All posts tagged: shapes

Pterosaurs had far more diverse wing shapes than scientists previously knew

Pterosaurs had far more diverse wing shapes than scientists previously knew

Published by Jenni Sidey

Pterosaurs ruled the air long before birds did, and over more than 100 million years they grew into everything from small fliers to giants with wingspans above 10 meters. That range should have produced a striking variety of wing designs. Instead, modern scientific reconstructions often make them look oddly alike. That mismatch sits at the center of a new study led by the University of Bristol, published in Paleobiology. The analysis argues that commonly published pterosaur wing reconstructions capture far less diversity than would be expected for animals that varied so much in size, ecology, and flight style. No pterosaur fossil preserves a perfectly clear, undistorted full wing shape, which helps explain the problem. Some fossils preserve parts of the flight membrane, but none show the whole wing spread out in a way that settles the debate. As a result, scientists have had to build reconstructions from bones, limited soft-tissue evidence, and educated judgment about where membranes attached to the body and legs. That has left major room for disagreement. Pterosaurs were the first group …

The Nose-Brain Axis: How Smell Shapes Mood and Memory

The Nose-Brain Axis: How Smell Shapes Mood and Memory

Published by Jenni Sidey

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.”—Helen Keller A sense of smell is underrated. While we exalt our vision and hearing, smell seems like an optional add-on. But when we sit down to a meal, although we appreciate the sizzle of a fajita or the sight of a beautiful fruit plate, it is the heavenly smell of good food that lifts our mood. Smell brings out the hedonist in us all. So it’s shocking that almost 20 percent of the population has a poor or non-existent sense of smell. This has an outsized impact on our mood, enjoyment of food, hygiene, social interactions, and even our sex life. Worse yet, it can affect our lifespan. A Swedish study found that olfactory dysfunction—not heart failure, stroke, liver damage, or cancer—is the best predictor of five-year mortality in older adults. Smell is a deeply primeval sense. Even microbes, which don’t have noses, eyes, or ears, have a way to sniff their environment so they can …

Animals have personalities. Here’s what shapes them.

Animals have personalities. Here’s what shapes them.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. We tend to think of wild animals as being spared from the messy business of personality: the family dramas, the psychological wounds, the baffling quirks that keep resurfacing like whack-a-moles. Turns out, nobody gets out of that. Animals have personalities, too, and many of the same complex forces that shape our personalities shape theirs. “They’re not spared,” says Dr. Alison M. Bell, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Illinois Urbana, tells Popular Science. “Life is hard for them, too.” But life is also “rich,” says Bell, full of ups and downs, wounds and triumphs, just like human lives. It’s one of those truths that is both surprising and incredibly obvious, especially for those of us with pets. And yet the study of …

How Death Shapes What We Buy

How Death Shapes What We Buy

Published by Jenni Sidey

Money is never just money. It represents security, freedom, status, control, care, identity, and sometimes a very organized attempt to keep existential dread in a high-yield savings account. A growing body of research suggests that awareness of death—what psychologists call mortality salience—can influence how we spend, save, insure, invest, and plan for what happens after we are gone. This does not mean every estate plan is a disguised panic attack, or every luxury purchase is a cry for immortality in Italian leather. But it does mean that our financial behaviors are often shaped by deeper emotional motives than spreadsheets alone can explain. Terror management theory offers one helpful lens. The theory proposes that as humans, we face a uniquely difficult psychological conflict: we want to live, yet we know we will die. To manage that anxiety, we seek meaning, self-esteem, cultural belonging, and forms of symbolic continuation—ways to feel that something of us will matter beyond our biological lives. Classic terror management research suggests that reminders of death can increase our need to defend valued …

How the Experience of Wonder Shapes Children

How the Experience of Wonder Shapes Children

Published by Jenni Sidey

Wonder is often described as an emotion or a behavior, but it is more accurately understood as a state that integrates both. Fueled by curiosity, surprise, confusion, delight, anticipation, and connection, wonder invites children to see the familiar with fresh eyes, engage the unknown, and transform experience into meaning. In turn, wonder fuels the imagination—not simply the capacity for pretend play, but the ability to hold symbolic ideas in mind, consider multiple possibilities, and develop skills such as cognitive flexibility, perspective-taking, and problem-solving1. Children wonder about experiences that feel significant to them. Emotions signal that significance, organizing attention, memory, interpretation, and action as children work to understand how an experience fits into their developing sense of themselves, their relationships, and the world around them. All learning occurs through a dynamic process of meaning-making, supported by an authentic state of wonder, not repetition alone. As children explore their worlds and take note of patterns and themes, choosing what information gets digested and what gets ignored, they are relying on the cues of important adults, the emotional …

