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Seven Animals We Used to Think Were Extinct but they aren't

Throughout our planet’s history, billions of species have gone extinct. In fact, over 99% of the species that have ever existed, don’t anymore. Some of them disappeared long ago, leaving behind the occasional fossil to study. Others went the way of the dodo and were killed off either directly or indirectly by humans. But every once in a while, a creature we thought had kicked the bucket is found … still kicking. Here are seven animals that turned out to not be extinct after all. One of the most well-known examples of this phenomenon is the coelacanth, a kind of simple fish. Until the 1930s, we’d only seen it in fossils, and the fossil record suggested it died off not long before the non-avian dinosaurs did, over 65 million years ago. But then, in 1938, a museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered a live specimen someone had fished off the coast of South Africa. These days, we know of two different living species of coelacanth, one in the western Indian Oc
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Seven Things We Don't Know About the Ocean

Humans have done a pretty good job of exploring the Earth thus far, climbing mountains and crossing continents and planting our flags all over the place in the name of science. But one part of the world that has remained pretty mysterious to us also happens to cover more than 70% of its surface: the ocean. Yes , we’ve sailed across it plenty of times. And drilled for oil in it. And managed to create reality shows about fishing in it. But, from glowing oceans to massive deep-sea creatures, and underwater ecosystems with thousands of undiscovered, basically-alien species -- we still have a lot to learn about it. Probably more than any place on Earth, the ocean is full of fascinating stuff that we just don’t know. Not yet. [Music Playing] Number One: What’s the ocean floor like? Fact is, we still don’t know exactly what the ocean floor looks like in most places. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that 95% of the ocean's bottom remains unseen by h
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Space Junk Around Earth

For six months, astronaut Ron Garan lived and worked on the International Space Station, and he saw our world in a way few people can imagine. The Caribbean is like a glowing jewel. The Himalayas. Middle East, there's many many really interesting beautiful places from space. The Space Station gives us the ability to explore our home planet in a way we never could. But that God's eye view is getting dangerous. We have a somewhat risky environment that we've created because we are surrounded, our planet is surrounded by this cloud of space debris. Three, two, one, zero. And we have lift off. For almost 60 years, we've launched rockets and spacecraft into Earth's orbit, but now thousands of objects from tiny screws and bolts, to dead satellites encircle the Earth. Transforming the space above us into a junkyard. It seems kinda comical the idea that someday the, the Earth might actually be surrounded by some ring of space garbage, kind of like a, a les
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How Studying Bacteria Almost Kept Us From Discovering the Flu

If you’re coughing, sneezing, or starting to feel under the weather, you might blame a virus, or possibly a bacterium. Which is not something humans have known to do for very long. Around 400 B.C.E., doctors might have blamed an imbalance of the four vital humors for your illness. Around the 1700s, they might have pointed to an invisible, disease-carrying fog instead. Today, we know pathogens -- viruses, bacteria, and certain other microbes -- are responsible for many diseases. But linking specific diseases to the microbes that cause them has been surprisingly tricky. In 1882, a scientist named Robert Koch demonstrated that the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis. And in 1890, he also published a framework for future scientists to make similar discoveries. He created a checklist for researchers to reference any time they’re trying to link a pathogen to a disease. The steps are as follows. First, researchers had to be able to find the pathogen in si
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أسوأ خمسة فيروسات برمجية على الإطلاق

عندما نتحدث عن فيروسات الحاسب، فعادة ما نعني أي نوع من الرموز البرمجية التي تهدف إلى إحداث ضرر وانتشارها لأجهزة أكثر. أنشأها المبرمجون الخبيثون الذين لربما أرادوا استخدام حاسوبك لمهاجمة أهدافٍ أخرى أو بغرض كسب المال من خلال سرقتهم لمعلوماتك الشخصية ربما حاولوا فقط أن يروا إلى أي مدى سوف تنتشر الفيروسات الخاصة بهم. يمكن أن تؤثر الفيروسات المختلفة على أنظمة تشغيل الحاسب من ويندوز، ماك، لينكس وحتى خوادم البيانات التي تبقي الشركات،وشبكة الإنترنت نفسها شغالة. تساعد البرامج المضادة للفيروسات في مثل هذه الحالات ولكنها ربما واجهت مشاكل في التعامل مع التهديدات والفيروسات التي لم يسبق لها رؤيتها سلفًا. على مر السنوات كانت هناك الآلاف والآلاف من الفيروسات التي تنتشر عبر الإنترنت، وقد تسببت في إهدار مليارات الدولارات نتيجة للأضرار الناتجة عن فقد الإنتاجية ، وإهدار الموارد و تلف الأجهزة. ظهرت بضع عشرات من تلك الفيروسات، وانتشر بعضها خاصة بصورة سريعة، أو أثرّ على الكثير من الناس، أو تسبب في خلق الكثير من الضرر. وفعل البعض بكل ما ورد أعلاه. نظرًا لوجود الكثير من الفيروسات الت
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Five of the Worst Computer Viruses Ever

When we talk about a computer virus, we usually mean any kind of code that’s designed to do harm and spread itself to more computers. They’re created by malicious programmers who might want to use your computer to attack other targets, or make money by stealing your personal information. They could also just be trying to see how far their virus will spread. Different viruses can affect Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, and even the data servers that keep companies, and the internet itself, running. Antivirus programs help, but they can have trouble dealing with threats they’ve never seen before. Over the years, there have been thousands and thousands of viruses spread online, and they’ve caused billions of dollars of damage from lost productivity, wasted resources, and broken machines. A few dozen of those viruses stand out, some spread especially quickly, or affected a lot of people, or created a ton of damage all by themselves. Some did all of the above. Since a lot
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Seven Discoveries Scientists Made by Licking Things

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie roll centered Tootsie Pop? I don’t care! But that doesn’t mean scientists haven’t tried really hard to find out. The results are — sadly — very inconclusive. But there are actually a surprising number of other discoveries that have been made because scientists licked things that they… maybe shouldn’t have? Here are seven times licking stuff has — amazingly — helped the scientific process along. This first example is actually three discoveries in one. Because, believe it or not, scientists have discovered artificial sweeteners by licking chemicals... not once, not twice, but three separate times. All because they were really bad at washing their hands in the lab. First, there was saccharin, the sweetener you probably know by the brand name Sweet’N Low. It was discovered in 1897 by a grad student who was trying to find something useful to do with a waste product of coal processing called coal tar. After a day
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