Curio Cabinet

That mama mollyhawk could use a bit of mollycoddling; after all, she’s 74 years old! Albatrosses, also known as mollyhawks, are amazing seabirds. Known for their human-like facial expressions, long lifespans, and loyalty to their mates, they’ve appeared in all sorts of human media, from Disney movies to 18th century poetry. Now, an albatross named Wisdom is making headlines for becoming a mother at age 74. She’s also the world’s oldest known wild bird.
 
There are 22 species of albatross, which live in different parts of the Southern hemisphere and North Pacific. Since Wisdom is a Laysan albatross and one of the world’s most famous birds, her species is likewise the most famous. Laysan albatrosses are some of the world’s largest flying birds, weighing up to 5.6 pounds with wingspans of up to 80 inches. They spend most of their lives on the open waters of the North Pacific, where they can fly without landing for weeks at a time. When not flying, they float on the water’s surface like ducks and plunge their heads underwater to grab prey swimming near the surface, such as crabs, fish eggs, and squid.
 
Once a Laysan albatross is around three to five years old, it will return to land during breeding season, from November to July, to look for a mate. Breeding colonies of Laysan albatrosses can be found on many islands in the Hawaiian archipelago as well as small islands off of Japan and Mexico. Mating is serious business for albatrosses, since they return to the same partner year after year. When a male albatross finds a female that he fancies, he initiates a courtship dance that includes shuffling feet, head-bobbing, and raised wings. If the female dances back and synchronizes her movements to his, then the two mate. This doesn’t mean that the pair will successfully breed, though. Female albatrosses usually only lay one egg per successful season, and they often skip laying an egg every other year.
 
Of the 22 species of albatross, seven are endangered while two are critically endangered. Many albatrosses are killed by waste from the fishing industry, choking on hooks and bobbers or getting tangled in nets. Invasive species like cats sometimes kill adult albatrosses, while invasive rats can eat their eggs. Habitat loss is also a concern as human development encroaches on areas where the birds breed. Albatrosses’ slow reproductive cycles make population recovery difficult. Since they won’t breed in captivity, scientists have set out to help these seabirds in other ways. Some programs have installed artificial nests, which are more resilient to climate change than natural nests, in albatross breeding locations. Others have taken wild albatross chicks and raised them in captivity to give them a better chance of survival. Hopefully more albatrosses are able to follow in Wisdom’s footsteps in the coming years.

 
[Image description: A white-and-gray Albatross with a red band on one leg grooms her chick, which is fluffy and dark brown.] Credit & copyright: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Item ID: 55467033734e97399d40b. Public Domain.

Your living space can never be too clean…right? According to a team of American researchers, it actually can, and their proof lies in the International Space Station (ISS). They found that the space station is far more sterile than most environments on Earth, and that could be a bad thing considering the way that human immune systems function.
 
Researchers began by collecting more than 800 samples from various areas aboard the ISS. When they compared the samples to ones taken from buildings on Earth, like homes and office buildings, they found that microbial diversity on the space station was severely lacking. On Earth, microbes from soil, water, dust, and other sources keep our immune systems robust by exposing them to different stimuli, allowing them to build immunities to common bacteria and other harmful microscopic matter. But on the ISS, almost all of the bacteria comes from human skin shed by the astronauts who live and work there. Also worrying was the fact that chemicals from cleaning products used on board seemed to have built up, since fresh air and sunlight can’t help break them down over time, as they would on Earth.
 
Even on our planet’s surface, environments that are too sterile are known to cause health problems. These include immune dysfunction, cold sores, and spontaneous allergic reactions. As with many things in space, there is no obvious, simple solution. Certain bacteria could be purposefully added to the ISS, but as of right now there’s no way to know if that’s safe. After all, bacteria are living things capable of evolving. Just because they behave and adapt a certain way on Earth doesn’t mean they’d do the same thing in space, and unchecked bacterial growth could lead to all sorts of new health problems. For now, space will likely remain a largely microbe-less place. Hey, at least ISS astronauts don’t have to worry about pandemics.

 
[Image description: A starry sky with some purple visible.] Credit & copyright: Felix Mittermeier, Pexels

Sure, they’re stuck to your fridge, but they also power high-speed trains and even help you pay for things. Magnets have been an endless source of fascination since the dawn of humanity, but they've also played a subtle role in some of the most transformative parts of human history. Without them, we might never have explored the planet or attained the ability to mass-produce things.
 
