(Credit: Malan Tomasek) Study author Malan Tomasek, with a volunteer in the experiment conducted in the Mediterranean SeaNewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsWhen it comes to animals with incredible memories, fish typically dont come to mind, in fact, it's quite the opposite. Even the poor goldfish has been accused of only having a 10-second memory, though science has proved that false.However, a new study published in Biology Letters found that not only do certain fish have a great memory, but theyre also able to tell people apart.Could Fish Recognize Humans?While doing research for a different study, divers in a research station in the Mediterranean Sea found that local fish would follow them and even steal food that was intended as a reward for something else.The divers also noticed that these local fish seemed to recognize them and knew who to follow for that food. As this continued to happen, a team from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) in Germany decided that these fish were to be the subjects of a new study.The team set out to see if these wild fish could indeed tell the difference between divers based on visual cues.Greater Intelligence in FishFor this study, researchers dove to depths of about 26 feet in the Mediterranean research station. Because of the frequent human presence in this area, wild fish have become accustomed to people. Within these open waters, the fish that participated in the study were all willing volunteers who could come and go as they pleased, Katinka Soller, a bachelor student from MPI-AB and co-first author on the study, said in a press release.The experiment was broken up into two phases. In the first, the divers wanted to see if the fish would follow an individual person. During the first phase, Soller would wear a bright red vest and feed fish over a swim area of about 160 feet. As the days advanced, she removed the vest and would only appear in regular diving gear. She also only started feeding the fish that followed her to 160 feet.Towards the end of the first phase, the researchers noticed two species of seabream fish would follow Soller the whole way.According to the study, seabream is a common food fish; however, during this study, they showed great intelligence and an ability to bond with humans. Researchers were surprised by their intelligence and even gave a few of the fish names.Once I entered the water, it was a matter of seconds before I would see them swimming towards me, seemingly coming out of nowhere, Soller said in a press release. After 12 days, Soller had 20 seabreams following her, and because she could recognize the fish based on their physical traits, the research team moved on to phase two.Fish are FriendsDuring the second phase, two divers entered the swim area, Soller and study co-lead Malan Tomasek. Each had similar diving gear but differed in certain patch and fin colors. The divers would start in the same spot in the swim area and then swim in different directions.At first, the fish followed both divers. You could see them struggling to decide who to chase, Soller said in a press release. However, the fish that followed Tomasek werent given food. So, on the second day of phase two, more fish began to follow Soller.To confirm their findings, the research team focused on six individual fish out of the whole group. They found that four of the fish expressed positive learning curves during the experiment.This is a cool result because it shows that fish were not simply following Katinka out of habit or because other fish were there, Tomasek said in a press release. They were conscious of both divers, testing each one and learning that Katinka produced the reward at the end of the swim.Other studies have shown that domestic fish can recognize human faces, and with more time, Soller believes these wild fish could tell the difference between divers based on their hair or other physical features. Its hard to recognize a face with goggles on, but the researchers were already beginning to notice the fish approaching their faces, almost like the divers were being studied.Read More: Do Fish Feel Pain?Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:A graduate of UW-Whitewater, Monica Cull wrote for several organizations, including one that focused on bees and the natural world, before coming to Discover Magazine. Her current work also appears on her travel blog and Common State Magazine. Her love of science came from watching PBS shows as a kid with her mom and spending too much time binging Doctor Who.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In

The atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-121b, or Tylos, includes layers of iron winds, sodium winds, and hydrogen winds. (Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsThe weather inside our Solar System is tough to track. But even tougher to track is the weather outside our Solar System. Implementing all four of the telescope units of the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of researchers has observed the weather on WASP-121b, or Tylos, an exoplanet around 900 light-years away, identifying the layers of its atmosphere for the first time. Reporting their results in a study in Nature, the team identified three layers of churning, chemical-carrying winds loaded with elements like iron, sodium, hydrogen, and titanium laying the foundations for future studies of faraway worlds. This planets atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works not just on Earth, but on all planets, said Julia Victoria Seidel, a study author and researcher at the European Southern Observatory, according to a press release. It feels like something out of science fiction. A Sci-Fi FindWASP-121b isnt at all like Earth. For one thing, the exoplanet is a gas giant without a solid surface, composed of churning clouds. For another, it orbits the star WASP-121 at such close proximity that the side of the exoplanet that always faces the star is scalding, soaring to temperatures of around 3,320 degrees Fahrenheit and above. Observing the exoplanet with all of the VLTs four telescope units at once, the team of researchers was able to observe the structure of WASP-121bs atmosphere. Specifically, they found a bottom layer of iron-laden winds, a middle layer of sodium-laden winds, and an upper layer of hydrogen-laden winds. The middle layer, a jet stream that spans the scorching side of WASP-121b, rotates material around the planets equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side, Seidel said in the release. Even the strongest hurricanes in the Solar System seem calm in comparison.According to the press release, the study represents the first time that researchers have seen and separated out the specific layers of an exoplanets atmosphere and the first time that theyve studied this specific structure in any atmosphere, whether inside our Solar System or outside.What we found was surprising, Seidel said in the release. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet.Exposing Alien AtmospheresA single one of the VLTs telescope units can observe objects that are four billion times fainter than those that we can observe ourselves without a telescope, and all four of the VLTs telescope units can capture objects that are much fainter than that when theyre combined.As such, the team turned to ESPRESSO, an instrument thats attached to the VLT that consolidates the abilities of all four telescope units. Capturing four times the light of any one of the telescope units, ESPRESSO allows the VLT to find far fainter objects, like WASP-121b, and the chemical winds whipping within its atmosphere.The VLT enabled us to probe three different layers of the exoplanets atmosphere in one fell swoop, said Leonardo A. dos Santos, another study author and a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, according to the release. Its the kind of observation that is very challenging to do with space telescopes, highlighting the importance of ground-based observations of exoplanets.Expanding the SearchAlso identified in the lowest layer of WASP-121bs atmosphere were the traces of titanium, reported in a related study in Astronomy & Astrophysics.Its truly mind-blowing that were able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance, said Bibiana Prinoth, another study author and a student at Lund University in Sweden and at the European Southern Observatory, in the release.To find other exoplanets, the team is already looking to larger telescopes, like the ESOs Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is scheduled to start scientific observations in 2028.The ELT will be a game-changer for studying exoplanet atmospheres, Prinoth said in the release. This experience makes me feel like were on the verge of uncovering incredible things we can only dream about now.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:ESO. Very Large TelescopeESO. ESPRESSOAstronomy & Astrophysics. Titanium Chemistry of WASP-121 b With ESPRESSO in 4-UT ModeSam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In

