Walking shark found in Papua New Guinea is new to science

 

Image courtesy of MV Erdmann

Joel Kontinen

Sharks are living fossils that defy the cause of evolution. Walking sharks are not new in evolution, but this one is new to science.  

Sharks in the genus Hemiscyllium, commonly known as walking sharks or epaulette sharks, use their pectoral fins like legs to move around and are only known to be in Australia and New Guinea.

The new species has been named Hemiscyllium dudgeonae after Christine Dudgeon at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, who was part of the team that formally identified it.

She first encountered the shark after midnight one day in March 2025, swimming in just a metre of water covering a meadow of seagrass in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea.

Dudgeon was looking for a different species, Hemiscyllium michaeli, known to inhabit nearby waters. “Because it was so late and I had been in the water for a while, I was a bit over it,” she says. “Then I just saw one swimming along the bottom.”

She shone her torch in front of the shark, which was nearly three-quarters of a metre long, making it freeze as a defensive response. Then she grabbed it and gently employed a jiujitsu-like move that researchers call the “flip and tuck”. “You sort of just flip them over and tuck the tail under your armpit and it stops them from wriggling away,” she says.

Once the shark was secure, she handed it over to her colleague, Jess Blakeway, who was in a boat drifting nearby.

The species that the team had been expecting to find has a more leopard-like pattern. “This new one has got lots of spots and dashes that reminded me of braille or morse code,” says Blakeway.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Walking shark found in Papua New Guinea is new to science | New Scientist 16 June 

Gas from Uranus reveals it has an icy centre

 

Image courtesy of JPL/NAS

Joel Kontinen

Carbon monoxide in Uranus's deep atmosphere in dictates that the planet contains more ice than rock, suggesting it formed more like Neptune than we thought.

It  seems that  Uranus has more water than scientist taught, but it is inside the planet.  Genesis seems to indicate that all planets had water in them.

Uranus appears to have far more water frozen as ice in its interior than astronomers thought, potentially settling a long-runnig mystery about whether it formed differently to its closest neighbour, Neptune.

Ice giants like Uranus and Neptune have thick, gassy atmospheres. This makes it hard to know what is inside the planets’ interiors or how they formed. Scientists can, however, measure gases in their atmospheres, which they can then link to processes and elements deeper inside.

Carbon monoxide in a planet’s atmosphere is often associated with its deepest parts being rich in water or ice, but while neighbouring Neptune has displayed abundant carbon monoxide suggestive of an ice-rich centre, Uranus has been lacking, which has led some astronomers to argue it instead has a rocky interior. If true, this would mean that Neptune and Uranus formed in very different ways and aren’t as similar as they appear

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2026 Gas from Uranus reveals it has an icy centre | New Scientist 19 June 

Complex life on Earth may last 500 million years longer than expected

 

Image courtesy of Vimal-S/Unsplash,

Joel Kontinen

How long  will complex life dwell on Earth? Some researchers say that it will be 500 million years in the future.

As the sun expands over the coming billions of years, Earth will become inhospitable to any life more complex than a microbe – but that might take longer than we thought.

The sun is getting brighter and expanding as it ages, and will one day begin to cook our planet before engulfing it altogether – but complex life may be able to hold on in this hellish Earth scenario for much longer than we previously thought.

Estimates based on looking at other stars suggest that our sun is maturing into a red giant, a process that will destroy Earth in around 5 billion years, but it remains an open question as to how long the planet will remain habitable. As far as complex life goes, the last standing will be the vegetative biosphere – plants, both aquatic and terrestrial. Their ability to continue thriving will be mediated in part by the temperature of the planet, but mainly by the levels of carbon dioxide, which is necessary for photosynthesis.

But  according to the book of Revelation, life on Earth will be very different.

 Source:

 Leah Crane 2026 Complex life on Earth may last 500 million years longer than expected | New Scientist18 June 

 

Arctic Ocean reaches tipping point that could be dire for marine life

 

Image courtesy of European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery,

Joel Kontinen

As sea ice melts, more light will infiltrate the Arctic Ocean, allowing phytoplankton and other marine life to flourish – or so we thought. In fact, phytoplankton growth in some parts of the Arctic is now starving other parts of a crucial nutrient, a tipping point that could spell trouble for seals, polar bears and even commercial fish in the north Atlantic.

The Arctic Ocean might be dire for marina life. As the sea ice melts, it causes more sunlight in the Arctic Ocean. This causes phytoplankton to grow and has depleted a crucial nutrient, which could severely affect animals higher up the food chain.

Phytoplankton, the tiny photosynthesising organisms that form the basis of the marine food chain, have been increasing across the Arctic, according to satellite measurements of the green pigment chlorophyll. Algal blooms there have broken records.

Source:  

 Alec Luhn 2026 Arctic Ocean reaches tipping point that could be dire for marine life | New Scientist 16 June

 

Iran Sent Missiles At Israel, On The Exact WRONG Hebrew Date!

‘Forgotten’ pollutants cause 15 per cent of global warming

 

Image courtesy of Jonas Gratzer/Jonas Gratzer

Joel Kontinen

Why do the so called forgotten pollutants cause a great deal of global warming? Searchers say that the indirect greenhouse gases can contribute 15 per cent of what is understood as global  warning. 

Carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds don’t just poison the air we breathe. They also fuel chemical reactions in the atmosphere that heat the planet.

