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In early March, during its close flyby of Jupiter, Juno snapped a beautiful view of the planet. And among the stunning cloud formations, there is a dark spot. In one photo, it is over a dark band. In another, it is starkly clear over the Great Red Spot. A fitting place, given that Amalthea is the reddest object in the Solar System.Amalthea is a tiny moon of Jupiter, the third closest moon to the planet and thus the third fastest moon in the Solar System. It is just 168 kilometers across (104 miles), too small to become a sphere, so it looks like a potato. A particularly red potato. It is unclear why it is so red. It could be sulfur from Io, the volcanic moon of Jupiter, that has caused Amalthea to obtain a crimson hue, or it might be some other material from the moon itself.Amalthea as seen in color by Voyager 1. Very red.Image credit: NASAIt is also a fairly hot object. It releases more heat than it gets from the Sun, and Jupiter might be to blame for that. The planet has a formidable magnetic field and that might be inducing electric currents within the moon. Alternatively, Amalthea might experience significant tidal forces heating it up, the same phenomenon that keeps Io volcanically active.The images were processed and enhanced by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt. Juno was 265,000 kilometers (165,000 miles) above Jupiter’s cloud tops when the images were taken.

Palaeontology is currently experiencing something of a “golden age”, with a wealth of new, weird, and wonderful dinosaurs discovered each year. The question is just how long that golden age will last. Only a finite number of dinosaur species existed – so how many are there left to find?There’s no exact answer to that question at the moment because, well, we don’t know what we don’t know, and it’s not unusual to hear a palaeontologist say that the fossil record is far from complete. That being said, scientists are still making estimates, which often start with predictions of how many dinosaur species existed.“We’ve only found a tiny fraction of the dinosaurs that have ever lived,” Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, told CNN. “Birds today are the descendants of dinosaurs. There (are) over 10,000 species of birds that live just right now. And of course, dinosaurs lived for well over 150 million years. So do the math. There were probably thousands, if not millions, of different species of dinosaurs.”But what do other scientists say?In 2006, palaeontologists Steve C. Wang and Peter Dodson used a statistical method to estimate the number of non-avian dinosaur genera – the scientific rank above species – to ever have existed, and pinned it down to around 1,850. At the time, there were 527 genera that had been discovered, so they predicted that around 71 percent were left to be discovered.Many genera of currently known dinosaurs contain just a single species, known as monospecificity, so it would be easy to assume that this could translate to the number of species left to find. However, it’s not true of 10 percent, so there’s the potential for there to be far more species.Nonetheless, a 2016 study did estimate the number of species wasn’t too far off. The sampling model used led the authors to the conclusion that there were around 1,936 different species of dinosaurs to have existed. Given that there are around 1,000 named species of dinosaur, that leaves us with just over 900 left to find – if we can find them.Not everything makes it into the fossil record. Fossilization requires specific conditions, relying on an organism to not decompose or get snaffled up and digested. Without a multi-stop journey on a time machine, we can’t know what did or didn’t make it into fossilhood.However, out of the dinosaur genera that are “discoverable” (in other words, were successfully fossilized, the fossil didn’t get destroyed at some point, and they’re in a place where people are capable of finding them), Wang and Dodson predicted that 75 percent of them will be known within the next 60 to 100 years. After around 100 to 140 years, their model suggests we’ll know 90 percent.Whether or not those predictions come true, it’s likely that the golden age of palaeontology isn’t going away any time soon, nor is the steady stream of new dinosaur species it’s providing.

Thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions are some of Earth’s most powerful natural phenomena. Combine the two and the result is truly dazzling. Onlookers at Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala were wowed to see lighting seemingly strike the edge of the erupting crater earlier this month.Volcán de Fuego, a 3,763-meter (12,346-foot) tall stratovolcano, is Guatemala's most active volcano and one of the most active in South America. The volcano has been erupting with regularity since 2002, and even has recorded eruptions dating back as far as 1531 CE. Reports of its activity indicate that it emits gas and ash into the air as often as multiple times a day, with an uptick in frequency after a significant eruption in June 2018, which caused the loss of 190 lives and the destruction of many homes and nearby infrastructure.Johan Wolterink filmed a lightning bolt striking the volcano’s crater on Sunday, April 28 of this year, as a thunderstorm occurred at the same time as the eruptions. He shared the video on social media with the caption: “What are the odds?”        What Wolterink and his fellow observers saw was what's been dubbed a “dirty thunderstorm”, a nickname given to the lightning generated by the volcanic eruption itself rather than as a consequence of a typical thunderstorm. This is caused by the ash particles colliding with each other, producing static electricity. 

