Curio Cabinet

Turns out, unicorns are real—they’ve been hanging out in the ocean this whole time. Narwhals, sometimes called the “unicorns of the sea” are some of the most unusual animals on Earth, but they’re also extremely elusive. In fact, until recently, there was little consensus on what narwhals used their long, horn-like tusks for. Now, drones have finally captured footage of narwhals using their tusks for hunting and play. The footage was captured thanks to researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in partnership with Inuit communities in Nunavut in Canada’s High Arctic. The narwhals used their tusks to “steer” prey fish, like Arctic char, in favorable directions and even to hit and stun the fish. They also used their tusks to prod and shake various things in their environment, behavior that researchers described as “exploratory play.”
 
Narwhals’ “horns” aren’t horns at all, but tusks. A narwhal’s tusk begins as a canine tooth (usually their upper left) that eventually grows through their upper lip. However, not all narwhals end up with tusks at all. Some males never grow them for unknown reasons, and only about 15 percent of female narwhals do. Narwhal tusks can reach lengths of up to 10 feet. That’s more than half the length of an adult male’s body, which can reach 15.7 feet and weigh more than 3,500 pounds. Narwhals come by their large size naturally, as they’re members of the Monodontidae family. This family also includes belugas, right whales, sperm whales, and blue whales, the latter of which are the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth.
 
Like most whales, narwhals live in pods, or groups, of up to 10 individuals. Females, calves, and young males form pods together, while sexually mature males have pods of their own. Narwhals are also migratory, meaning that they spend different parts of the year in different places. In the summer, they spend their time in Arctic bays and fjords, but as thick sea ice forms in the fall, they migrate to deeper Arctic waters. Most narwhals spend the winter between Canada and Greenland, in areas like Baffin Bay. When narwhals return to shallower, coastal waters in the spring, they also begin searching for mates. While male narwhals have never been observed fighting for mates, they do display behavior called “tusking”, in which two males raise their tusks out of the water and lay them against each other, probably to determine which male is larger. Whichever male “wins” the contest will go on to mate with nearby females. Narwhals give birth to just one calf per year.
 
Unfortunately, narwhals' low birth rate makes it difficult for their numbers to recover after disasters like ocean storms or oil spills. Luckily, narwhals are not currently considered endangered, but as climate change continues to affect the Arctic waters they call home, they may have difficulty adapting to a warming world. That’s not very cool for these unicorns of the sea.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of a narwhal diving through water.] Credit & copyright: Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.

It’s a good thing your eye comes with a spare. Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and Boston Children’s Hospital have found a way to repair previously-irreversible corneal damage in one eye using stem cells from a person’s remaining, healthy eye.
 
Along with the lens, an eye’s cornea plays a critical role in focusing light. Damage to the cornea, whether from injury or disease, can permanently impair vision or even lead to blindness. The cornea also protects the eye behind it by keeping out debris and germs. Since the cornea is literally at the front and center of the eye, however, it is particularly vulnerable to damage from the very things it’s designed to protect against. Unfortunately, damage to the cornea is notoriously difficult to treat.
 
Now, researchers have managed to extract what they call cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cells (CALEC) from a healthy eye to restore function to a damaged cornea. The process works like this: CALEC is extracted via a biopsy from the healthy eye then placed in a cellular tissue graft, where it takes up to three weeks to grow. Once ready, the graft is transplanted into the damaged eye to replace the damaged cornea. One of the researchers, Ula Jurkunas, MD, said in press release, “Now we have this new data supporting that CALEC is more than 90% effective at restoring the cornea’s surface, which makes a meaningful difference in individuals with cornea damage that was considered untreatable.” Still, as they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Common causes of corneal injury include damage from foreign objects entering the eye during yard work or while working with tools or chemicals. Too much exposure to UV rays can also cause damage to the cornea, as well as physical trauma during sports. The best way to prevent these injuries, of course, is to use eye protection. Even if they can fix your cornea, having someone poke around inside your one good eye should probably remain a last resort.

