ICYMI: 2018’s top science offerings

Author: Janet Raloff / Source: Science News for Students

an image showing an illustration of snowy trees and mountains with the text — Here’s our top-10 list of important events and discoveries — ones not to be missed.

If you’re anything like us, you were bombarded this year with news feeds screaming for your attention. Can you remember the highlights? Did you take a break and go digital-free for a bit?

What did you miss? Never fear. Here’s a quick update on the science highlights of 2018 — just before the new year begins dropping an onslaught of more cool news your way.

10. Wombats’ cubic wastes

a photo of a wombat facing towards the viewer — Wombats are stout marsupials native to Australia. They use their cubelike droppings to mark their territory.

This probably isn’t news you can use — wombats, after all, are the only creatures to poop neat little cubes. How do they create that uniquely shaped scat? Some Georgia Tech engineers puzzled that out, building model systems with the same balloons used to make balloon animals — and ran a bunch of tests. (They also tested whether the poop cubes can be rolled like dice.) Intestinal elasticity, they learned, is the key to the shape of wombat scat.

9. Computers get good at making, catching fake news

The internet is a fire hose of claims and supposedly true information, and people need help sorting truth from fakery. A host of new digital fact-checkers are trying to meet this challenge. Other computer programs, meanwhile, are learning how to alter video in hard-to-tell ways. The new video can send new words out of people’s mouths or put new expressions on their faces.

Watch out.

8. Kilauea demanded the world take notice

Kilauea volcano — Lava flowing from new fissures along Kilauea’s eastern flank engulfed a street in Hawaii’s Leilani Estates on May 6.

Kilauea is one of six volcanos that formed Hawaii’s Big Island over the past million years. In 2018, this beast showed it was far from a sleeping giant. Shallow earthquake activity gave rise to a fanfare of volcanic fireworks in May. Nearly two dozen fissures opened in the ground during a 3-month-long eruption. Fountains of molten rock sometimes shot up 70 meters (230 feet), setting treetops on fire. A lava whirlwind, or lavanado, even danced briefly atop one fissure.

7. Eclipse affected weather — and wildlife

a photo of the August 2017 solar eclipse — The August 21, 2017 solar eclipse, seen here from Oregon, triggered odd weather across the United States.

Last year’s Great American Eclipse produced a short-term cooling along its path — and more. Wind speeds changed. Some clouds evaporated in the abrupt cooling. In short, as the moon briefly threw shade, the local weather changed. People aren’t the only ones to have noticed the eclipse, though. Animals did, too, researchers are finding. For instance, bees stopped buzzing during the brief darkness.