A remarkable discovery has been made in East Africa’s Lake Malawi, one of the deepest bodies of water on the African continent.

Africa’s impressive lakes have long remained a focus of speculation for naturalists, involving folklore about strange creatures—including supposed holdovers from prehistoric times—alleged to inhabit some of their waters.

However, a much smaller discovery made by a team of researchers with the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) at Vancouver, Canada, is nonetheless challenging our past thinking on what kinds of life forms can be found lurking in the depths of some of Africa’s storied lakes.

In a remarkable discovery, a variety of lake fly larvae have been found descending into the very oxygen-deprived depths of Lake Malawi, where they hide more than 650 feet below the surface to avoid predators.

After spending their days in this deep-water “dead zone,” the larvae reemerge at night and feed—or at least some of them do, if they are lucky enough to escape the fish searching for a dinner of their own, while these tiny insects are commuting back to the surface.

A Surprising Discovery Deep in Lake Malawi

To chart the unusual daily cycle of these larvae, UBC researchers Dr. Philip Matthews and Dr. Evan McKenzie used sonar technologies, which were positioned deep within the lake.

While this provided an idea about where these tiny insects were going, it was dissecting the larvae that revealed how these remarkable little creatures have somehow evolved a respiratory system that contains two pairs of small air sacs, which function like ballast tanks, allowing the larvae to control their buoyancy.

Within these sacs, they discovered the presence of resilin, a material that can either expand or contract in proportion to changes in the pH of the sac’s walls. As a result, the larvae can change the volume of these unique air sacs, thereby controlling their buoyancy.

It is an unusual capability these creatures display, to say the least. Curious about how deep they might be able to go, the researchers placed several of the larvae within small pressure chambers to simulate the depths they might travel to before the sacs imploded.

Much to the team’s surprise, these natural buoyancy systems held out under conditions that would match depths of 400 meters (1,312 feet), which is much deeper than what the sonar data reveals about the larvae’s daily descents into Lake Malawi.

While it has long been assumed that insects, which often thrive in freshwater environments, do not live in open oceans due to such pressures associated with the depths of the world’s largest bodies of water, these African insect larvae reveal that such creatures can survive under such conditions.

Based on their findings, the UBC researchers hope to work on finding ways of simulating such capabilities, perhaps by creating pH-powered resilin smart materials, or even artificial systems that emulate the way muscles operate.

The team’s findings appeared in the new study, “Crush-resistant air sacs allow insect larvae to exploit aquatic habitats at extreme depth,” published in the journal Science.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

A couple of decades after the discovery of systems that could selectively target DNA, we're starting to see the first therapies based on gene editing. One challenge these developments have faced is safety. While we can make them pretty specific to the gene we want edited, the human genome is very large, and even rare DNA sequences can appear a couple of times by chance.

As a result, all the original gene-editing systems had known rates of what are called off-target effects, in which they simply edit the wrong sequence. This may be a low-probability event, but edit enough cells—and therapies generally have to edit many—and errors become inevitable.

A lot of effort has gone into finding ways to minimize or eliminate off-target edits. In a recent issue of Nature, researchers described modifying the AI protein-folding software AlphaFold to help identify key areas of gene-editing proteins responsible for off-target effects. Those areas were then modified to reduce the problems.

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A couple of decades after the discovery of systems that could selectively target DNA, we're starting to see the first therapies based on gene editing. One challenge these developments have faced is safety. While we can make them pretty specific to the gene we want edited, the human genome is very large, and even rare DNA sequences can appear a couple of times by chance.

As a result, all the original gene-editing systems had known rates of what are called off-target effects, in which they simply edit the wrong sequence. This may be a low-probability event, but edit enough cells—and therapies generally have to edit many—and errors become inevitable.

A lot of effort has gone into finding ways to minimize or eliminate off-target edits. In a recent issue of Nature, researchers described modifying the AI protein-folding software AlphaFold to help identify key areas of gene-editing proteins responsible for off-target effects. Those areas were then modified to reduce the problems.

