Good Morning! 🌞

I recently learned that sea otters hold hands while Sleeping!

To prevent drifting apart while they sleep, sea otters hold hands in the water. This behavior helps them stay connected as a group and provides added safety while they rest. How cute is that?!

Environment

Feasting on Invasive Species

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is urging residents to help control the invasive lionfish population by eating them, even offering recipes to make the fish more appealing. Though you need to watch out, lionfish are beautiful, large, venomous fish.

Lionfish, originally from the Indo-Pacific, threaten local ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico due to their lack of natural predators and their ability to produce millions of eggs annually.

To address this issue, Texas is promoting lionfish consumption as part of broader control efforts, such as the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary's Lionfish Invitational, where trained divers work to remove the invasive species.

Officials emphasize the importance of proper handling techniques to avoid the venomous spines, but once cleaned, lionfish are a tasty and sustainable seafood option.

According to the Coastal Fisheries - Texas Parks and Wildlife Facebook post, the “invasive species is an edible and delicious fish that is fit for human consumption.” and “Lionfish have white, flaky meat, and some even say their flavor is similar to grouper or mahi mahi. When handling this fish, just make sure to be careful of its sharp spines.“

Sounds tasty!

Innovation

Hidden Chocolate Sugar

Researchers in Zurich have developed a method that could change chocolate manufacturing by using the husk and flesh of the cocoa bean pod to produce a sugary syrup.

This approach could eliminate the need for added sugar in chocolate production while significantly reducing the biological waste typically generated. Imogen Foulkes from the BBC compares the current wastefulness of chocolate production to picking an apple, discarding everything but the seeds. The cocoa beans, essential for chocolate, are harvested, while the large pod and milky flesh are left to decompose.

At Zurich’s Federal Institute of Technology, scientist Kim Mishra and his team have converted the juice from the cocoa flesh into a concentrated syrup. By combining it with the pulp and husk, they created a chocolatey gel suitable for making chocolate or as a sweetener, containing 14% simple sugars by weight.

Mishra highlights the challenges in cocoa farming, such as farmer poverty and the rising cost of cocoa beans. His solution not only offers farmers additional income by utilizing cocoa pulp but also keeps the processing within the country of origin, creating jobs and adding value locally.

However, the cocoa gel is more expensive than sugar—nine times more, according to Mishra. He argues that this cost disparity is due to heavy subsidies for domestic sugarcane industries. Without these subsidies, the cocoa gel would be more competitive. Mishra mentions that chocolate industry players from three continents have already shown interest in his invention, and he expects Swiss chocolatiers to follow suit.

World News

Ancient Egyptian Observatory

A large ancient Egyptian astronomical observatory has been discovered, covering over 9,000 square feet, making it the largest of its kind found in Egypt. It was likely last used around the 6th century BC.

The observatory was found in Buto, within the Temple of the Pharaohs. It’s an L-shaped building with an east-facing doorway to observe the rising sun. The structure featured tall sandstone pillars, indicating its use in religious ceremonies. Numerous religious artifacts, some dating back to 2,600 BC, were found, highlighting the connection between astronomy and Egyptian religious practices.

Excavations uncovered a shadow clock, an ancient timekeeping instrument, among other tools. The observatory’s design includes 4.8-meter-long limestone tiles and sloping lines used to measure the sun’s movement and time.

Mr. Fawzi Qutab, head of the Central Department for Marine Surface Monuments and Sinai, noted that the main hall's middle floor had a stone platform with engravings depicting astronomical views of sunrise and sunset during the three seasons. These would have been used to calculate important dates for religious festivals and the Nile's flooding.

Egyptian astronomy was highly advanced, and some of the constellations they mapped are still recognized today. Some scholars suggest they may have even calculated precession, the 25,920-year cycle of the equinoxes through the zodiac.

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Mind Stretchers

⁉️ 

Ask this question all day long, but always get completely different answers, and yet all the answers will be correct. What is the question?

Answers to yesterday’s Mind Stretchers:
What goes up, but never comes down? -Age

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