Streaming Stick 4K, more Today’s deals: $248 Sony XM5 earbuds, $180 Roomba, $13 Anker fast chargers, $19 Roku streamer, more Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2024: Get $525+ free

Swedish health officials have identified the first case of a person with the more infectious form of mpox first seen in eastern Congo, a day after the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks there and elsewhere in Africa to be a global...