Study co-author Malan Tomasek with one of the volunteer fish from an experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea. Malan TomasekShareAs more species are admitted into the smart animals club, fish can be overlooked. While some archerfish were able to recognize computer-generated images of human faces in a series of laboratory experiments, there is not a lot of scientific evidence about how well fish can recognize the humans that dive into their watery world.However, some fish stood out to a team of scientists at a research station in the Mediterranean Sea. Every field season, some local marine life would appear and follow a team of scientific divers. The fish would steal the food that the divers carried to use as experimental rewards. The team suspected that the animals could recognize the specific diver who had previously carried the food, since this fish only followed that person while ignoring the others.After designing a series of tests, the team found that some of the fish can tell humans apart based on some of their dive gear. The findings are detailed in a study published February 18 in the journal Biology Letters. Get the Popular Science newsletter By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.Following the leaderTo test their hunch, the team from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany conducted a series of experiments to see if wild fish are telling people apart. The study was conducted in about 26.2 feet of water at a research site in the Mediterranean Sea. Here, populations of wild fish have become habituated to humans. According to study co-author and Max Planck student Katinka Soller, the fish were, willing volunteers who could come and go as they pleased.Training was the first experimental phase. The team tested if the fish could learn to follow Soller. She started by trying to attract the attention of local fish by wearing a bright red vest and swimming about 164 feet. Over time, Soller removed the clues that marked her until she swam in plain diving gear, kept the food hidden, and only fed fish after they followed her for the full 164 feet.Wild fish participated as willing volunteers in the study. Many turned up every day to experimental trials, and scientists could recognize some fish by physical characteristics. CREDIT: Tomasek, Soller, Jordan (2025) Biology Letters.Of the dozens of fish species near the marine station, two species of sea bream were the most willing to engage in these training sessions. Sea bream are sold at fish markets around the world and surprised the team with their curiosity and willingness to learn.Once I entered the water, it was a matter of seconds before I would see them swimming towards me, seemingly coming out of nowhere, said Soller.The same individual fish were also showing up day after day to join in with the lessons. Soller also gave a few of them names.There was Bernie with two shiny silver scales on the back and Alfie who had a nip out of the tail fin, she says.After a training period of 12 days, about 20 fish were reliably following Soller on training swims. She could also recognize several of them from physical traitslike the missing piece of tail fin on Alfie. Identifying the individual fish participating in the experiment set the stage for the next experimental phase.Upping the anteNext, it was time to see if these same fish could tell Soller apart from another diver, Malan Tomasek, a study co-author and a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Clermont Auvergne in France.Tomasek joined Soller for these dives, wearing a wetsuit and fins with more color. Both divers started at the same point in the water and then swam off in different directions.On the first day, the fish followed both Tomasek and Soller equally.You could see them struggling to decide who to chase, says Soller.Tomasek never fed the fish who followed him. From the second day, the number of fish following Soller began to significantly increase.To confirm that the fish were learning to recognize the correct diver, the team focused on six fish to study individually. Four out of the six showed strong positive learning curves over the experiment.This is a cool result because it shows that fish were not simply following Katinka out of habit or because other fish were there, Tomasek said in a statement. They were conscious of both divers, testing each one and learning that Katinka produced the reward at the end of the swim.However, when Soller and Tomasek repeated the trials wearing identical diving gear, the fish were unable to tell them apart. According to the team, this indicates that the fish are associating the differences in the dive gear, most likely the colors, with each individual diver.Almost all fish have color vision, so it is not surprising that the sea bream learned to associate the correct diver based on patches of color on the body, says Tomasek.Its time for us to see themHumans also do this when swimming underwater, since faces are distorted by diving masks. Its the differences between fins, wetsuits, masks, and other diving gear that are often the best way to recognize someone.With more time, the fish may learn to pay attention to more subtle human features, such as hands or hair. According to the team, observing that wild fish can quickly learn to use specific cues to recognize an individual human diver provides more evidence that other fish species can recognize certain patterns to identify us.[ Related: The smart animal club keeps getting bigger. ]It doesnt come [as] a shock to me that these animals, which navigate a complex world and interact with myriad different species every minute, can recognize humans based on visual cues, study co-author and biologist Alex Jordan said in a statement. I suppose the most surprising thing is that we would be surprised [if] they can. It suggests we might underestimate the capacities of our underwater cousins.It might be strange to think about humans sharing a bond with an animal like a fish that sits so far from us on the evolutionary tree, that we dont intuitively understand, said Tomasek. But human-animal relationships can overcome millions of years of evolutionary distance if we bother to pay attention. Now we know that they see us, its time for us to see them.

