The 10 Strangest Science Stories of 2016

By Stephanie Pappas, Dwell Science Contributor | December 23, 2016 08:16am ET

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  Credit score: agsandrew | Shutterstock.com

  Unusual science

  Information of alien planets, unusual sounds from the seafloor and a weird new state of matter turned 2016 into a wierd 12 months, scientifically talking.

  The weirdest discoveries of 2016 ran the gamut from comparatively tutorial (sudden discoveries in quantum physics) to very related to day by day life on Earth (the Arctic's uncommon, melty habits).

  This is a rundown of the oddest and most stunning scientific discoveries of the previous 12 months.

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  Credit score: agsandrew | Shutterstock

  Gentle's new momentum

  The velocity of sunshine (186,000 miles per second, or ‎299,792 kilometers per second) hasn't modified, however a report in Could revealed that one other of sunshine's primary properties won't be as primary as scientists as soon as believed.

  Whereas performing some calculations based mostly on a 200-year-old discovery, physicists at Trinity Faculty Dublin discovered that mild particles — photons — weren't behaving as they need to. When shone via specific crystals as a way to power the sunshine beams right into a hole tube of sunshine, the photons spun at an angular momentum of one-half of Planck's fixed. Planck's fixed is a kind of primary numbers in physics. It determines the connection between a wavelength of sunshine and its power.

  What stunned physicists is that photons should not be capable of spin at a velocity that is one-half Planck's fixed. All photons are speculated to spin at speeds which are whole-number values of Planck's fixed (twice Planck's fixed, or thrice Planck's fixed, however not half of Planck's fixed). One other class of particles, fermions, can spin at fractions of Planck's fixed.

  "Our consequence reveals that we are able to make beams of photons, which behave like fermions — a totally totally different type of matter," Trinity Faculty physicist Kyle Ballantine instructed Dwell Science on the time.

  The discovering does not imply that quantum physics is improper, the researchers stated, however it does imply that one thing about mild works otherwise than they'd thought.

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  Credit score: Jorge Chau.

  Echoes within the environment

  In 1962, researchers on the Jicamarca Radio Observatory in Peru observed one thing bizarre: A number of the radio waves they have been beaming into area have been bouncing again. It was as if there have been some type of reflector within the higher environment, about 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 kilometers) up. However the purpose for the echoes remained a thriller till 2016. It took supercomputers to resolve it. Researchers simulated the higher environment and located that the echoes owe their existence to the solar. When daylight hits the ionosphere, the place the echoes originate, they strip electrons from the molecules in that atmospheric layer. The ensuing, extremely energetic charged particles zip via the lots of cooler particles round them, inflicting these cooler particles to vibrate like strings on a cello. The vibrations aren't significantly organized, the researchers stated, however they create a low-level "froth" that is robust sufficient to bounce again the Jicamarca radio waves.
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  Credit score: Portray by Victor Leshyk

  Historic reptile with an anteater claw

  200 million years in the past, a chameleon-like reptile named Drepanosaurus roamed the land. Paleontologists first discovered the fossils of the 1.6-foot-long (zero.5 meters) reptile in Italy within the 1970s, however it wasn't till this 12 months that they realized simply how unusual this animal actually was.

  The weirdness is all within the arms. New fossils present in New Mexico revealed Drepanosaurus' entrance limbs in three-dimensional element for the primary time. Not like all different four-limbed creatures (often known as tetrapods), Drepanosaurus had a crescent-shaped ulna — one of many bones of the forearm.

  Tetrapods typically comply with the identical physique sample: Every of their entrance limbs has an upper-arm bone (the humerus) and two lower-arm bones (the ulna and radius). Drepanosaurus' model of those bones was in contrast to something scientists had seen earlier than. The lizard additionally had abnormally lengthy wrist bones.

  The limbs, together with a hook-like claw, would have allowed Drepanosaurus to dig and drag grime like a contemporary anteater, the researchers reported in September within the journal Present Biology.

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  Credit score: Genevieve Martin, Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory

  Dancing electrons in a brand new type of matter

  It isn't yearly physicists uncover a brand new type of matter, however 2016 was a kind of years.

