Glass shards reveal what was inside a Renaissance alchemist’s demolished laboratory

Ashley Strickland, CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Experimentation is nan ground of nan technological process — and it’s astatine nan bosom of what it intends to beryllium quality and mobility nan world astir us.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors produced the first maps of nan stars and practiced alchemy, nan precursor to chemistry.

Even Sir Isaac Newton, considered nan begetter of physics, was an avid alchemist who wrote a look for a main constituent needed to make nan fabled philosopher’s stone. The chromatic was thought to move immoderate metallic into metallic aliases gold.

Chemists successful nan 1700s sought to deem alchemy a pseudoscience. But ancient alchemists actually developed exertion and discovered chemic elements that are still wide utilized today.

Now, a caller find links some astronomy and alchemy successful 1 intriguing fig who lived during nan Renaissance.

Dig this

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe changed nan measurement group understood nan heavens successful nan 1500s by spotting a supernova and suggesting nan satellite orbited Earth — each earlier telescopes existed.

But successful nan basement of his castle named Uraniborg, which included an observatory, nan astronomer conducted secretive alchemical activity for elite royal clients. Little is known astir Brahe’s work, isolated from his committedness to processing medicinal recipes alternatively than gold.

A caller study of solid shards from nan demolished alchemy laboratory revealed ingredients Brahe utilized successful his mysterious concoctions, including tungsten — which wasn’t officially described until much than 180 years aft his death.

Defying gravity

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams person spent much than 50 days aboard nan International Space Station aft piloting nan first crewed ngo of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. And location is still nary group day for nan astronauts to return to Earth.

But NASA and Boeing are now zeroing successful connected the “root cause” of nan spacecraft’s problems that cropped up during its journey, including helium leaks and thruster issues.

Engineers person conducted crushed tests for weeks to replicate nan anomalies, and further tests this play should afloat uncover nan issues, said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program manager.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has received support to proceed launches utilizing its Falcon 9 rocket, which precocious knowledgeable a mission-ending nonaccomplishment during a regular journey. Once nan Starliner ngo concludes, SpaceX will ferry a quartet of astronauts for NASA’s Crew-9 ngo to nan abstraction station.

Once upon a planet

Marine scientists recovered an different type of oxygen produced without photosynthesis connected nan seabed — much than 13,000 feet beneath nan ocean’s aboveground — that could thief unravel nan origins of life.

The recently discovered type Relicanthus sp. lives connected sponge stalks attached to polymetallic nodules recovered connected nan seabed. | Courtesy Craig Smith and Diva Amon, ABYSSLINE Project via CNN Newsource

When Andrew Sweetman, a professor astatine nan Scottish Association for Marine Science, first detected nan unexpected arena successful nan Pacific Ocean a decade ago, he thought nan sensor instrumentality was faulty. No ray tin scope nan water depths, and nary oxygen is known to beryllium produced by organisms on nan seafloor.

But now, caller investigation by Sweetman and his squad suggests nan “dark” oxygen whitethorn be created by potato-size metallic nodules that enactment for illustration “geobatteries” wrong nan deep-sea ecosystem.

Ocean secrets

A camera strapped to an endangered shark captured nan jarring moment a vessel struck nan marine animal, and it whitethorn beryllium immoderate of nan first footage to show really communal vessel strikes are for water dwellers.

Researchers don’t cognize whether nan 23-foot (7-meter) basking shark inhabiting nan waters astir nan Blasket Islands, disconnected nan seashore of Ireland, survived nan collision. But nan run-in intelligibly near a ample scratch and overgarment streaks connected nan shark’s speckled skin.

Scientists are moving to amended understand nan species, which is among nan largest food successful nan world. The footage was meant to shed much ray connected nan basking shark’s eating habits arsenic it feeds astatine nan ocean’s aboveground pinch jaws agape.

Instead, nan video highlights why nan basking shark and different endangered oversea creatures require protection.

Separately, cocaine has been detected successful sharks living disconnected nan seashore of Brazil, and it’s nan first clip nan supplier has been recovered successful free-ranging sharks.

Other worlds

The Perseverance rover has recovered thing that mightiness bespeak Mars could person been location to microbial life successful nan distant past.

The robotic explorer has been investigating a stone nicknamed Cheyava Falls. The rover utilized its instruments to analyze nan leopard-spotted rock and recovered chemic signatures and structures that whitethorn person been formed by life billions of years agone erstwhile h2o was coming connected nan reddish planet.

“These spots are a large surprise,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist connected nan Perseverance subject team. “On Earth, these types of features successful rocks are often associated pinch nan fossilized grounds of microbes surviving successful nan subsurface.”

NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” connected a reddish stone nicknamed Cheyava Falls successful Mars’ Jezero Crater connected July 18. | NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS via CNN Newsource

Curiosities

These caller finds whitethorn return you by surprise:

— Komodo dragons, nan world’s largest lizards, have iron-tipped teeth that stain their serrated edges orange and thief nan deadly predators rip their prey apart, according to caller research.

— The Chandra X-ray Observatory conscionable celebrated a 4th period successful abstraction by releasing 25 never-before-seen glowing images of nan cosmos — but NASA fund cuts could bring nan ngo to an untimely end.

— Humans aren’t nan only ones tin of blushing. Domestic hens person been observed blushing to definitive fearfulness aliases excitement, and researchers moving connected a French workplace have images of nan pink-tinged chickens to beryllium it.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All authorities reserved.

Editor’s note: Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to person successful your inbox nan adjacent version of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland and Katie Hunt. They find wonderment successful planets beyond our star strategy and discoveries from nan ancient world.