Music is important in nature to avoid hybrids of different bird species.

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-songs-play-greater-role-plumage.html

I just read as part of the description of a crime suspect that they “speak German.”

And then I heard someone speak German! Is that the criminal?

Unfortunately, I cannot see them, but it’s the person giving a passenger announcement in this train between Cologne and Frankfurt.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@derpostillon/116828566366152519

"The Niels Bohr statue in Denmark consists entirely of atoms."

(I do not trust Der Postillon very much, so I do not know what to do of this.)

Only keep what is yours.

Plants around for another 2 billion years? Not as long as I'm set to water them.

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-survive-earth-billion-years.html

There is a real old expression, "between wolf and dog" for "early morning" or "late evening", when dogs go home and wolves come out, and it is difficult to tell which is which.

It has been used since the Middle Ages, e.g. by Marculfus, Guillaume le Breton and Jean-Antoine de Baïf.

It is still used in French, for example by Marguerite Yourcenar: “On atteignait l'heure entre loup et chien où les gens sensibles se confient, où les criminels avouent...” Le Coup de grâce (1939)

The title of this actually interesting article, The Hour of the Wolf, is a perhaps unconscious reference to a 1966 Ingmar Bergman film with the same name (Swedish. Vargtimmen). He claims:

"The hour between night and dawn. The hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghost and demons are most powerful…"

That is very moving and poetic but it is not science.

https://www.science.org/content/article/wolves-are-reconquering-europe-can-people-learn-live-them

I like showing off my ignorance. I had never seen any insect like this before, shaped like a T, a bit reminiscent of a tiny hammerhead shark.

It turns out that it is a plume moth, Emmelina monodactyla, known from several continents and from the window of the tram I was riding on earlier today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmelina_monodactyla

The Lecturer: "... So in five billion years, the sun will expand dramatically and engulf the earth and annihilate all life."
Drowsy Student on the first row suddenly wakes up: "What!"
Lecturer: "I said that the sun will explode in five billion years."
Student: "Oh, that's a relief! I thought you said 'millions'."

Whether you like that joke or not, it may not be accurate according to new research.

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sun-engulf-earth-scientists.html

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@JimPropp/116755072990103821

If your brain needs to be teased.

Tough choice.

The utility of nostalgia:

Nostalgia from song lists most strongly boosted the sense that "you and your past are the same person."

https://sciencex.com/news/2026-06-playlists-hard-play.html

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/116669100440924010

Another day when I learnt something I did not know in the morning.

How could I have missed this fun fact during a reasonably long life?

This just in: researchers are astonished.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01651-0

Cows recognise our faces.

I'd love to see a trial where a cow is used as a reliable witness.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0329529

More about bees. They navigate using both absolute and relative sizes of holes to fly through.

It's rarely just one thing in nature.

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-honeybees-reveal-weber-law-flight.html

Don't stress bees. They are as easily distracted as your co-workers.

Oh, and it's also not cool to stress your co-workers, of course.

https://sciencex.com/news/2026-05-bees-distracted-hinting-awareness.html

"One star is actively devouring material from the other."

Yes, the article says "actively", but I cannot help reading it as "consciously" which would set a different spin on things.

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-extreme-minute-orbit-reveals-white.html

It’s your democratic duty.

“Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!”
W. B. Yeats