Curio Cabinet

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of World UFO Day, enjoy these curios all about mankind’s fascination with the mysteries of space. Take solace UFO conspiracy theorists: Japan is with you. In 2020, the Pentagon officially released some UFO footage—which was so convincingly unidentifiable that Japan is now taking preemptive action. There are two videos, one from 2004 and another from 2015. Both show saucer-shaped craft either zooming by at astonishing speeds or eerily hovering. One UFO is roughly 40 feet long and levitates just 50 feet above water (see below). A now-retired navy commander was in the cockpit of a jet during the 2004 sighting. In a recent interview, he described how the UFO moved forward, backward, and to the sides as if an arcade game spaceship. He also noted how his radar was jammed in the UFO's presence. Even weirder, these UFO sightings were initially leaked in 2017 by To the Stars, a scientific entertainment company formed by Tom DeLonge… of the rock group Blink-182. Evidently, DeLonge turned a fascination with aliens into an effective enterprise? Nevermind—cut to 2020. At a press event, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura stated he firmly believes in UFOs. Which is surprising, seeing as Japan has never formally documented one. Regardless, Machimura affirmed that "[He] definitely believe[s] they exist," which prompted reporters to giggle. Sure, they can laugh it up all they want. But the Pentagon's footage has inspired Machimura and his cohort to instill new UFO protocols in Japan's air force. What a strange—or rather "alien"—time we live in.
 

Below: some of the Pentagon's UFO footage.
 

Image credit & copyright: Pixabay/Victor Tangermann
 

Move over wind and solar, there’s a new green energy in town and it’s powered by…carbon dioxide? Yep, the same greenhouse gas that’s driving climate change may soon have a widespread hand in mitigating it, thanks to Italian startup Energy Dome. The fledgling company, which began in 2020, recently announced the opening of its first carbon dioxide (CO2) battery in Sardinia, Italy. Also known as a grid-level energy storage plant, the facility both produces and stores energy without having to maintain low temperatures, as many other kinds of long-term batteries do. As Energy Dome’s name suggests, the secret to its CO2 battery is a large dome filled with carbon dioxide gas. To charge the battery, electric compressors condense the gas into liquid. This process produces excess heat, which is captured and stored. Then, when energy needs to be “withdrawn” from the battery, the heat is used to evaporate the liquid CO2, which once again fills the dome in gaseous form as energy from the process is harvested by turbines and delivered to the power grid. Although Energy Dome’s current battery only stores about four megawatt hours (MWh) of energy, it has served as proof-of-concept for the company’s larger planned facilities. In fact, Energy Dome has already sold facilities in Germany, Africa, and at least one Middle Eastern country, some of which are slated to open by 2023. These plants should be capable of storing 200 MWh of energy. The secret to Energy Dome’s ultra-speedy rollout? The fact that its CO2 batteries require no specially-made equipment. Of course, the abundance of CO2 probably doesn’t hurt, either.
 

[Image description: A combined photograph of wind turbines on the left and solar panels on the right.] Credit & copyright: seagul, Pixabay
 

For some polar bears, any ice is nice. Scientists from the University of Washington in Seattle recently published findings from their study of a genetically isolated group of polar bears in Greenland. These bears have adopted unusual hunting habits in the face of climate change: rather than hunting from sea ice, which has become increasingly rare in recent years due to warming waters, this population of a few hundred bears have begun hunting on freshwater ice that breaks off from glaciers. Normally, polar bears hunt seals on large plains of sea ice. Since they’re mammals, seals have to occasionally surface to breathe and rest, which gives the bears a chance to strike. But this group of polar bears in southeast Greenland swim out to floating blocks of glacial ice, from which they ambush passing seals. Researchers observed the bears from 2015 to 2019, and found that they hunted this way for more than 250 days out of each year. It marks the first time that polar bears have been observed hunting from frozen freshwater for such extended periods.
 