  To be particular, the researchers truly created the brand new type of matter by bombarding sheets of alpha ruthenium chloride with neutrons. This created one thing referred to as a Kitaev quantum spin liquid, which appears strong — you would maintain a piece of it in your hand — however incorporates electrons that dance about as in the event that they have been in a liquid.

  Physicists had theorized about quantum spin liquids for many years. A type of theorists, Alexei Kitaev of the California Institute of Know-how, predicted a type of matter through which the electrons would work together as in the event that they have been Majorana fermions, a kind of particle that acts as its personal antiparticle (a particle of the identical mass however an reverse cost). Scientists at Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Tennessee determined to check this concept and located that their neutron-bombarded alpha ruthenium chloride did in reality behave on this means.

  Within the new type of matter, the orientation (or spin) of the electrons impacts the orientation of different electrons, however these electrons nonetheless stay chaotic regardless of how chilly the fabric turns into, the researchers reported. The electrons do not truly fragment into particles and antiparticles as in Majorana fermions, however their spin interactions make it look as in the event that they do, so researchers name them "quasiparticles." The fabric could be helpful for rising the reliability of quantum computing.

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  Credit score: ESO/M. Kornmesser

  A brand-new neighbor

  Earth might have had a next-door neighbor all alongside. This August, scientists introduced that they'd detected a tiny disturbance within the mild coming from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth in addition to the solar.

  The disturbance signifies the presence of a planet within the pink dwarf star's liveable zone, which means life might theoretically exist there. Fashions based mostly on the planet's distance from its star and its mass (1.three instances that of Earth's) recommend that it might need an environment and be completely coated by a deep ocean, which might be doubtlessly amenable to life. However there are a number of theories concerning the planet's environment and setting and little onerous knowledge, so aliens are removed from a foregone conclusion.

  As of Dec. 1, astronomers have confirmed the existence of three,431 exoplanets, or planets outdoors Earth's photo voltaic system, in line with the NASA Exoplanet Archive. 200 and ninety-seven confirmed or suspected planets within the liveable zones of their stars have been found up to now, in line with the Archive.

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  Credit score: NASA/Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory/Southwest Analysis Institute

  Unusual pink spot

  Nearer to dwelling, a giant pink spot festoons the north pole of Charon, Pluto's largest moon. In September, researchers introduced that they'd discovered the place this colourful blemish comes from: Pluto's environment.

  Pluto is a tiny planet, and because it does not have a powerful gravitational pull, its environment radiates out into area. When the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto and its moons in 2015, the pink spot on Charon was instantly obvious. Scientists thought that it could be a results of the moon gravitationally capturing a few of Pluto's misplaced atmospheric gases.

  By modeling the temperatures Pluto and Charon over time, the researchers confirmed their hunch. Charon's winters final greater than 100 Earth years, and they're frigid — temperatures hover round absolute zero (minus 459.67 levels Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 levels Celsius). Methane from Pluto's environment will get frozen at Charon's frigid poles. There, cosmic radiation strips away the hydrogen from the methane, leaving solely carbon behind. These carbon atoms hyperlink as much as create extremely complicated natural compounds referred to as tholins, which make up Charon's pink spot.

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  One odd head

  All through historical past, some cultures have gone to excessive lengths for magnificence, together with practices that concerned flattening or reshaping the cranium. The cranium of a girl from Korea's historical Silla tradition appeared to have come by its odd form naturally, although.

  Anthropologists reported their unusual discover in June after excavating the skeleton of a girl from a conventional burial web site close to Gyeongju, the capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C. to A.D. 935) on the Korean peninsula. The girl, who died in her late 30s, had an elongated head, with its size being greater than 75 p.c of its width, the researchers reported. The time period for this head form is dolichocephalic.

  It is believable that the individuals who inhabited Silla carried out cranial shaping, the researchers instructed Dwell Science, however the girl's bones confirmed no indicators of flattening or of compensatory progress on the aspect of the cranium — which is normally seen when boards or bricks are used to change the cranium of a child or rising little one. It is seemingly, they concluded, that the lady's head was simply a part of a traditional variation. [See Images of the Long-Headed Woman's Facial Reconstruction]

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  Credit score: Stefan Hendricks, Alfred Wegener Institute.

