Pharyngula’s Friday Cephalopod: Wonderpus photogenicus

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has posted another Friday Cephalopod: this one is Wonderpus photogenicus — that’s it’s real genus and species — with a link to the official species description and some more pictures. The authors could find only about ten specimens.

There are many undescribed cephalopods in Indonesian waters: this is only one of them.

A star with a tail in the tail of the Whale

A star in the constellation Cetus is trailing a tail 13 light-years long. The tail, hot gasses thrown off the red giant, is made up of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Scientists believe that the gasses will form the nuclei of new solar systems. These elements are, with hydrogen, the ones that make up organic molecules atoms such as amino acids and sugars.

Our own solar system is made of atoms that have passed through another star at least once. The original atoms were almost all hydrogen and helium; anything heavier came from the fusion of a star’s dying aeons.