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There have been numerous accounts in recent years of orcas ramming boats—and sometimes sinking them. Scientists believe this may be a form of culturally learned behavior passed down through generations. Now we have fresh examples: orcas in the Gulf of California were filmed teaming up to ram sunfish with so much force that the carcasses exploded into small fragments. While orcas have been known to use force to remove flesh from prey, this is something different, according to a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.

“We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily, or it could also just be for fun," said co-author Kathryn Ayres of Beneath The Waves, a nonprofit organization promoting ocean health. "Orcas are known for playing with their food.”

Orcas engage in cooperative hunting strategies that can involve striking or killing animals—sometimes eating their prey, sometimes not—so the behavior could be described as social interaction, play, or practice as a mode of social learning. Orcas have been observed ramming whale sharks as another orca held the prey steady. Other cooperative strategies include herding mobile rays, blocking an escape path while hunting white sharks, and deliberately producing waves to bump penguins off ice floes.

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In a new study of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), scientists found that embraces, touches and other reassuring gestures before competition for food were linked to more peaceful sharing, suggesting the roots of human social touch stretch back at least six million years.

The post Hugs May Be an Ancient Peacekeeping Tool, Ape Study Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Naked mole rats are weird. They spend their lives almost entirely underground, are largely insensitive to some kinds of pain, can persist without oxygen for a long time, rarely develop cancer, and can live past 30 years, which is decades longer than similarly sized rodents. They are also eusocial, like ants, bees, or termites—in a colony that can hold more than a hundred animals, only one female, the queen, breeds.

We didn’t know how exactly naked mole-rat queens stop other females from breeding. For a long time, our leading hypothesis was bullying and violence, but that may be a bit impractical, given their kingdoms are vast networks of tunnels that can stretch for up to three kilometers. But now a team of Lewin Lab scientists at Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin discovered it’s actually just one part of a sophisticated olfactory signaling program.

Running on smell

"It's very clear that mole rats actually have quite big noses and smell a lot," says Gary Lewin, a neurobiologist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and senior author of the study. Naked mole rats have around 1200 olfactory receptor genes, more than mice (which have roughly 1,000 of them) and way more than the few hundred in humans. They're also blind. "They have to be able to navigate and move around without vision, so smell is one of those things that’s enhanced," Lewin said.

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More than 2,200 years Hannibal launched one of recorded history’s most daring military campaigns, leading roughly 46,000 soldiers and 37 war elephants across the towering Alps between modern-day France and Italy to invade the Roman Republic. Now, researchers believe they may have uncovered a surprising clue to one of antiquity’s greatest military mysteries.

For generations, historians have debated exactly which Alpine pass Hannibal used during his legendary crossing in 218 BC before descending into Italy and launching a campaign that brought Rome to the brink of defeat during the Second Punic War.

Any equally enduring mystery has been why the legendary Carthaginian general would burden his army with 37 war elephants, each weighing roughly three tons (about 6,600 pounds), while attempting one of the most difficult mountain crossings in military history?

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests those two mysteries may actually be connected.

Rather than relying entirely on ancient accounts, particularly those of the Greek historian Polybius, or on geology and topography, researchers analyzed the energy required for Hannibal’s soldiers, horses, and elephants to traverse four leading candidate routes through the Alps.

Their findings show that the notoriously difficult Col de la Traversette was actually the most energy-efficient crossing—and that the elephants, far from being a crippling liability, may have been better suited for the journey as opposed to either the soldiers or the horses accompanying them.

The discovery provides a new perspective on one of history’s greatest military feats, suggesting that the biological limits of both humans and animals may help explain not only where Hannibal crossed the Alps, but why he believed his extraordinary gamble could succeed.

“Our analysis of the energy landscape challenging the army suggests that the Col de la Traversette would have been the shortest and energetically most efficient route,” researchers write. “In which case, driven by the aim to minimize the energy costs of the crossing, he would have chosen the Traversette route.”

Hannibal’s campaign remains one of history’s most astonishing logistical achievements. After marching roughly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from Spain, his force reached the Alps with approximately 46,000 soldiers and 37 war elephants.

