iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 5h

Nightjars migrate between Southern Africa and Europe, but have wings built more for slow hover-feeding than long-distance flight. They compensate by generating forward thrust on each wing upstroke, a rare trait in birds that is more common in bats and insects! 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 17/10/2026

Scientists identified this new dinosaur from a partial skull fossil that sat in a museum for decades. The predator was an early megaraptoran and contributes to evidence that Lower Cretaceous Europe had a more diverse mix of carnivores than once thought! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Artistic rendition of Invictibellatrix amberina with contemporary fauna in the lower part of the Wessex Formation.

Credit: Sergey Krasovskiy and Pedro Salas

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 16/10/2026

White dwarf color depends on temperature and atmospheric composition. These stars have ultra-dense atmospheres which can distort light beyond black-body radiation expectations resulting in stars that can appear yellow, green, cyan, or even pink! 🧪 academic.oup.com/rasti/articl...

Color-accurate simulated images of white dwarfs.

Credit: Mark Hollands

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 15/10/2026

Healthy corals can pass tiny symbiotic algae (dinoflagellates) to bleached corals through brief physical contact. Within weeks, this transfer can drive the bleached coral to full recovery! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Example stereoscopic images of a bleached and healthy coral fragment (P. damicornis) in direct contact, showing weekly progression of coral bleaching recovery from week 0 to week 9.

Scale bars, 1 mm.

Credit: Daniel S. Collins et al.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 14/10/2026

Paleontologists found bite marks on a young Albertosaurus skull that were made by dromaeosaurid teeth. Because the wounds show no evidence of healing, this is the first direct proof that raptors fed on tyrannosaurids! 🧪 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Reconstruction of a potential scenario for the cause of tooth marks described in the linked paper: Atrociraptor scavenge the carcass of Albertosaurus along the edge of a river floodplain.

Credit: Joshua Doyon.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 13/10/2026

Giant tortoises on Seychelles' Aldabra Atoll have rebounded to ~180k from fewer than 1k. That's more than the human population of the country (~135k), underscoring how conservation efforts can make a huge difference! 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Aldabra giant tortoises grazing on tortoise turf.

Credit: Rich Baxter

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 12/10/2026

Honey bee stingers contain two tiny self-powered venom pumps that can keep injecting even after being ripped from the insect's body. These pumps move in opposite rhythm inside the stinger to push venom forward while limiting backflow! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 11/10/2026

Sinojapyx giganteus is the oldest known dipluran. These soil-dwelling insect relatives are usually tiny (2-5 mm), but this Jurassic giant was >5 cm long and its fossils suggest internal arthropod mouthparts may have evolved independently up to 3 times! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Artistic reconstruction of Sinojapyx giganteus.

Credit: Jie Sun

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 10/10/2026

Spain's Abric Romaní site contained 597 preserved wooden traces from ~40K-60K years ago, revealing how important woodworking was to Neanderthals. This recent find includes spears, trays, tripods, and a unique club-like artifact resembling a modern kitchen knife! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Archaeologists constructed a resin cast of this clublike object used by Neanderthals.

Credit: Gerard Campeny

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 09/10/2026

This reversible tattoo ink can be switched on using UV light and stays invisible otherwise. Early tests show that it can still work after two years! 🧪 www.cell.com/matter-light...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 08/10/2026

Marine biologists discovered a new deep-sea coral, Laurinque elenya, near Costa Rica. Bright yellow, tree-like, and covered in brittle stars, its name combines two of Tolkien's Elvish words: Laurinquë (golden tree) and elenya (stellar)! 🧪 zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1918...

In situ colonies of Laurinque elenya gen. et sp. nov. in Las Gemelas II, showing the octocoral garden within the brittle stars mat.

Credit: ROV SuBastian

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 07/10/2026

Megacauda sungei was an early mammal relative from the Jurassic that had a thick tail for swimming and hunting, like a platypus. It also had a modern-looking throat passage which offers clues into how modern mammals evolved the ability to swallow and suckle! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An artist’s visualization of Megacauda sungei, a 165-million-year-old mammal predecessor from China, which had strong hind limbs and a broad tail for swimming.

Credit: April I. Neander

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 06/10/2026

French paleontologists found a new mosasaurid in ancient freshwater deposits near Provence. Unlike the sea-going mosasaurs most people are familiar with, this older species had long limbs and was adapted to life in shallow freshwater! 🧪 peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

An artist’s impression of the newly discovered freshwater mososaurid, Garamaudo bauciensis.

Credit: Bardet et al.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 05/10/2026

Scientists directly imaged DNA-DNA pairing for the first time! Both strands aligned groove-to-groove and were linked by ionic bridges across the minor grooves, an observation that may help explain how DNA recognizes matching sequences! 🧪 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Imaging of two DNA strands zipping together (left) and a computational model of the same (right).

