Curio Cabinet

Whoa there, wombat! One of Australia’s most beloved marsupials is making international headlines for all the wrong reasons after an American influencer recently picked up a wild baby wombat without permission. Things aren’t all negative, though. It seems likely that the wombat was reunited with its mother, the influencer has issued an apology, and people around the world are suddenly eager to learn more about these adorable, chunky creatures.
 
Wombats are marsupials, or mammals that give birth to partially-developed young who finish their development in a pouch. Wombats are famous for their stalky, bear-like bodies featuring short limbs, stubby tails, and short muzzles. There are three species of wombat, all native to Australia. The most populous species is the bare-nosed wombat, also known as the common wombat. Adults are around 4 feet long, but their compact bodies are dense, so they can weigh up to 88 pounds. This makes them the third-largest marsupials alive today, though they can claim an even prouder lineage when it comes to size. The extinct Diprotodon, sometimes referred to as the “giant wombat”, was the largest marsupial to ever live, and it shared a common ancestor with both modern wombats and koalas.
 
While Northern and Southern hairy-nosed wombats live in groups of up to 15 individuals, common wombats are usually solitary once they reach adulthood. They spend much of their time digging and maintaining burrows in which to hide from the harsh Australian sun. With their powerful legs and long claws, wombats are excellent diggers; their burrows can be up to 100 feet long. Digging is so important to wombats that their pouches actually face backwards, so that they don’t fill up with dirt as they dig. Wombats are nocturnal, and they spend their nights grazing on grass and small plants. Adult wombats don’t have to worry too much about predators, thanks to their large size, but young wombats, called joeys, are vulnerable to birds of prey and dingoes, among other creatures.
 
Unfortunately, humans pose the biggest threat to wild wombats. Habitat destruction threatens all three species, and the Northern hairy-nosed wombat is critically endangered, having nearly gone extinct by the 1980s due to overhunting. Their population is more stable today, but all wombats are still protected in Australia, as part of conservation efforts. So don’t pick them up, even if they do look like teddy bears!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of five wombats foraging and lying on the ground.] Credit & copyright: The Wombat, from "Le Magasin Pittoresque", Charles Jacque (French, Paris 1813–1894 Paris). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933. Public Domain.

The house might be burning, but at least the roof is intact. As climate change continues to affect Earth’s weather, there’s still some good news about the environment: the ozone layer is doing better and better, according to recent research. Concerns over the state of the ozone layer first emerged in the 1980s, when researchers discovered a hole in the layer over Antarctica. That was bad news considering how crucial the ozone layer is to the health of life on Earth. Consisting of 3 oxygen atoms, ozone mitigates the amount of harmful UV radiation that makes it to our planet’s surface. Without it, humans and animals would be much more prone to skin cancer and cataracts. Many plants, including some crops, could also die of excess radiation.
 
In 1986, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set out on an expedition to Antarctica and discovered the culprit behind the missing patch of ozone layer: chlorofluorocarbons. Better known as CFCs, these synthetic chemicals were widely used at the time as refrigerants, insulation, and as aerosol propellants, showing up in common, everyday items like air conditioners and hair spray. Following the discovery, an international treaty limiting the use of CFCs was adopted. Known as the Montreal Protocol, the treaty’s benefits are becoming clearer by the day. A recent study from MIT shows that the ozone layer is recovering, and the data shows that it’s a direct result of CFC reduction. Susan Solomon, the author of the study, said in a university statement, “The conclusion is, with 95 percent confidence, it is recovering. Which is awesome. And it shows we can actually solve environmental problems.” So far, it’s 1-0 for ozone.

 
[Image description: A blue sky with white clouds.] Credit & copyright: Johann Piber, Pexels

If a comet is named after you, does that make you a star among the stars? German astronomer Caroline Herschel, born on this day in 1750, would probably say so. The 35P/Herschel–Rigollet comet bears her name, and she discovered plenty of other comets throughout her long career, which was mostly spent working alongside her brother, William Herschel. That’s not to say that she toiled in her sibling’s shadow, though. Herschel made a name for herself as the first woman in England to hold a government position and the first known woman in the world to receive a salary as a scientist.
 
