Curio Cabinet

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! The gas giant Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, but a new study published in Nature Astronomy by researchers at Caltech and the University of Michigan claims that it used to be far larger. Besides being large, Jupiter is also extremely influential. Its tremendous gravitational pull contributed greatly to the orbits of other planets, and it has even acted as a shield against asteroids and comets that might have impacted Earth. Today, Jupiter is as large as 1,000 Earths, but in its early days it was even larger. According to the researchers, Jupiter’s diameter was once twice as large as it currently is, when the solar system was just 3.8 million years old. Its magnetic field was also 50 times stronger than it is today. Researchers were able to determine the original size of the planet in its primordial form by analyzing the orbits of two of its moons, Amalthea and Thebe. These two moons have tilted orbits, and the path they take around Jupiter could have only formed when the planet was larger. Jupiter’s larger size might also mean that the planet played an even greater role in shaping the solar system as the other planets were forming or settling into their orbits. Sometimes it takes a bigger sibling to get the little ones in line.

[Image description: A starry night sky above a line of pine trees.] Credit & copyright: tommy haugsveen, Pexels
 

Nothing's worse than having your fate up in the air when you’re up in the air. A passenger aircraft belonging to the German airline Lufthansa recently reached its destination safely despite neither pilot being at the controls for a time, and it was all thanks to the plane’s autopilot system. Autopilot is a tremendous help to modern day pilots, but it wasn’t always as reliable as it is today.
 
Last year, a Lufthansa plane carrying 199 passengers from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seville, Spain, encountered a potential disaster. While the captain was away from the flight deck, the first officer became unconscious. When the captain attempted to return to the cockpit, he found himself locked out without any response from his colleague. Fortunately, the first officer regained consciousness within a matter of minutes, but for a time—however brief—no human pilot was at the controls of the plane. The incident has only recently been publicly revealed by the airline after an investigation took place.
 
In the early days of aviation, such a situation would have certainly led to tragedy. Older aircraft required the constant and meticulous attention of their pilots, who had to make minute adjustments to keep their planes aloft. The first autopilot system was invented by Lawrence Sperry, whose gyroscopic automatic pilot (nicknamed "George") automatically kept planes in balance. The first digital autopilot systems were developed in the 1970s in response to data showing that most crashes occurred due to human error. Today, autopilot systems are usually integrated into a plane's flight management system, and most of the small adjustments are taken care of by onboard computers. Contrary to popular belief, autopilot systems can't fully control a plane over the entire course of its journey. Pilots fully control aircraft during takeoff and landing, which are the most difficult parts of most flights. They also maintain communication with ground crews so that they can change course in case of emergencies, stay clear of other aircraft, and let airports know exactly when they’ll be landing. Autopilots mainly maintain a plane’s course and altitude, including in emergencies. It’s a life-saving invention for sure, but most people would probably still prefer that their pilot be conscious.

 
[Image description: A blue sky with a single, white cloud.] Credit & copyright: Dinkum, Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication.

Orange you glad they’ve solved this kitty mystery? After years of puzzlement, scientists now know what gives ginger cats their distinct orange coloration, and why so many orange cats are male. Owners of orange cats have long posited that there’s something special about them. They tend to have sillier, more laid-back personalities than average cats, and that temperament has earned them devoted followers. Among them is Professor Hiroyuki Sasaki, a geneticist at Kyushu University in Japan who crowdfunded his effort to unravel the secret behind the cats' unique fur. Scientists knew that there had to be a unique genetic link between their fur color and their sex, since orange cats are overwhelmingly male just as calico cats are overwhelmingly female. Sasaki and his colleagues raised around $70,000 to perform their research, mostly from fellow cat lovers. Their efforts paid off, and the culprit was identified: the ARHGAP36 gene, or rather, a mutation in the X chromosome that deleted a section of it in some cats. The ARHGAP36 gene is responsible for pheomelanin, the type of melanin responsible for red, orange, and yellow pigments in mammals, as opposed to eumelanin, which controls brown to black pigment. In cats with the mutation, the ARHGAP36 gene goes haywire, producing much more than it normally would. That it only occurs in the X chromosome also explains the skewed sex ratio. Since male cats only have one X chromosome, the mutation goes uncorrected. Meanwhile, female cats require the mutation to exist in both of their two X chromosomes. If only one is affected, they end up as calicos. But there might be more to the gene than meets the eye. The ARHGAP36 gene might also play a role in orange cats’ personalities. The gene is responsible for other functions in the brain and hormonal glands, so it’s possible that it produces unique inclinations and behaviors. Now if only we knew why we love cats even when they’re indifferent to us.