Credit: Agnes Noy

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 04/10/2026

Biologists recently described this geothermal amoeba, Incendiamoeba cascadensis, which thrives at 147°F (64°C) and pushes the known eukaryote temperature limit past 140°F (60°C), suggesting that complex life can endure far hotter conditions than once thought! 🧪 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 03/10/2026

Astronomers discovered a new class of X-ray sources, described as "hypersoft", that were overlooked before because they emit extreme ultraviolet light which falls outside the range of most X-ray surveys. These include white dwarfs, black holes, and supernovae! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This composite image shows the locations of hypersoft X-ray sources in the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101 (The Pinwheel Galaxy).

Credit: NASA, CXC, Univ. of Alabama, Muhibullah et al., ESA, STScI, SAO, N. Wolk.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 02/10/2026

Modern mammals are diphyodonts and grow only two sets of teeth. This recently described Cretaceous mammal species, however, demonstrated polyphyodonty (repeated tooth replacement), along with webbed feet and a flat tail, suggesting it was a semi-aquatic predator! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An artist's reconstruction of the recently described semi-aquatic predator, Dongoconodon platycauda.

Credit: Shi Yukun.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 01/10/2026

This newly discovered feathered dinosaur, Norellraptor barsboldi, suggests that bird-like flight features evolved separately and gradually, in a step-wise manner, across multiple related dinosaur lineages! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Life reconstruction of Norellraptor barsboldi.

Credit: Zhao Chuang.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 01/10/2026

High-speed flight analysis and computational modeling suggest that butterfly wing patterns work in tandem with flight dynamics to create misleading motion cues that confuse predators! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 29/09/2026

Biologists measured 123 bird species and found that larger birds with wider beaks tend to be louder; Forest density and mating system don't correlate as much. The quietest are hummingbirds (64 dB) while the loudest are bare-throated bellbirds (122 dB)! 🧪 academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 28/09/2026

This robot uses its flexible legs to store energy and then release it in a sudden snap, like a frog. That burst gives it the extra force to hop, backflip, and even swim through water! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 27/09/2026

Dogs may be better at picking up patterns in human speech than previously thought. EEG recordings show that they track consonant patterns more strongly than vowel patterns, just like people do when segmenting speech! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A cute brown dog sitting comfortably on a couch, prepared for an EEG measurement.

Credit: Sarolta Sziliágyi

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 26/09/2026

A bow shock is a wave of gas and dust pushed ahead of a moving star, like the wave in front of a boat. RXJ0528+2838 is a dead star that has one that can't be explained by a past explosion or a companion star's wind which suggests it may be tied to magnetic activity! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Shock waves around the dead star RXJ0528+2838.

When a star moves through space, it can push away nearby material, creating a so-called bow shock, which in this image is glowing in red, green, and blue. The colors represent hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, respectively.

These shocks are usually produced by a strong outflow expelled from the star. However, in the case of RXJ0528+2838, a white dwarf with a Sun-like companion, astronomers discovered that the shock wave can't be explained by any known mechanism.

Credit: K. Iłkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 25/09/2026

Blacktip sharks respond to low-frequency pulsed sounds from over 70 meters away, beyond the acoustic near field. They turn sharply away and swim off fast, suggesting they may sense tiny water movements caused by the traveling sound and not just the sound itself! 🧪 academic.oup.com/iob/article/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 24/09/2026

A new dinosaur, Kayrasaurus changliensis, has been described from Chinese fossils. This early therizinosaur had tiny teeth, a long neck, and big claws, providing new information about this unusual group's evolution! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Life reconstruction of Jehol therizinosaurians, illustrating variation in body size, skeletal proportions and inferred ecological strategies among taxa. From bottom to top: L. sihedangensis is shown in a posture suggesting greater cursoriality; J. yixianensis is depicted engaging in lingual-assisted feeding, consistent with its robust hyoid apparatus; B. inexpectus exhibits a robust, less cursorial bauplan; and K. changliensis is reconstructed browsing on higher vegetation, reflecting its larger body size and inferred feeding strategy.

Credit: Kōhei Futaka

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 23/09/2026

More than 250 Patagonian dinosaur eggshell fragments suggest titanosaurs nested at extreme southern latitudes (55-60°S), probably in buried mound-style nests where microbial heat kept these developing sauropods warm! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Life rendering of titanosaur hatchlings emerging from a nest in the Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina.

Credit: Masato Hattori

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 22/09/2026

Genomic research suggests gentoo penguins are actually four distinct species. The lineages differ genetically and may need separate conservation plans, especially as some face greater habitat loss than others! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Geographic distribution of the four species of gentoo penguins around the Southern Ocean.

