In the past few months, scientists and researchers across the world have been hard at work and are consistently discovering brand new and exciting things. From new species of plant and animal alike, to great environmental progress, to a series of previously unknown underground tunnels, these recent findings have left people intrigued and hopeful for the future.
A pink blob covered in bumps was seen 10,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. Researchers quickly realized that this thing was actually a never-before-seen species of Snailfish. Snailfish are historically very difficult to study and learn more about because of where they live–in a very deep and hard-to-get-to area of the ocean. This fish, Careproctus colliculi, was spotted just off the coast of California, and has caught many people’s eyes for its adorable face, and has since been nicknamed the Bumpy Snailfish.
In March of 2024, a woman stumbled upon a fuzzy green and red plant in Big Bend National Park, a national park in Texas. After asking park rangers and various botany experts, no one was able to identify this alien-looking plant and the conclusion was made that this was a new species. This plant was just named last week, now being called Ovicula biradiata, or the Wooly Devil. The Wooly Devil might also have medicinal properties, especially anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory; scientists believe this because of its similarities and relations to other plants in the daisy family with those same properties. Scientists are concerned that the Wooly Devil is actually dying out, as they can only find it in three small areas as of right now.
For the past few decades there has been a hole in the ozone layer right above Antarctica, and it has been a source of many environmental worries. The hole in the ozone layer greatly affected surrounding countries like: Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, leading to an increase in UV rays. This jump in UV rays caused skin cancer to become a more pressing issue, and harmed a lot of crops and microorganisms in the area. But, with recent research, we have found that the ozone layer is actually healing, and will be completely healed by around 2066. This is thanks to the Montreal Protocol, which is an environmental agreement that restricts the use of chlorofluorocarbons, a chemical that has been found to greatly contribute to the degradation of the ozone layer.
Da Vinci had many notebooks that he wrote in. Some were kept and some lost with time. One of the few that survived was Codex Forster I, a notebook that notably featured mentions of passageways underneath Sforza Castle, a medieval castle in Milan, Italy. Da Vinci spent a considerable amount of time in this castle during the 1490s, as he was hired to help paint some rooms and help advise some projects within the castle. This means that he got an inside view, one that most outsiders would never get. When researchers started looking for these tunnels, they used radio waves and laser scanning to map out the underground channels. With this technology, scientists were able to create a 3D model of the tunnels–without ever having to physically unearth anything.