The crossing reportedly took just 15 days despite hostile tribes, steep mountain passes, early winter conditions, and severe supply challenges. Only about half of the army survived the journey, although enough elephants reached Italy to participate in the Battle of the Trebia shortly afterward.

Researchers examined four leading candidate routes through the Alps by estimating the total energy required for each member of Hannibal’s expedition, including the soldiers, horses, and elephants accompanying them.

Rather than asking which mountain pass best matches ancient historical accounts, the researchers examined four leading candidate routes through the Alps, calculating the energy required for every member of Hannibal’s expedition—including his soldiers, horses, and war elephants.

Using models that consider elevation changes and the metabolic costs of climbing and descending, they calculated the total energy expenditure for men, horses, and elephants across each candidate route. The results consistently favored the Col de la Traversette.

The researchers estimate the entire army would have expended approximately 5.42 terajoules of energy along that route. By comparison, taking the Col du Clapier—long considered by many historians to be the strongest candidate—would have required roughly 16% more energy.

Even the second-best alternative would have demanded 11% more. A chart in the paper compares the cumulative energy costs of each route, showing the Traversette path retaining the lowest overall expenditure despite its dramatic elevation profile.

Although Hannibal obviously lacked modern mathematical models, the researchers suggest he likely had an instinctive insight into terrain developed through years of campaigning.

“Although Hannibal would not have had such accurate estimates, he may have had a qualitative understanding of the ranking of the possible routes,” researchers note.  

Perhaps the study’s most fascinating insights concern the elephants themselves.

Modern elephants require enormous quantities of food simply to maintain their body weight. Wild African elephants typically spend around 14 hours each day feeding, while a three-ton adult may consume roughly 440 pounds (200 kilos) of forage daily. Those requirements become even more daunting in mountainous terrain, where every climb increases energy demands.

The researchers estimate that each elephant would have expended an additional 1.53 gigajoules of energy simply from traversing the Col de la Traversette beyond its normal metabolic requirements. Replacing that energy through feeding alone would have required roughly five to six extra hours of foraging every day during the crossing.

That simply was not realistic.

Instead, the team concludes that Hannibal’s elephants almost certainly survived by drawing heavily on stored body fat rather than replacing the calories they were burning. Even then, the elephants appear to have been surprisingly well-suited for the journey.

According to the analysis, each elephant would have lost only about 4% of its body fat reserves during the Traversee crossing. Horses, by contrast, were estimated to lose around 11%, while surviving soldiers may have lost approximately 19% of their stored fat. Even on less efficient routes, the additional burden fell disproportionately on the men and horses rather than the elephants.

That finding helps explain an apparent historical paradox.

For generations, historians have wondered why Hannibal would risk bringing massive elephants across one of Europe’s most formidable mountain ranges. This new study argues that, biologically, elephants may actually have handled the journey better than many of the humans accompanying them.

Modern biomechanical research has shown that elephants move like a four-wheel-drive vehicle, enabling them to navigate difficult terrain more effectively than many might expect. Their large fat reserves also provided an energy buffer unavailable to exhausted soldiers.

“We may assume that Hannibal knew, after having traveled with elephants and their handlers through Spain and Southern France, that his elephants would struggle less than his men to make the crossing,” researchers note.

Researchers argue that the greatest challenge facing Carthage’s war elephants came after they crossed the Alps, not during the journey itself.

Once in Italy, Hannibal found himself deep inside enemy territory with no secure supply lines, making it extraordinarily difficult to replenish the elephants’ depleted energy reserves. Historical evidence suggests his army was forced to raid the surrounding countryside extensively to feed both its soldiers and animals.

Although the elephants survived the Alpine crossing, researchers say the enormous logistical burden of keeping them fed may have ultimately sealed their fate.

“The fact that all but one elephant died in the following winter might be indicative of Hannibal’s decision to stop attending to the energy needs of such costly pieces of military equipment when already under severe energetic constraints,” the researchers write.