Credit: Daly Noll, Andrea Raya-Rey and Francesco Bonadonna

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 21/09/2026

About 18K years ago, artists in what is now northern Ukraine carved these small figurines from mammoth ivory. An imaging study suggests that the engraved lines may have been inspired by the natural patterns already present in the tusk material itself! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s40...

Assortment of Mizyn ivory figurines included in the linked study.

Credit: Radchenko et al.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 20/09/2026

Astronomers have discovered a new 222-meter crater on the Moon, formed by a 2024 impact. Named after planetary scientist Tom McGetchin, it's the largest modern crater in our Solar System! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Left) NAC image acquired before the impact event (M1273794308L,R)

Right) NAC image acquired after the impact (M1521345601L).

Images sampled at 1-m pixel scale; each panel is 925 m by 925 m (1.3536°N, 67.1765°E).

Credit: Robinson et al., 2026

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 20/09/2026

Kleptoparasitism occurs when one animal deliberately steals food from another. Marine biologists repeatedly observed this behavior in a bottlenose dolphin named Bubbles, which chases Bigeye Trevally until they vomit, then devours the regurgitated food! 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 18/09/2026

Biologists examining the DNA of wild cats found that the "tiger cat" group is actually five species instead of one. This study describes the first new cat identified in more than a century (Leopardus tilcayo) as well as a new subspecies (Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo)! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

A Leopardus tilcayo at the Senda Verde animal refuge in Bolivia’s Yungas region.

Credit: Fernando Faciole

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 17/09/2026

Paleontologists have described a new dicynodont species from museum specimens collected at Tanzania's Manda Beds, linking them to South American material of similar age and strengthening the case that these fossils are younger than previously thought! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Life reconstruction of Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda.

Credit: Gabriel Ugueto

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 17/09/2026

Neuroscientists reconstructed natural movies from mouse brain activity, using visual cortex signals to rebuild 10-second videos at 30 fps with impressive accuracy! 🧪 elifesciences.org/articles/105...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 16/09/2026

Phytoplasmas are pathogens that can disrupt how plants grow. This study shows how one of their proteins can block the machinery that controls flower development, causing normal flowers (left) to turn into leaf-like structures (right)! 🧪 www.jbc.org/article/S002...

Normal Arabidopsis flower (left) versus Arabidopsis flower when phyllogen is present (right).

Credit: Chloe Zubieta

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 15/09/2026

A group of African wild dogs traveled 2,485 miles between two Zambian national parks in search of a mate. It's the farthest journey of its kind for an African mammal and a reminder that we must also protect land that connects these wild spaces! 🧪 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Movements by African wild dogs dispersing from Zambia's South Luangwa National Park (SLNP) along a protected corridor have connected with North Luangwa (NLNP), Luambe (LuNP), Lukusuzi (LkNP), and Lower Zambezi (LZNP) National Parks.

Recently, three males left Kafue National Park (KNP) and moved >2600 km through unprotected areas in the center of the country to connect with four females from SLNP who had moved more than 1500 km, linking the stronghold populations of the Greater Kafue and Luangwa Valley Ecosystems.

An unknown wild dog recently immigrated into Liuwa Plains National Park (LPNP) at a time when all individuals (a single pack) were well known. Thus all of the wild dog populations in Zambia remain connected to other populations. Black outline with crosshatch: National Parks. Gray: Game Management Areas, with lower protection than National Parks.

The 2020 Human Impact Index (Sanderson et al., 2022) is mapped from low (blues) to high (yellows): Dispersing wild dogs maneuver effectively around areas with high human activity.

Wild dog illustration by Bridger Creel.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 13/09/2026

Bee vision is more diverse than expected. Some small solitary bees, including the males of one species, have sharper visual acuity than the more familiar female honeybee. This helps them better detect movements from threats or potential mates! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The blue-banded bee Amegilla murrayensis, one of the species included in the linked study, whose visual acuity is sharper than the honeybee.

Credit: Callin Switzer

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 12/09/2026

Four adult Tyrannosaurus rex footprints constitute an ancient trackway in North Dakota, the first known of its kind, and offer a rare glimpse into how these predators roamed the Cretaceous landscape! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Adult Tyrannosaurus rex walking across the Cretaceous landscape. It leaves four prints in the mud, which are discussed in the linked paper.

Credit: Andrey Atuchin

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 11/09/2026

A newly discovered ancient feather, preserved in fossilized dinosaur dung, likely came from an extinct aquatic bird and suggests that modern-looking feathers were already around before the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

While some dinosaurs are thought to have had "fuzzy" or "downy" feathers (shown in this illustration as the yellow spikes on a Nanotyrannus' neck), ancient birds (such as the one in the Nanotyrannus' mouth) were more likely to have had feathers that look similar to the birds of today.

