Good Morning! 🌞 

Make sure to watch the video below of the only gears that have ever been found in nature. It’s fascinating!!

Also, due to several request, we have started placing the mind stretcher from the day before right above the answer for easy reference!

Environment

The Only Gears Found In Nature

To the best of our knowledge, the mechanical gear—characterized by evenly-sized teeth cut into two rotating surfaces to lock them together as they turn—was invented around 300 B.C.E. by Greek mechanics in Alexandria. Since then, this simple concept has become a cornerstone of modern technology, enabling various machinery and vehicles, including cars and bicycles.

However, it turns out that a tiny, three-millimeter-long hopping insect known as Issus coleoptratus beat us to this invention. Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton, biologists from the University of Cambridge, discovered that juvenile Issus have an intricate gearing system that locks their back legs together, allowing both appendages to rotate simultaneously, propelling the insects forward.

This discovery, published in Science, is believed to be the first functional gearing system ever found in nature. Issus insects, commonly called “planthoppers,” are found throughout Europe and North Africa. Burrows and Sutton used electron microscopes and high-speed video capture to identify the gearing and determine its function.

The gears are essential for coordination: to jump, both hind legs must push forward simultaneously. Since they both swing laterally, if one extended even a fraction of a second earlier than the other, it would push the insect off course instead of jumping straight forward.

The gears provide an elegant solution. High-speed videos showed that Issus juveniles cock their back legs into a jumping position and then push forward, with each leg moving within 30 microseconds of the other. This propels them forward at speeds up to 8-12 miles per hour and exposes them to around 200 G force.

Adult Issus insects lack these gears. As juveniles grow and molt, they do not regrow the gear teeth. Instead, adult legs are synchronized by a different mechanism involving a series of protrusions that push the other leg into action. Burrows and Sutton hypothesize that the fragility of the gearing might explain this—if one tooth breaks, it limits the design’s effectiveness. Juveniles can molt and grow new gears, but adults cannot, hence the alternative arrangement.

Culture

Two Former Empires Meet

Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako of Japan are visiting the U.K. for a state visit hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla. This is the first state visit for the British monarch since his cancer diagnosis in February, which led him to step back from public duties.

The purpose of the visit is to strengthen ties between the two nations, whose royal families have maintained close relations for three generations, starting with the late Emperor Hirohito, Emperor Naruhito’s grandfather. King Charles III and Emperor Naruhito have know each other for years and seem to get along quite well.

This trip also holds personal significance for the 64-year-old Emperor, who attended the University of Oxford, where he researched the history of transportation on the Thames. During a Tokyo news conference before his departure to the U.K., the Emperor fondly recalled, "I have fond memories of the heartwarming hospitality I received from Her Majesty the Queen and the royal family, making me feel like I was part of their family,".

While in the UK, Emperor Naruhito and Empress of Masako attend a banquet hosted by the king, paid his respect to late Queen at Windsor Castle. They also visited and laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, and toured one of Britain’s premier biomedical research institutes. Their trip will end today after a planned visit to Oxford of which they are both alumni.

We have posted a video of the greeting ceremony below. I find it very interesting to see old traditions blended with the modern. Some of it might seem very foreign, and perhaps even antiquated, depending on were you are from. But I would not like it if every county decided to drop all their traditions and all became homogeneous and indistinguishable. I don’t think the world would be better if everyone just wore the current fast fashion suits and ignored anything older than a couple decades.

If you want to see pictures from the various events, I would recommend checking out this article that contains many pictures.

Sciences

Astronomers Find Strange Disks

Astronomers recently discovered two young stars in the WL20 star system, located in the rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud complex, over 400 light years away. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), they observed two separate disks with jets erupting from each star in this binary system. This discovery was unexpected due to the stars' age, size, and chemical composition, and it occurred in a well-studied part of the Universe.

Most of the Universe is invisible to the human eye, but ALMA and MIRI can observe different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, revealing details hidden in radio and infrared wavelengths. This dual observation approach allowed astronomers to identify these twin stars.

Astronomer Mary Barsony explained that one star in WL20 appeared much younger than the rest, but further observations showed it was actually two stars close together, each surrounded by a disk and emitting parallel jets. ALMA identified the disks, and MIRI detected the jets. Co-author Valentin J.M. Le Gouellec of NASA analyzed ALMA data to determine the disks' composition, while Lukasz Tychoniec of Leiden Observatory provided high-resolution images, showing the disks were about 100 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

Michael Ressler from JPL highlighted the serendipity of the discovery. While initially studying binaries in a different region, he decided to include WL20 in his JWST observing time, leading to this significant find.

This multi-wavelength data combination from ALMA and JWST offers new insights into the formation processes of multiple star systems.

Mind Stretchers

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Yesterday’s Mind Stretchers:

How do you make the number 7 even without addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division?

The Answer:
Remove the “S” from seven— now it’s even!

Chris Hostetler got the correct answer first!

Be the first to send us the correct answer for today’s mind stretcher for a shout-out with the answer tomorrow. Just send us the answer and your name to [email protected] or reply to the email.

If you have any uplifting stories and experience you might want to share, send those over to [email protected] for the chance to be featured.