The researchers suggest the elephants’ greatest value may have reached beyond their battlefield role. Simply bringing dozens of war elephants across the Alps would have delivered a powerful psychological advantage, both by surprising Roman forces and by demonstrating the extraordinary reach of Hannibal’s army.

But that advantage may have been short-lived. Once the initial shock passed, the enormous cost of feeding and upkeep of the animals deep inside enemy territory may have exceeded their military usefulness.

Taken together, the evidence suggests that the same biological realities that influenced Hannibal’s choice of route may also have determined the fate of his most famous weapons.

“Perhaps he counted on the elephants to provide an important, tactical element of surprise in the first battles against the Romans,” the researchers write. “In addition, he may have expected that his war elephants would awe and help recruit to his side the Celts of Northern Italy, who were known to be hostile to Rome.”

“After these first encounters, the elephants might have lost their military value,” the team adds.  

The paper, “Energy costs of Hannibal’s alpine crossing,” by Emilio Bertia and Fritz Vollrath, appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com 

A predatory sea worm known as Perinereis cultrifera possesses jaws that do not fit neatly into either biological or metallic categories. These jaws consist of structural proteins reinforced with metal ions, giving them mechanical properties unlike those of either conventional metals or ordinary biological tissue.

This unique combination of composition and mechanical behavior led researchers from TU Wien and the University of Vienna to propose an entirely new material classification. In a recent paper published in Biophysics Reviews, the team suggests that the creature’s jaws represent a distinct class of material, which they term bio-metal.

The jaws of bristle worms such as P. cultrifera are formed by linking structural proteins with metal ions, producing a material tough enough to crush and bite prey. Previous studies called these tissues metallike biomaterials, meaning they share some properties with metals, like strength or conductivity. The new study argues that this term is too broad. According to the researchers, a true bio-metal must meet three criteria: it must be hard, display specific strain mechanics, and have a well-defined ion-protein structure.

Hardness With a Metal Signature

To test if the jaw met these criteria, the researchers used nanoindentation, which means pressing a tiny probe into the tissue to measure its properties. They also conducted chemical tests and imaging at the same time. The results confirmed earlier findings that the jaw tips contain higher concentrations of metal ions than the center, likely making the tips harder.

When the probe pressed into the jaw at different depths, the researchers observed something called the Nix-Gao size effect. This effect, seen before in metals like copper and silver, means that smaller areas resist deformation more than larger ones. The reason is that strain gradients become larger in smaller regions, increasing resistance to deformation. Finding this metal-like behavior in worm jaws is one reason scientists have compared the material to metals.

Where the Metal Comparison Breaks Down

However, the jaw does not behave exactly like metals such as copper. Its elasticity changes depending on the size of the area tested, which is not seen in crystalline metals.

“Bristle worm jaws also showed size-dependent elasticity — this is a distinguishing feature of bio-metals when compared to standard crystalline metals like copper or silver,” said Christian Hellmich, one of the paper’s authors. Copper and silver can show a hardness size effect, but neither exhibits the size-dependent elasticity that the team measured in the worm jaw. That distinction is one reason the researchers argue that these materials deserve their own category.

To explain this property, the researchers built a mathematical model showing how the jaw’s atomic structure leads to the elastic size effect. This model helps explain the effect and gives a basis for future research.

“We plan to extend the experimental database by investigating additional species to refine the theoretical concept and perform dedicated computations, and — perhaps most interestingly — to explore the link between genetic interventions and the corresponding material design space,” Hellmich said. “All this comes with true excitement about the beauty, elegance, and refinement found in and produced by nature.”

Next, the researchers plan to explore how genetic changes influence the development of these materials. If successful, the work could eventually help engineers develop new biomimetic materials inspired by the ion-protein architecture found in these worms.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

The post Can humans hibernate their way to Mars? appeared first on MIT School of Science.

A team of scientists exploring a possible deep-sea coral reef off the coast of Benin that 1960s researchers had deemed likely dead found a living, thriving reef supporting a complex underwater ecosystem, including several coral and fish species.

