Moons of Mars
Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are thought to be
captured asteroids. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph
Hall and are named after the characters Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos
(terror/dread) who, in Greek mythology, accompanied their father Ares,
god of war, into battle. Ares was known as Mars to the Romans.

Could plants move in connection with the moon?
There is a possibility in the correlation between the moon and the movement of leaves.
Peter
Barlow of the University of Bristol made the discovery while attempting
to determine why the leaves of some plants seemed to move up and down
during the night despite the lack of sunlight.

By analyzing the
movements of bean plants over the last 100 years and matching them up
with estimates of the local gravitational influence of the moon he was
able to determine that these movements seemed to correspond extremely
well to the moon’s gravity.

After gathering as much data as he could on
the subject Barlow hypothesized that water motion within the joints
of the leaves may be responsible for this peculiar form of movement. The phenomenon has since come to be referred to as “leaftide”.

Chilean carnivorous plant could kill you
Studies of the components of the Chilean species, Aristolochia chilensis
confirmed the damage attributed to the ingestion of aristolochic acid
in plants of the genus Aristolochia, plant and component consumed as
“natural medicine” throughout the world.

Aristolochic acids are responsible for causing major
damage than caused by smoke nicotine or ultraviolet radiation in
relation to its ability to produce multiple mutations in hundreds or
even thousands of genes, many more than any other carcinogen. These
qualities led him to become the “greatest genotoxic agent discovered" the danger of the compounds can cause mutations associated with tumors of the urinary tract, kidneys and liver.

The aristolochic acid has been – and continues to be – used for the
treatment of eczema, acne, liver symptoms, arthritis, and chronic pain.


Reference: Ling
Poon, 2013 Genome-Wide Mutational Signatures of Aristolochic Acid and
Its Application as a Screening Tool. Sci Transl Med 7 August 2013.
Photo: Diego Almendras

23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain

  • Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
  • Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
  • Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
  • Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
  • Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
  • Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
  • Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
  • Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
  • Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
  • Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
  • Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
  • Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
  • Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
  • Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
  • Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
  • Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
  • Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
  • Rückkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
  • Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
  • Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
  • Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
  • Altschmerz: Weariness
    with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws
    and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
  • Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.

    • 23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain

    Carnivorous plant finds way to attract bats
    Pitcher plants traditionally gain nutrition by trapping and digesting
    insects, but in Borneo one particularly large variety of pitcher plant
    has managed to adapt itself to take advantage of an alternative source
    of nutrition thanks to its rather unusual relationship with bats.

    Known as Nepenthes hemsleyana,
    the species is still capable of catching insects but does not need to
    consume as many because it supplements its nutritional intake with bat
    droppings. To attract bats the plant has developed a unique
    reflector mechanism that mirrors their ultrasonic communications thus
    making it a lot easier for the animals to find it.

    “With
    these structures, the plants are able to acoustically stand out from
    their environments so that bats can easily find them,” said study
    co-author Michael Schöner. “Moreover, the bats are clearly able
    to distinguish their plant partner from other plants that are similar in
    shape, but lack the conspicuous reflector.”