Of all the global warming that has happened since the pre-industrial era, about 15 per cent has been caused by emissions other than greenhouse gases, mainly carbon monoxide and VOCs. That is double the contribution of nitrous oxide, the third-most-common greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane.

Source:

 Alec Luhn 2026 ‘Forgotten’ pollutants cause 15 per cent of global warming | New Scientist 11 June 

Wolves seen hunting European bison in rare camera-trap recording

 

Image courtesy of John Ceulemans/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Europe’s largest land animal, the bison, is thought to be relatively unthreatened by predators, but footage from Białowieża Primaeval Forest in Poland shows it does face attacks from wolves.

Wolves are making a comeback in many parts of Europe

Deep in the Polish wilderness, a camera trap has captured a pack of wolves hunting down a juvenile bison.

The rare footage suggests that in Europe, bison might be on the menu for wolves more commonly than previously thought.

“My mind was blown,” says Robin Wijnands at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “I was really surprised because I really didn’t expect wolves to hunt bison, especially when there are so many other prey available in the forest.”

These attacks happened after the first humans – Adam and Eve  - rebelled after what God  said in Genesis 3 about the fall of man. Animals also begin to kill each other.   

Source:

Gennaro Tomma 2026 Wolves seen hunting European bison in rare camera-trap recording | New Scientist 10 June 

What Trump said about the Iranian war?

What Israel shall do with the Iranian assault in Israel and the war in Lebanon?

 

Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate

 

Image courtesy of Planetary Visions Ltd/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

The Earth is more special than we thought.

A line that runs through Africa, Europe, Alaska and both poles divides Earth into two halves that reflect the same amount of light – and this newly discovered symmetry may play a critical role in the planet’s climate.

It was previously known that the northern and southern hemispheres have almost equal reflectivity, or albedo, but Jianhao Zhang at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US and his colleagues have now uncovered a second line of symmetry along the 27° east and 153° west meridians.

At first, Zhang thought it must be a coincidence. “What convinced me that the east-west symmetry is not trivial are three features: its uniqueness, its persistence and what we call the triple symmetry feature,” he says. “Finding one division with equal total reflection might be expected. But finding a persistent, unique east-west division that also balances land-ocean distribution, clear-sky reflection and cloudy-sky reflection is much less trivial – especially given how variable and dynamic clouds are.”

Øivind Hodnebrog  says “I was a bit sceptical of an east-west symmetry separated at around 27 degrees east, which intuitively seems much less obvious than a separation at the equator,

However, Hodnebrog says he now agrees it is likely a “robust feature, and potentially another fascinating property of the Earth”.

The connection to ENSO may also be significant, says Hodnebrog. Unlike the north-south symmetry, which appears to be weakening due to the effects of climate change on sea ice and clouds, the east-west symmetry is currently stable, though models suggest it could weaken in future. “A potential future asymmetry could be an indication of changes in the atmospheric circulation,” he says.

Martin Jucker at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, says there is a high potential that the east-west symmetry is a coincidence.

“Earth’s weather and climate communicate easily across longitudes,” says Jucker. “This is due to Earth’s rotation, which creates bands of circum-global easterly and westerly winds, and atmospheric perturbations preferentially propagating in the east-west direction as well.”

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate | New Scientist 3 June 

Biofluorescence seen in colourful fire salamanders for the first time

 

Image courtesy of  Ant?nez Glez,  (CC BY-NC); Royal Society Open Science,

Joel Kontinen

Some salamanders have spectacular features, They have biofluorescence feature. It is an intelligent design device that  can warn  the salamanders of predators.   

For the first time, fire salamanders (Salamandra salamandra) have been shown to bio fluoresce, absorbing and re-emitting light at different wavelengths.

In this instance, 10 fire salamanders in Catalonia, Spain, gave off a blue-green glow after being exposed to ultraviolet light.

This ability had never been recorded in fire salamanders before, despite being a very well-studied species.

The fluorescence, which was produced by secretions from the salamanders’ skin glands, appeared primarily on the side and undersihe fluorescence, which was produced by secretions from the salamanders’ skin glands, appeared primarily on the side and underside of their bodies.

The researchers behind the work believe that this biofluorescence may help the animals to attract mates, or perhaps even protect themselves from predators.

Source: 

Michael Dalton 2026 Biofluorescence seen in colourful fire salamanders for the first time | New Scientist 3 June 

Hidden store of manganese may have helped Earth get its oxygen

 

Image courtesy of Claus Lunau/Science Photo Library.

Joel Kontinen

Computer simulations have uncovered a new manganese compound that could exist deep in Earth’s mantle and may be connected to the process that gave our atmosphere oxygen.

When did the Earth get its oxygen? According to a new study, it may have got it from manganese that may have been present deep before in the Earth’s mantle.  Some evolutionists believe that manganese was present in the early stages of the Earth’s history.

Deep below our feet, manganese may exist in a form we have never seen before, and this underground source of the metal could have played a role in the story of how Earth got its oxygen.

Until about 2 billion years ago, Earth’s atmosphere barely contained any oxygen. Then came the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) when oxygen produced by photosynthesizing microbes started to accumulate, spurring development of more diverse forms of life and changing the planet.

Manganese is thought to have been a crucial component in an early version of photosynthesis, before the evolution of the oxygen-producing pathway that is widespread today. In Earth’s crust, manganese is commonly found in oxygen-containing ores, which started to accumulate at around the same time as the GOE.

Source:

 Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 2026 Hidden store of manganese may have helped Earth get its oxygen | New Scientist 2 June