Led by scientists from the Institut de Recherches Halieutiques et Océanologiques du Bénin, the discovery is the first known mesophotic coral reef in the region and offers scientists a tantalizing target for future deep-sea marine-life expeditions.

Deep-Sea Coral Reef Spotted in the 1960s was Considered Dead

According to a statement announcing the unexpected discovery, previous historical surveys of the area had indicated a possible reef more than 50 meters below the water’s surface. When a 1960s survey detected the unusual feature, they suspected it was a coral reef that was likely dead.

When team leader Gérard Zinzindohoué and colleagues studied the features, they suspected that the team from the 60s may have provided them with a golden scientific opportunity. Although the feature’s depth ruled out a typical shallow-water coral reef, the researchers note that it could be an entirely different kind of reef structure, known as a mesophotic coral ecosystem, that can inhabit such depths.

“A mesophotic coral ecosystem lives deeper than the usual shallow coral reefs, in zones where light is much more limited,” Zinzindohoué explained. “Unlike typical shallow reefs, it does not always form a single continuous reef structure. Instead, it can appear as patchy or scattered coral communities spread across the seafloor.”

Instead of using mid-twentieth-century technology to settle the debate, the team turned to the National Geographic Exploration Technology Lab, which provided access to its Deep-Sea Camera System.

“We Could Actually See the Sea Floor”

Following the path set out by the 1960s survey, the team used the underwater camera to map the seafloor with sonar. After several passes, the team covered a total of 11.5 kilometers. Zinzindohoué highlighted the difficulty of the effort, noting that it was “not an easy field campaign.”

“It was a mix of long days at sea, technical problems, and a lot of uncertainty,” the researcher explained. “But then we saw structures on the sonar that looked like they could be reef signatures, which gave us hope that we were close.”

The closer the team drove the Deep-Sea Explorer’s cameras, the more the shockingly unexpected scene began to unfold.

“That was a big moment for us, because suddenly we could actually see the seafloor,” Zinzindohoué said.

Instead of the dark, lifeless structure anticipated by the original survey team, the new team found a healthy reef containing eight distinct types of coral. The system was also actively supporting eight fish species, with the camera capturing them feeding and sheltering among the corals. The species identified by the team include golden African snappers, blackbar soldierfish, Guinean angelfish, West African goatfish, the Monrovia doctorfish, three-banded butterflyfish, and two distinct species of damselfish.

“I still remember seeing those first images,” Zinzindohoué recalled of the vibrant ecosystem lying directly in front of the cameras. “It was a mix of excitement and disbelief, because after all this time thinking about this reef, suddenly there was something real in front of us.”

More Research Needed to Determine if the Coral Reef Was Ever Dead

When discussing the discovery’s significance, Zinzindohoué said that to the team’s knowledge, “this is the first confirmed record of a living mesophotic coral ecosystem on the Gulf of Guinea continental shelf.”

Although the cameras captured a complex ecosystem, the researchers said that the reef does not appear to be a continuous barrier. Instead, the deep-sea environment consists of several patches of coral that occupy rocky seabed areas most suitable for their survival. Still, they add that further surveys may identify more reefs in the same area.

“I think what we found is probably not an exception,” Zinzindohoué said. “It is more likely a reflection of how little we still know about coastal regions in West Africa and elsewhere. If we were able to find this reef again after 60 years, how many others are still undocumented or simply forgotten?”

Since the team was unable to sample the corals directly, they were unable to confirm the species identification with genetic analysis. The team was also hesitant to condemn the original 1960s survey, noting that it is impossible to tell, without more data, whether the corals were dead at the time and have since rebounded.

“This is still an initial exploration,” Zinzindohoué said. “The historical reports suggested that this could be a continuous coral reef barrier extending roughly 40 kilometers parallel to the coast. We only surveyed a small section of this area, and we had a limited number of visual transects.”

Although there are no immediate plans for a return expedition, the research leader said the only thing holding them back from learning more about these ecosystems, which are “still poorly known in this part of the world,” is adequate financial support.

“If I had all the grant money in the world, the first thing I would do is return to the site with a proper scientific diving and sampling program,” he said, before adding that “every additional piece of information matters.”