Nature, Published online: 18 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00494-5A sustainable ocean needs thriving ocean societies

Nature, Published online: 18 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08664-1Vertical structure of an exoplanets atmospheric jet stream

Im hoping for some feedback about lighting so I can improve even more submitted by /u/n33dto_poop [link] [comments]

3D artist Kang Sei Hoon keeps anime lovers entertained with his new design of a mecha maid from 4GROUND9, a mobile/PC RPG developed by nerdystar.There isnt much available online about the game, but from what weve seen, its a futuristic gacha game with a variety of characters and rumors of AI involvement, although Kangs work is definitely made with human love and attention.If you want a peek at 4GROUND9, which is expected to come out in 2025, follow Kang on X/Twitter, where he posts some character art, like this beautiful woman with giant cyber claws.Also, join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post See This Adorable Mecha Maid from 4GROUND9 appeared first on CG SHARES.

Is it an ebook or is it a console? Id say its a bit of both. Ink Console has an E Ink electronic paper screen that allows you to not only read but also play games featuring interactive elements like inventory, health, and options.Created by a solo developer known as Dana, the device offers several interactive books that combine storytelling with gameplay, inviting you to immerse yourself in Choose Your Own Adventure-like stories.Ink ConsoleToday, through this space, Im excited to continue exploring ways to blend technology, learning, and creativity, bringing innovative, meaningful solutions to audiences of all ages, Dana said.Ink ConsoleInk ConsoleOn Ink Console, you use GameBooks, which you can also create yourself using the SDK. There are 9 of them made by Dana at the moment, with 3 skins for the console. Unfortunately, there is no touchscreen, you interact with games with a stick and a button.The best part is that Ink Console is compatible with ebook formats, so you can use it as a classic book when youre tired of games.The device is still in development, but when its fully out, Dana promises free access to the code. This year, he plans to hire more people and start delivering the consoles to backers.Learn more about it here and join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post You Will Love This Console with Ebook-Like Ink Display Created by Solo Developer appeared first on CG SHARES.

Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2, aka Lawless season, starts on Friday, and it's bringing us an early dose of something we thought we'd have to wait until at least the fall for: a new Grand Theft Auto. Not literally, of course. Epic is not collaborating with Rockstar Games here--they're just adding a new urban location on the map called Crime City, and we'll be spending much of our time this season stealing stuff from vaults, armored cars, and the train, and each other. Yep, sounds like GTA to me.It's amusing timing, given that the very long awaited Grand Theft Auto 6 looks like it might actually come out this year, a decade and two console generations since GTA 5 launched back in 2013. But even with a proper new GTA title finally peeking its head above the horizon, Epic beat them to the punch with Lawless season.Not convinced by the comparison? Let's take a look at the season trailer.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Fortnite Festival fans who play on Nintendo Switch (or PC) can save on the recently released CRKD Neo S Purple Wave Controller for the first time. Normally $60, the recently released wireless controller is discounted to $50 for a limited time. The officially licensed gamepad adds a 5-fret attachment to the compact Neo S, making it the ideal way to play Fortnite's Guitar Hero-esque game mode with a standard controller. CRKD Neo S Fortnite Festival Edition Controller for PC & Switch $50 (was $60) See at Amazon Released at the end of 2024 and designed by the team behind Guitar Hero and DJ Hero controllers, the Neo S Fortnite Festival Edition is reminiscent of the 4-fret attachment that slotted into the Game Boy Advance slot on the DS. Playing Guitar Hero with cartridge slot attachment was actually pretty fun, so the Fortnite Festival Edition Neo S for Switch and PC sounds cool. Plus, the "Purple Wave" color scheme is arguably best-looking officially licensed Fortnite controller around.CRKD Neo S Purple Wave Controller: Fortnite Festival EditionPlatforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile Smart TVRelease Date: December 20, 2024Price: $50 ($60) with limited-time Amazon dealCRKD Neo S Purple Wave Controller: Fortnite Festival EditionGallery The controller comes with a velcro wrist strap to keep it from flying across the room when in the middle of a guitar solo and a microfiber string bag for travel. The controller is also compatible with Fortnite Festival on streaming platforms like Luna and Xbox Cloud Gaming, plus a wide range of other rhythm games.Continue Reading at GameSpot