  Unprecedented warmth within the Arctic

  It has been a wierd 12 months on the North Pole. Temperatures have hit all-time highs (the North Pole was 36 levels F, or 20 levels C, above regular in November 2016). And ice hasn't expanded within the winter season because it normally does when the temperature dips. This December, knowledge from the Nationwide Snow and Ice Knowledge Heart confirmed that the Arctic was lacking a piece of sea ice the scale of Mexico — and that sea ice had truly retreated in November. The ice declined by 19,300 sq. miles (50,000 sq. kilometers), vastly outpacing the one different November ice retreat ever seen, which is a lack of 5,400 sq. miles (14,000 sq. km) in 2013. In the end, the November sea-ice extent ended at 753,000 sq. miles (1.95 million sq. km) under the 1981-to-2010 long-term common for the month, the NSIDC reported.

  In some methods, the nice and cozy temperatures and lack of ice aren't stunning. Scientists have lengthy recognized that the Arctic is especially weak to local weather change, and the area is warming twice as quick as the remainder of the world, on common. At present charges of warming, scientists anticipate that the Arctic will probably be ice-free in midsummer by the center of the century.

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  Credit score: Copyright Victoria Dorrer

  Sticky traps manufactured from … pee?

  The larvae of a cave fungus gnat (Arachnocampa) are well-known weirdos. They glow, for one factor — thus, their widespread title, glowworms — and so they additionally reside in tubes which are manufactured from mucus.

  Glowworms are additionally liable for nice magnificence: They type lengthy, sticky "fishing traces" of silk and mucus that they forged from cave ceilings to seize bugs, millipedes, snails and different prey. Not too long ago, scientists discovered that glowworms' strangeness goes even deeper. These silken fishing traces get their shimmer from urea, the foremost ingredient in pee.

  A group led by College of Vienna researchers ventured into two caves on New Zealand's North Island and painstakingly collected greater than four,000 sticky, unwieldy glowworm threads. They discovered that the threads comprise crystals which are made partly of urea, which appears to be produced within the glowworm intestine (they spin the threads via their mouths). The urea attracts moisture from the air, inflicting droplets to condense on the threads. Lit by the blue-green bioluminescence of the glowworms, these droplets create a fairyland environment in cave tunnels, and apparently show irresistible to creeping cave critters.

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  Credit score: NASA/NOAA

  A loud deep-sea thriller

  Let's finish the 12 months on a mysterious observe: Ping.

  That's the noise coming from the seafloor within the far-north Nunavut area of Canada … and nobody is aware of why. In November, Canadian officers admitted that that they had no concept what was making the ping, which had been heard within the Fury and Hecla strait. Navy patrols despatched to the realm discovered no anomalies, however hunters say that the noise is driving wildlife away. Some individuals blame the pinging on the mining actions of native firms or Greenpeace, however these firms in addition to the activist group stated that they weren't working within the area. The federal government stated it had no plans for additional investigations.

  1000's of miles away, although, a second sea-sound thriller might have been solved. Researchers who have been taking recordings within the Mariana Trench close to Guam detected an otherworldly noise — a cross between moaning and twanging — throughout robotic car dives in 2014 and 2015. This December, they reported that the weird noises will be the cries of a minke whale, an elusive sort of baleen whale that is not often seen on the floor. Researchers stated in a press release that they do not know a lot about minke whale exercise across the Mariana, or what the decision would possibly imply. [Listen to the New Whale Call from the Mariana Trench]

  "If it is a mating name, why are we getting it year-round? That is a thriller," Sharon Nieukirk, senior school analysis assistant in marine bioacoustics at Oregon State College, stated in a press release. "We have to decide how typically the decision happens in summer season versus winter, and the way extensively this name is de facto distributed."

  Seems like a job for 2017.

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Writer Bio

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Stephanie Pappas, Dwell Science Contributor

Stephanie interned as a science author at Stanford College Medical College, and in addition interned at ScienceNow journal and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She has a bachelor's diploma in psychology from the College of South Carolina and a graduate certificates in science writing from the College of California, Santa Cruz.

Stephanie Pappas, Dwell Science Contributor on

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