“I do believe there are more coral systems out there that we have not yet documented,” he said. “But we should not assume they are everywhere. Each discovery needs to be confirmed. Without going back into the field, we are really just guessing.”

On a personal note, the team leader said the most exciting part is understanding the reef’s history and the lessons that can be gleaned from this underexplored region.

“It feels like we have only just started to read an archive that has been there for a very long time.”

The study “First evidence of live mesophotic coral reefs on the Benin continental shelf” was published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org

Paternal care is uncommon among several wild animal species, even among arthropods—the invertebrates that include insects, arachnids, and crustaceans.

Now, in a recent study in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, harvestmen—also known as daddy longlegs—account for more than half of all independently evolved cases of paternal care currently documented among arthropods.

The news insights were made possible by a recent citizen science effort that significantly increased the available data about these paternal behaviors in arthropods, all within days.

Built for Fatherhood

Harvestmen are one of the most diverse arachnid groups, with more than 6,900 described species. Despite making up just 0.6% of arthropod diversity, they show more independent origins of paternal care or egg guarding than any other arthropod lineage. This concentration of paternal care makes harvestmen a key group for studying the evolution of this behavior.

Led by Glauco Machado at the University of São Paulo, the research team combined almost thirty years of fieldwork with a review of iNaturalist, a public website for sharing nature sightings. From 1936 to 2025, published studies had found parental guarding in only 80 harvestman species. However, the iNaturalist search added 85 new records: 78 showing parental care and seven showing no care, more than doubling the number of harvestman species with available behavioral data.

Machado was surprised by how quickly the platform produced results. “It’s a tremendous source of information that can improve the velocity with which we accumulate biological information,” he said. “I would never be able to do this by visiting museums around the world. It would be very expensive, very time-consuming, but here we conducted the search in only one week.”

The Evolution of Fatherhood

With the expanded dataset, the researchers were able to map parental behaviors onto a newly constructed evolutionary tree encompassing 165 species across nine families. This represented the first reconstruction of how both maternal and paternal care evolved within the superfamily Gonyleptoidea. The findings challenge the assumption that caregiving behaviors follow a single evolutionary pathway.

The analysis found that maternal care evolved only from ancestors that did not provide care, a pattern also seen in insects. Paternal care, however, appeared in two ways: once from ancestors with no care, and once from species where females already guarded eggs. This difference suggests that separate evolutionary pressures shaped the development of parental care in harvestmen.

Machado suggests that sexual selection may have driven the evolution of paternal care from maternal care. In this scenario, which the researchers describe as enhanced fecundity, females favor males that are already tending eggs.

“It’s very rare in nature, paternal care, and this behavior evolved many times independently,” Machado said. “In many species where males care for the offspring alone, the caring activity is a sexually selected behavior, which means that females prefer males that are caring for the eggs.”

The evolutionary tree also showed that parental care does not always persist across lineages. Several groups appear to have lost caregiving behavior over evolutionary time. Some harvestmen now use easier methods, like hiding their eggs or burying them under debris, to protect them without having to stay and guard them.

Limitations of Citizen Science

Machado emphasizes that experts remain essential to this process. It takes specialized knowledge to correctly identify species, tell the sex of the guarding animal, and tell real parental care apart from similar behaviors such as mate-guarding. “I think taxonomists’ role in modern science is more important than ever,” he said. “We cannot preserve a species that doesn’t have a name. And names are provided by taxonomists.”

Additionally, animals that are actively guarding eggs are more likely to be photographed than those not showing any behavior, which could make active parental care seem more common than it really is.

What Comes Next

Machado views this approach as a model for future research. More than half of the new records came from individuals without formal training in arachnology, and he anticipates similar results as researchers apply iNaturalist to other animal groups for which parental care remains poorly documented.

“I think it’s a very broad contribution for people that are working with insects, frogs, and all kinds of groups, animal groups, in which we have both maternal care and paternal care,” he said. The next mystery solved through citizen science may not involve arachnids at all.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.