‘Skydiving’ salamanders; watch out for owls
|  | Thursday, May 26, 2022 | | | | |
 | | SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, STSCI, ZILI SHEN (YALE), PIETER VAN DOKKUM (YALE), SHANY DANIELI (IAS) IMAGE PROCESSING: ALYSSA PAGAN (STSCI) | |
By Victoria Jaggard
Imagine you met someone who was walking and going about their life—and then you found out they had no bones. That’s essentially the mystery astronomers are trying to solve with a pair of galaxies called DF2 and DF4. By most accounts, these dim, puffy collections of stars should not exist—because neither of them has any dark matter.
Scientists in the late 1960s figured out that dark matter acts as a kind of gravitational glue, keeping stars on the edges of whirling galaxies from flying off into space. Since then, evidence has accumulated that dark matter is also a larger cosmic scaffolding, helping matter clump into stars, stars gather into galaxies, and galaxies converge into clusters. So when Yale’s Pieter van Dokkum found galaxies without this essential ingredient, he knew he’d stumbled on a massive mystery.
Now, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope to run new computer simulations, van Dokkum and his colleagues think they may have cracked the case: These oddities are the remnants of a high-speed collision between two much larger galaxies. When the two giants smashed into each other, they say, their dark matter kept on flying while their visible matter ended up in a hot, high-pressure heap, ultimately forming a string of smaller dark matter-deficient galaxies. As Nadia Drake reports, the notion has divided astronomers. But if it can be confirmed, their work might help scientists understand fundamental properties of dark matter itself.
Read the full story here. (Pictured above, the unusual “see-through” galaxy viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope.)
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| | Camouflage: When you think of camo, it’s usually some shade of green for a forest or grassland, or brown or a drier climate. However, in the brightly colored reefs of the Pacific Northwest, many inhabitants go bright, such as this type of large sculpin. Known as a red Irish lord, it is usually found on outcroppings where currents sweep prey to the front. It’s dwarfed by the plumose anemones, but Nat Geo Explorer Kiliii Yuyan couldn’t take his eyes off it. “I love that critter, “ Yuyan says. “I spent an hour underwater and he got his own photo shoot.” | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN BROWN | | | It’s a bird, it’s a plane ... it’s a salamander? Yes, those four-inch amphibians take massive leaps, relying on the same techniques as human skydivers. On descent, they slow down, just like a parachuter, puffing out their chests and stretching out their limbs, Nat Geo reports. “This is a fearless, five-gram salamander that climbs the tallest trees on Earth and isn’t afraid to take a leap of faith,” says biologist Christian Brown. (Pictured above, a wandering salamander in a wind tunnel experiment.) | | | |
 | | The conservation world needs an overhaul. Women make up half of the world’s population yet only a fraction sits at the decision-making table. Women in the communities are the guardians of environmental wisdom, yet they are often an untapped source of knowledge, underappreciated, and therefore under-resourced. | | | | Farwiza Farhan | Forest conservationist, Nat Geo Explorer
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK
| | | Watch out, small deer: Owls could be after you. Foxes, consider yourselves warned about this nighttime bird of prey, too. The owl has been a subject of curiosity for Nat Geo readers over the decades—and here’s a new story about them, part of our vast animal reference collection. (Pictured above, from Nat Geo Explorer Joel Sartore’s Photo Ark, a great horned owl at a breeding center in Monticello, Italy.) | | | |
| This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Do you have an idea or an owl story for the newsletter? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. If you want our daily newsletter, sign up here. Have a good weekend ahead. | |
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