 
[Image description: An illustrated diagram of the human eye from the side, with labels.] Credit & copyright: Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.

It seems that time can be reflected—but don’t worry, you won’t have to re-live any embarrassing teenage moments! Some reflections are fairly easy to understand: when lightwaves bounce off of a reflective surface, like glass, or soundwaves bounce off a non-absorbent surface, like a concrete wall, we see a reflection or hear an echo. Since the 1970s, however, scientists have theorized that there is another, stranger way for waves like sound or light to be reflected, in which they actually move backwards in time. Now, researchers have finally managed to recreate the phenomenon, known as a time reflection, in a lab. Time reflections happen when a wave, such as a soundwave, becomes stretched and changes frequency while, at the same time, the medium through which the wave is traveling also abruptly changes course. If you’ve ever heard a police siren seemingly change frequency as it whizzes by, then you’re familiar with at least the first part of this phenomenon. But imagine if you counted from one to ten out loud, and then both the frequency of the soundwave you created and the structure of the air it was traveling through changed all at once. One end of the soundwave might “curl” back at you, so that you would hear yourself counting backwards, from ten to one, in a much higher pitch than you originally spoke. This is a time reflection.
 
Until now, researchers assumed that it would take too much energy to recreate a time reflection in a lab, since they’d have to suddenly and drastically change whatever material their experimental waves were traveling through. They were able to solve the problem by creating a special material specifically designed to interact with electromagnetic radiation, so that its structure could be changed very quickly. They then sent different lightwaves through the material via a metal strip wired with switches. When the switches were triggered, the frequencies of the lightwaves changed, altering the material itself at the same time by changing its impedance, or opposition to electrical flow. This caused some of the lightwaves to reflect back in an altered way, thus proving that time reflections exist and can, to some degree, be controlled. It’s probably too early to get excited for mass-produced time machines, though.

[Image description: A small round mirror sits outside in the snow, reflecting back snowflakes and green vegetation.] Credit & copyright: Lisa from Pexels, Pexels.
 

Here’s some hot news that’s worth reflecting on: volcanic eruptions can turn human brains into glass. In the 1960s, archaeologists unearthed many artifacts and preserved human bodies from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii and the town of Herculaneum, both of which were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. The bodies from these sites are famous for being incredibly well-preserved by layers of volcanic ash, showing the exact poses and sometimes even expressions of the volcano’s victims in their dying moments. In 2018, however, one researcher discovered something even more interesting about one particular body, which had belonged to a 20-year-old man killed in the eruption. Italian anthropologist Pier Paolo noticed that there were shiny areas inside the body’s skull, and upon further investigation discovered that part of the victim’s brain and spine had turned into glass. Now, scientists believe they’ve uncovered the process behind this extremely rare phenomenon.
 
Glass does sometimes form in nature without human intervention, but the process, known as vitrification, requires extreme conditions. It can happen when lightning strikes sand, rapidly heating the grains to over 50,000° Fahrenheit, which is hotter than the surface of the sun. As soon as the lightning is done striking, the sand can rapidly cool, forming tubes or crusts of glass known as fulgurites. Glass can form after volcanic eruptions too. Obsidian is known as volcanic glass because it’s created when lava rapidly cools. However, 2018 was the first time that a vitrified human organ had ever been discovered. Researchers now believe that they know how it happened. First, a superheated ash cloud from the eruption of Vesuvius swept through Herculaneum, instantly killing those in its wake with temperatures of around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of incinerating victims’ bodies, the cloud left them covered in layers of ash. The cloud then dissipated quickly, allowing the bodies to cool. The brain in question was somewhat protected by the skull surrounding it, allowing it to cool rapidly and form into glass rather than being completely destroyed. It seems this ancient, cranial mystery is no longer a head-scratcher.

 
[Image description: A gray model of a human brain against a black background.] Credit & copyright: KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA, Pexels