Like gravity and electricity, magnetism is a natural force that existed long before humans appeared on Earth. In fact, the planet itself has its own magnetic fields. Magnetism is caused by the movement of electrons, tiny particles that constantly spin inside of atoms. The electrons inside any given atom always generate a magnetic field, but what we commonly think of as magnetism only occurs in certain materials, like iron, where electrons align in one direction to generate an observable magnetic force. This magnetism will attract or repel other objects in a way that can be seen and felt. While it’s impossible to know who first discovered magnetism in nature, it probably happened in prehistoric times, before the first true city had even been built. At least 2,500 years ago, magnetism was known to people in India and China. By the time of the ancient Roman Empire, magnetism was already being written and theorized about. In fact, the word “magnetism” probably comes from Magnesia, an area in modern-day Turkey where lodestones (magnetized pieces of magnetite) were common.
 
It’s no understatement to say that the invention of the compass changed the course of human history. People had been using stars to navigate for centuries before then, even on the open ocean, but it was a dangerous undertaking, as foul weather could unexpectedly block the sky at any point, leaving boats stranded far from land. The first compass was invented in China around 206 B.C.E., but it was originally used for religious purposes, not navigation. Spoon shaped lodestones were placed on plates that had certain words and characters etched into them, and the lodestones would spin to point at certain ones and supposedly divine the future. As this technology improved, people naturally noticed that spinning lodestones would always end up pointing north. They didn’t realize that this was because it was aligning with Earth’s magnetic north pole, but they did quickly learn that it was useful for navigation. By the 11th century, Chinese soldiers were using compasses for navigational purposes, and in the following two centuries, the practice spread all over the world. Suddenly, people could more easily cross vast oceans, discover new continents, and establish connections with other civilizations—all because of magnets.
 
In 1600, English physicist William Gilbert published De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on the Great Magnet the Earth). Gilbert theorized that the Earth itself was magnetic with an iron core, and that there was a relationship of some kind between magnetism and electricity. In fact, Gilbert’s novel use of the neo Latin term “electricus” (which previously had been used to describe the properties of amber) eventually led to our modern word "electricity." The industrial revolution of the mid-1700s might have come much later if not for Gilbert's work, since an understanding of electromagnetism—the relationship between magnets and electricity—was key to the creation of motors and generators, which allowed for mass production in factories.
 
Magnets are integral to almost every part of life in the digital age—in fact, the digital age could never have happened without them. Most computers use magnets to store information inside their hard drives. Metal plates inside of hard drives create computer code based on whether each one is magnetized or not. This code is then turned into data. The average smartphone alone contains between 5 and 14 magnets. There are magnets in the tiny motors that make smartphones vibrate, and magnets are essential for phone speakers, since the magnetic field they create is what makes the phone’s voice coil vibrate against the speaker cones, thus producing sound waves. Just as they store information in a hard drive, magnets also store information on the surface of credit and debit cards in the form of magnetic stripes. These stripes contain magnetized patterns that are decoded by card readers any time the card is swiped. Of course, magnets can also be used to stick your grocery list to the fridge…but that seems a little low-tech in comparison.

 
[Image description: A red-and-silver horseshoe-shaped magnet] Credit & copyright: Zureks, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

You can stop construction on that underground bunker. An asteroid that recently made headlines due to its near-Earth trajectory now seems to have almost no chance of striking our planet. Originally discovered on December 27, 2024, in Río Hurtado, Chile, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) the asteroid caused an immediate stir. Known as Asteroid 2024 YR4, the space rock’s trajectory meant that there was a small chance, around 3.1 percent, that it would strike Earth in the year 2032. Officials were quick to point out that a three perfect chance still wasn’t especially high, and that Asteroid 2024 YR4 isn’t nearly as large as asteroids that have caused massive extinction events in the past, such as the one that killed the dinosaurs. Still, with an estimated diameter of 130 to 300 feet, the asteroid is powerful enough to take out an entire city, as impact would release energy comparable to that of 7.8 megatonnes of TNT.
 
Luckily, further observation has now dropped the likelihood of a potential impact down to a paltry 0.0017%. It’s not unusual for a near-Earth asteroid’s chances of impact to drop the longer scientists observe it. More time means more observation and calculation as to an asteroid’s exact trajectory. Should a near-Earth asteroid ever threaten the planet, though, we humans do have a few tricks up our sleeves. In 2022, NASA successfully completed its DART mission, which slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid in order to divert its orbit. A similar tactic could be used to divert an Earth-bound asteroid, as long as it's spotted in time. Hey, it’s always good to have a backup plan!

[Image description: A starry sky with some purple visible.] Credit & copyright: Felix Mittermeier, Pexels