Credit: Andrey Atuchin

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 10/09/2026

Betel nuts are the oldest known habitual-use neuroactive plant drug. Recently discovered skeletal remains suggest that ancient foragers likely used this stimulant long before farming began (16-25k years ago)! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

The schematic illustration depicts the preferred positions of whole betel nuts held in the mouths of a Late Pleistocene forager (Maros-LBB-1a) and a middle Holocene forager (CPL-R2a), as inferred from dental wear analysis.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 10/09/2026

Britain’s Devil’s Arrows stones were brought from Brimham Rocks, 18 km away, instead of being taken from local ground. This finding suggests that prehistoric people deliberately picked stones from a culturally meaningful location for monument building! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/article...

The central and northern stones in 2018.

Credit: G Laird

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 09/09/2026

Observations of glacier-ocean boundaries are rare because they’re difficult and dangerous to reach. Despite this, an underwater drone at Naajat Sermiat measured glacier shape, meltwater discharge, and documented unexpectedly high animal activity at this boundary! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 07/09/2026

Paleontologists recreated the sounds of Jurassic insects by combining laser vibrometry and computational simulations. They found that these ancient katydid ancestors probably made a surprising variety of calls, including pure tones and ultrasonic sounds! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 06/09/2026

Archaeologists found small stone points in Uzbekistan that were likely used as arrowheads. They’re different from larger ones common among Neanderthal sites in Europe and suggest that the use of projectiles began earlier in Central Asia than previously thought! 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Artist's depiction of the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in Uzbekistan with micro-point hafting details inset to the left.

Credit: Malvina Baumann

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 05/09/2026

Ancient DNA reveals that the Pleistocene "American cheetah" (Miracinonyx trumani) wasn't a true cheetah, but was instead a close cousin of the puma. One population hunted on land in Wyoming, while another reached the Canadian Arctic and may have primarily fed on fish! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

An artistic rendering of two Miracinonyx, one in Beringia preying mainly on fish and one in the Lower 48 feeding on pronghorn antelope.

The orange dots on the map (lower left) depict the presumed epicenters of both sub-populations.

Credit: Julius Csotonyi

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 05/09/2026

Thismia daemona, or the devil flower, is a newly described "fairy lantern" from Thailand. This parasitic flowering plant spends most of its life underground and steals nutrients from its fungal hosts. 🧪 phytokeys.pensoft.net/article/2028...

Thismia daemona in natural habitat.

Credit: N. Taosiri

Thismia daemona Seelanan & Chantanaorr:
A. Underground part showing hairy roots
B. Above-ground shoots with flowers
C. Top view of mitre showing irregular papillose surface
D. Side view of flower showing outer lobe
E. Longitudinal section of floral tube showing inner surface, three stamens, stylar column and styles
F. Epidermal cells of transversal bar
G. Stamens outer view.
H. Stylar column and styles.

Credit: N. Taosiri (B, C, E, G, H) and C. Chuchuea (A, D, F)

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 04/09/2026

New Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a 10-sided shape near Saturn’s south pole, mirroring the hexagon found at its north pole. This decagon has been morphing over time and is likely caused by an atmospheric wave trapped between powerful jet streams! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

NASA Hubble images show the gas giant Saturn and its southern pole - home to a 10-sided atmospheric wave.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 02/09/2026

Cacao DNA found on pottery from the Etowah site in Georgia shows that this chocolate ingredient was part of Mississippian life, just as it was at Chaco Canyon and Cahokia, pointing to far-reaching cacao trade networks across pre-Columbian North America! 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

An artist’s conception of Etowah, a Mississippian culture site located on the banks of the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia.

Credit: Herb Roe

A map depicting three archaeological sites in the United States where evidence of cacao has been discovered. The most recent site is Etowah, in Georgia. Other sites include Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Cahokia in Missouri.

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 01/09/2026

Snake embryos begin life curled up in a right-handed spiral. This coiling is a result of their bodies growing faster than their guts during early development leading to twisting around these slower-developing internal tissues! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

An embryo of a Cape house snake (Boaedon capensis) stained to show developing muscle blocks in the trunk. The embryo shows right-handed coiling.

Credit: Raul Diaz

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 01/09/2026

Drones are great at zooming around but their batteries drain quickly when needing to hover for long periods. This system lets them perch like an inverted bird using a soft robotic hand with touch sensors so they can grip different perches even in low visibility! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · 30/08/2026

Astrophysicists used faint distortions in the cosmic microwave background to probe gravity between galaxy clusters over enormous distances. Results support a standard cosmology and suggest that alternative gravity theories are unlikely! 🧪 journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

The cosmic microwave background, the faint afterglow of the Big Bang that fills all of space, passes through massive galaxy clusters whose motion slightly alters the light, allowing scientists to measure how fast the clusters are moving toward one another and test how strongly gravity pulls across the largest distances in the universe.

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