Unfortunately, shrinking sea ice is still a major problem for most polar bears. According to lead author Kristen Laidre, an ecologist at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center, only polar bears living in certain parts of Greenland and Svalbard have access to glacial ice. Glacier ice may help small numbers of polar bears survive for longer periods under climate warming, and may be important to prevent extinction, but it is not available for the vast majority of polar bears,” Laidre said, in an interview with NewScientist. “Climate action is the single most important thing for the future of polar bears. Most polar bears in the Arctic depend on sea ice.” In fact, as ocean temperatures continue to rise and sea ice becomes rarer, polar bear populations are projected to decrease by 30 percent over the next 35 years. Still, it’s good to see that some polar bears have been able to adapt to a changed environment. Now if only humanity would do its part to help keep them afloat.
 
[Image description: A polar bear with snow on its muzzle.] Credit & copyright: 358611, Pixabay

Well, this is an oddly amphibious scene. Archaeologists digging around in Cambridge are scratching their heads after uncovering a ditch containing around 8,000 bones belonging to 350 frogs and toads. The ditch was found during an excavation by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) Headland Infrastructure, and is located on the side of an ancient type of house called a roundhouse, which dates back over 2,000 years. This isn’t the first time frog or toad bones have been found at excavation sites, but the staggering size of this ancient cache has scientists baffled. It’s also kept them quite busy; the excavation took place between 2016 to 2018, and archaeologists are still sorting through the bones in the hopes of learning more about their origins. Dr Vicki Ewens, the senior archaeozoologist at MOLA, told The Observer, “In my experience, mainly working on sites from London, we don’t get that many frogs. To have so many bones coming from one ditch is extraordinary.”
 
Theories abound regarding how the bones got there, ranging from the culinary to the macabre. They might have been raised as food by the inhabitants of the roundhouse. While there are no cut marks or charring on the bones, scientists say that boiling them would not have left any evidence on the remains. Another possibility is that the amphibians were lured there by the presence of pest insects that were themselves attracted to nearby crops, but then got trapped in the ditch. That’s a likely scenario, considering that the species that have been identified by the bones are commonly found in the area. Yet another possibility is that they froze during a harsh winter while hibernating in their burrows. For now, though, it’s impossible to say what actually happened. As Ewens told Cambridge Independent, “This is a puzzling and unexpected find, which we are still trying to fully understand. This accumulation of frog remains may have been caused by a number of different factors, possibly interacting over a long period of time. We just aren’t sure yet what these were.” May these mysterious, slimy souls rest in peace.

 
[Image description: A group of green frogs with black spots climbs over each other in water.] Credit & copyright: 1195798, Pixabay

Internet Explorer has stopped working isn’t just an error message anymore. After 27 years, Microsoft has finally shut down the much-maligned Internet Explorer (IE) for good. Microsoft actually made the announcement last year, but continued to provide support for IE until June 15. Now, users looking to open it are redirected to Microsoft Edge, the company’s newest browser. While former IE users are filling Twitter with jokes and memes about the passing of an old friend, some are wondering what exactly is next for Microsoft's share of the browser market. Edge isn’t just a rebranding of the same old browser; it’s being marketed as an entirely separate product that’s supposed to be a smoother experience, without the notoriously slow loading times of IE. That distinct user-unfriendliness was why, by the time it was shuttered, IE only had .38 percent of the internet browser market share across all platforms. That’s a far cry from its heyday in 2003, when it held a whopping 95 percent of the market share. As updates on IE stalled over the years, the once-mighty browser found itself sidelined by faster, more modern-feeling ones like Google Chrome and Firefox.
 
Microsoft is clearly hoping not to repeat its past mistakes with Microsoft Edge. On the Windows Experience Blog, Microsoft claims that the new browser will have improved compatibility with websites, including ones that previously required IE to view. It also promises streamlined productivity with a better user interface and resource management. Importantly, Microsoft Edge also promises better user security, likely because IE security was known to be lacking. But even with all its flaws, some people find IE’s departure bittersweet, like an old friend they grew apart from. After all, IE was many people’s very first browser, back in the days before Zoom calls and social media changed the internet landscape forever. Goodnight, sweet cyberspace prince.

 
[Image description: A woman chews nervously on a pencil while looking at her laptop screen.] Credit & copyright: JESHOOTS-com, Pixabay