Photo credit: Colossal Biosciences
Colossal Biosciences, a startup working on bringing back animals that disappeared long ago, just announced they’ve “de-extincted” the dire wolf, a big, tough wolf that roamed North America over 12,500 years ago. It went extinct when the world changed and its food ran out. You might know dire wolves from Game of Thrones—they’re the cool, giant wolves in the show.
Researchers from the University of Auckland have captured a video of a real-life Sharktopus, or more specifically, an orange-hued octopus riding on the back of a large shortfin mako shark as it swam. How these two unlikely companions crossed paths remains a mystery. The team observed them for about ten minutes before leaving them to their journey, so we don’t know how their story ended—whether it was a brief hitchhiking stint or something more.
Photo credit: David Jara Boguñá
Photographer David Jara Boguñá captured a rarely seen black seadevil anglerfish swimming near the surface off the coast of Tenerife, Spain last week. What makes this so odd is that these creatures are typically found at depths of 650 to 6,500 feet below the ocean’s surface, inhabiting the deep sea region known as the bathypelagic zone or “midnight zone”.
Researchers from Cornell University unveil MouseGoggles, an immersive virtual reality headset for mice that was made using low-cost, off-the-shelf components, such as smartwatch displays and tiny lenses. It offers visual stimulation over a wide field of view while tracking the mouse’s eye movements and changes in pupil size.
Photo credit: EPFL/Alain Herzog
Researchers from Switzerland’s EPFL university, led by Won Dong Shin, have developed an innovative bird robot with specialized legs that help it jump into flight. It’s called RAVEN (Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments) and named as such due to its articulated hips, ankles as well as feet that mimic real raven legs.
While not as fast as the SR-71 Blackbird, this bird-shaped drone developed by EPFL researchers does fly just like its real-life animal counterpart. Called LisRaptor, this raptor-inspired feathered drone features morphing wings and a twisting tail to help it zip through the air.
Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute used their robotic explorer ROV SuBastian to capture a bizarre bristle-like sea creature in the Chile Margin. This polychaete has several body segment, with each sporting a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia covered in bristles called chaetae.
MBARI researchers have discovered a never before captured on video swimming sea slug, also known as bathydevius caudactylus. It’s been nicknamed the ‘mystery mollusc’ and can be found in the ocean’s midnight zone, complete with its large gelatinous hood, paddle-like tail, and bioluminescence.