 
[Image description: An orange tabby cat lying on gray carpet.] Credit & copyright: Brian Adler, Wikimedia Commons.

You might be chill, but are you capybara-level chill? Capybaras are famous for two things: being the world’s largest rodents and having one of the most relaxed dispositions in the entire animal kingdom. Their penchant for getting along with other creatures, from birds to caimens, has made them internet darlings. It’s also helped them survive for millions of years without having to change much.
 
Capybaras are the largest rodents on Earth, standing around two feet tall and four feet long while weighing up to 146 pounds. That’s awfully big considering that most rodents, like mice and squirrels, are some of the world's smallest mammals. No one knows for certain why capybaras evolved to be so huge. It could be that they grew to their current size during a time when food was particularly plentiful in their South American habitat. Or it could simply be genetic luck. Capybaras evolved from a much smaller ancestor around the same size as a guinea pig. A mutation might have caused gigantism to become more common in capybaras, making them grow large. Normally, species with such mutations have higher rates of cancer, but research has shown that capybaras also evolved cancer-resistant genes, even as their main growth hormone, called IGF-II, increased.
 
Whatever caused it, there’s no doubt that capybaras’ large size serves them well. Once capybaras are adults, few animals bother to prey on them (though some, like jaguars and caimans, still occasionally do.) Capybaras are most vulnerable to predation when they’re young, but since capybaras have up to eight babies at a time with a relatively short gestation period of five months, their populations have managed to remain stable. Capybaras are semi-aquatic, spending much of their time swimming and soaking in water. After a good swim, a capybara herd, which can consist of up to 30 capybaras, will lie along a river to dry their fur. They don’t mind much when birds land on their backs or even when predators like caimans come to rest beside them. Part of capybaras’ laid back attitude is due to their slow metabolism. They mostly eat grass, which takes time to break down. This means that they spend much of their energy on digestion and can’t expend too much on anything else. They also don’t have much reason to be wary, due to their size and the fact that their herds help keep them safe. There’s power in numbers, including the power to take it easy.

 
[Image description: Two capybaras in a zoo enclosure, one sitting and one standing.] Credit & copyright: Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone), Wikimedia Commons. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Arpingstone. This applies worldwide.

When it comes to the end date of the universe, what's a few orders of magnitude? Scientists at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, have found that the universe might end much earlier than expected—but it's still a very, very long way away.
 
Estimating the universe’s remaining days might seem like an unfathomably impossible task, but physicists have come up with a few ways to figure it out. One method involves calculating how long it takes for stars to die. Larger stars collapse in on themselves, cause supernovas, and become black holes. Smaller stars will leave a nebula when they die, as well as a hot, dense core called a white dwarf. Most stars in the universe will become white dwarves in about 17 trillion years, but the story doesn't end there. Both white dwarves and black holes decay over time, and they do so at an astronomically glacial pace. Their decay releases Hawking radiation, named after the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who first predicted the process.
 
Hawking only ever posited that black holes would decay in this way, but the scientists at Radboud University believe that white dwarves can also decay similarly. Since white dwarves were believed to linger on much longer, it was believed that it would take around 10 to the power of 1,100 years for the last remaining stars to die out for good. However, if they decay similarly to black holes, that number comes way down. That's not to say that it will happen anytime soon. It will still be another 10 to the power of 78 years, or one quinvigintillion years. By then, there certainly won't be anyone left to say, "Lights out!"

 
[Image description: A starry sky above a line of dark trees] Credit & copyright: tommy haugsveen, Pexels