Born on March 16, 1750, in Hanover, Germany, Herschel's childhood got off to a rough start. Though she was the eighth child and fourth daughter in her family, two of her sisters died in childhood, while the eldest married and left home when Herschel was just five years old, leaving her alone as the family’s main housekeeper. At just 10 years old, Herschel contracted typhus and nearly died. The infection blinded her in her left eye and severely stunted her growth, leaving her with an adult height of four feet, three inches. Though her father wanted her to be educated, her mother insisted that, since she likely wouldn’t marry due to her disabilities, she should be trained as a housekeeping servant. Though her father educated her as best he could, Herschel ultimately learned little more than basic reading, arithmetic, and some sewing throughout her teenage years.
 
Things changed in Herschel’s early 20s, when she received an invitation from her two brothers, William and Alexander, to join them in Bath, England. William was becoming a fairly successful singer, and the brothers proposed that Herschel sing with him during some performances. While learning to sing in Bath, Herschel was finally able to become educated in other subjects too. After a few years of running William’s household and participating in his music career, she offered him support when his interests turned from music to astronomy.
 
Soon, William was making his own telescope lenses, which proved to be more powerful than conventional ones. In 1781, William discovered the planet Uranus, though he mistook it for a comet. As the siblings worked together, Herschel began scanning the sky each night for interesting objects, and meticulously recording their positions in a record book, along with any discoveries that she and William made. She also compared their observations with the Messier Catalog, a book of astronomy by French astronomer Charles Messier, which at the time was considered the most comprehensive catalog of astronomical objects. On February 26, 1783, Herschel made her first two, independent discoveries when she noticed a nebula that didn’t appear in the Messier Catalog and a small galaxy that later came to be known as Messier 110, a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
 
In 1798, Herschel presented her astronomical catalog to the Royal Society in England, to be used as an update to English astronomer John Flamsteed’s observations. Her catalog was meticulously detailed, and was organized by north polar distance rather than by constellation. Using telescopes built by William, Herschel went on to discover eight comets. As she and William published papers with the Royal Society, both of them began earning a wage for their work. Herschel was paid £50 a year, making her the first known woman to earn a wage as a scientist.
 
By 1799, Herschel’s work was so well known that she was independently invited to spend a week with the royal family. Three years later, the Royal Society published the most detailed version of her work yet, though they did so under William’s name. After her brother’s death, Herschel created yet another astronomical catalog, this one for William’s son, John, who had also shown a great interest in astronomy. This catalog eventually became the New General Catalogue, which gave us the NGC numbers by which many astronomical objects are still identified.
 
Despite her childhood hardships and growing up during a time when women weren't encouraged to practice science, Caroline Herschel made some of the 18th and 19 centuries’ most important contributions to astronomy. Her determination to “mind the heavens”, as she put it, has impacted centuries of astronomical study. Happy Women’s History Month!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white portrait of Caroline Herschel wearing a bonnet and high-collared, lacy blouse.] Credit & copyright: Portrait by M. F. Tielemann, 1829. From page 114-115 of Agnes Clerke's The Herschels and Modern Astronomy (1895).

Have you ever seen berkelocene? Not until now! Researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently discovered a new organometallic molecule, called berkelocene. Organometallic molecules are made up of a carbon-based framework surrounding a metal ion, but this is the first time such a molecule has contained the element berkelium.
 
While organometallic molecules often contain metals from earlier in the periodic table, they’re rarely found to contain actinides, or metals with atomic numbers from 89-103. Berkelium’s atomic number is 97, making the discovery of berkelocene quite unusual. In fact, this is the first time that any chemical bond between carbon and berkelium has been observed. Like 23 other synthetic metals on the periodic table, berkelium is not naturally-occurring. It can only be created in labs via nuclear reactions, which makes it all the more unusual that it could bond with a natural element, like carbon. Berkelium is highly radioactive, which also makes it difficult to study. It’s fitting, though, that the discovery of berkelocene took place at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, since berkelium was originally discovered and named after Berkeley, California, in 1949. In chemistry, what goes around comes around, but be careful—it’s radioactive, after all.

[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of the periodic table cell for the element Berkelium.] Credit & copyright: Author’s own illustration.