Fish prints and shapes have UK shoppers hooked this summer | Fashion

Fish prints and shapes have UK shoppers hooked this summer | Fashion

Published by Sam Flores

Three years after declaring the death of florals, John Lewis has discovered a new print that is making a splash among shoppers. At the launch of its new high summer collection, the retailer said fish were quickly becoming its customers’ catch of the day. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. From sardines and sprats to crustaceans including crabs, its latest haul across fashion and homeware is rich in fish prints and shapes. Sales of starfish-shaped earrings are up 300% month on month, while high demand for a silky blue skirt smothered in shoals of fish has resulted in a waiting list. In homeware, sales of a set of glass tumblers that stack together to form the shape of a fish are up 400%, while a “gluggle jug” – a ceramic pitcher shaped like a fish that makes a gurgling sound as the water is poured – is becoming an outdoor dining essential. Sales of versions from Wade Pottery are up 129% month …

Clouds come in all shapes and sizes

Clouds come in all shapes and sizes

Published by skeptic

Some clouds are flat. Others are puffy. Some are pretty and turn orange or red at sunrise or sunset. Others signal stormy weather and can produce precipitation, such as rain, hail or snow. Meteorologists, or weather forecasters, spend lots of time predicting clouds. That’s because clouds are behind all storm systems — from tornadoes and hurricanes to rain and snowstorms.  Explainer: What are aerosols? Technically speaking, a cloud is nothing more than a clump of aerosols — small solid or liquid particles suspended in the air. In some clouds, those aerosols can be bits of wildfire smoke or even desert dust. But most clouds are made of water. A typical cloud droplet is only 20 micrometers (0.00008 inch) in diameter. That’s less than a thousandth the size of an average raindrop. Since cloud droplets are so tiny, they are very light. And that’s part of why clouds float. These water droplets start to form through evaporation. Evaporation occurs when liquid water molecules become energized and change phase into a gas. Energy from the sun heats …

How faith shapes Kenya’s world-famous marathon runners

How faith shapes Kenya’s world-famous marathon runners

Published by Sam Flores

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — A Catholic church in Eldoret, an epicenter of global long-distance running in the north Rift Valley region of Kenya, is in the spotlight after a runner prayed there and later won the London Marathon. In the process, he broke a record many once thought was impossible. Sabastian Sawe, 31, maintained a blistering pace and clinched the April 26 race in a record time of 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, becoming the first human to run the 26.2-mile distance in under two hours in an official marathon. He made his marathon debut in 2024, in Valencia, Spain, winning the city’s marathon with a time of 2:02:05. His win drew wild celebrations across Kenya, the East African nation often referred to as the home of long-distance running, where athletes have dominated middle- and long-distance racing for decades. It also drew attention to the connection between distance running and faith for Kenyans. Athletes’ Christian faith is often on display as they perform the sign of the cross at the start and the …

Pregnancy diet shapes children’s vegetable preferences new research reveals

Pregnancy diet shapes children’s vegetable preferences new research reveals

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Young children are more likely to react positively to the scent of vegetables if they were regularly exposed to them while still in the womb, new research has revealed. A long-running study meticulously recorded and analysed the reactions of three-year-olds to the smells of carrots and leafy kale, investigating how prenatal exposure might shape their later preferences. Experts followed up on two earlier studies involving foetuses and newborns whose mothers had consumed carrot or kale capsules during the later stages of pregnancy. The research, spearheaded by Durham University, found that three-year-olds whose mothers had taken carrot powder capsules during pregnancy displayed less negative reactions to the smell of carrots. Similarly, those whose mothers had consumed kale powder capsules while pregnant reacted more favourably to the scent of kale. These extended findings suggest that young children retain a memory of the flavour …

Princeton engineers link origami and tensegrity into fantastic new shapes

Princeton engineers link origami and tensegrity into fantastic new shapes

Published by Jenni Sidey

A termite mound does not look engineered. It rises in rough, uneven towers, full of crooked passages and shifting pockets of air, yet it can regulate temperature, manage airflow and stay standing in punishing conditions. Bone can do something similar. Its internal lattice looks irregular and disordered, but it carries weight, absorbs stress and holds together with surprising efficiency. That kind of structural messiness has long been hard for engineers to copy. Regular forms like cubes and spheres are easier to describe, model and optimize. Natural systems are not. Researchers at Princeton University say they have now built a mathematical framework that could make those unruly forms far easier to reproduce, not just in appearance but in how they behave mechanically. Their method links two fields that might seem unrelated at first glance: origami, the study of folding surfaces along creases, and tensegrity, the study of structures stabilized by a balance of compression and tension. “We created a theory that is applicable to two distinct physical systems,” said Glaucio Paulino, the Margareta Engman Augustine Professor …