For a group of animals that went extinct 60 million years ago, we know a remarkable amount about how dinosaurs lived, but what about how fast they could run? We’ve all seen the depictions in Jurassic Park of velociraptors chasing down humans with ease, but what was the fastest dinosaur?Ascertaining dinosaur behavior generally involves a combination of approaches, because it’s rare that an activity gets preserved in the fossil record. One exception is the nest brooding of the wrongly accused “egg thief” Oviraptor, which was actually a dedicated parent (and probably fast on its feet). Track marks are one way to ascertain behavior, for example, but do any on Earth capture their speed?What was the fastest dinosaur?We don’t know which dinosaur was the fastest, at least, not for absolute certain, but we do have some idea of which groups were likely to have been among the fastest. One heavily considered candidate was Ornithomimosauria, a group of dinosaurs that looked a bit like the modern-day ostrich.The ostrich is the fastest flightless bird in the world today. With their light build, specialized gait, and incredible height – up to 2.8 meters (9.2 feet) – they can clock between 55 to 70 kilometers (34 to 43 miles) per hour.One anatomical feature that can indicate the speed of an animal is the length of its thigh and shin, as we see in leggy ostriches, and this can be used in a model to estimate how fast dinosaurs were. According to London Natural History Museum dinosaur researcher Dr David Button, such estimates put Velociraptor at around 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour, at least in short bursts.Velociraptor probably wasn't the fastest dinosaur.Image credit: Noiel/ hutterstock.com“'It would have been quite fast by dinosaur standards - rather fortunate given its name means quick or swift - but not the fastest,” said Button. “That accolade goes to the ornithomimosaurs, which had very long shins and are thought to have been able to run as fast as the ostriches they resemble.”Known as the “bird mimics,” Ornithomimosauria have often been cited as the top contenders for the fastest dinosaurs, with the Encyclopedia of Alabama estimating speeds of 48 kilometers (30 miles) per hour, but it’s a very difficult record to ascertain. That’s partly due to the evidence we have to work from when trying to establish how fast dinosaurs were, because it’s likely several theropod species were pretty speedy, but telling their tracks apart is also pretty difficult.How fast were dinosaurs? TrackwaysTrackways are one way to investigate how fast dinosaurs were moving, as by looking at a sequence of footprints left by one individual, you can make a rough estimate based on the footfall and size of the feet. According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the fastest dinosaur speed according to trackways was 43.5 kilometers (27 miles) per hour, which puts whatever creature it was about neck-to-neck with Usain Bolt.So what dinosaur is about to chase down the world’s speediest human? We don’t know. A lot of dinosaur footprints look the same within their groups, so identifying the owner from trackways alone isn’t something we can do with great confidence.        Another problem is that trackways preserve best on soft ground, and if you’ve ever played soccer in a muddy field, you’ll know that’s not the best set of conditions for running your fastest. Therefore, they only give us a limited view of dinosaur speeds. Put that same dinosaur on a professional track and who knows? Maybe it would leave Bolt in the dust.How fast were dinosaurs? Building computer modelsIf looking at trackways isn’t your thing, you might be interested in a study that used an evolutionary robotics approach to model how fast dinosaurs may have been able to run based on what we know of their anatomy. It involves creating musculoskeletal computer models that could be used to predict the speeds of three living bipedal species and five extinct ones.Out of the living emu, ostrich, and human, versus the extinct Compsognathus, Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus, Allosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus, the fastest dinosaur was Compsognathus. Fans of Jurassic Park may remember the pesky little “compies” that rip apart a small girl on the beach, so that would’ve been a lot of fun if they were still alive today.If you can’t run as fast as Usain Bolt and the thought of being chased down by a dinosaur is making you nervous, the good news is that not all of them were so light on their feet. You could probably “outrun” T. rex with a brisk stroll.

Alongside the concerning announcement, this week, that CNN would be hosting the first general presidential debate next month was the equally concerning announcement that Jake Tapper would be tapped to be one of the moderators. The expectation of moderators to fact-check the candidates made Tapper’s selection was particularly concerning. In addition to his left-wing bent, Tapper has exhibited a truly disturbing lack of discernment of who to trust for sourcing facts, including claiming that propaganda from Hamas was trustworthy. As NewsBusters reported last year, just 10 days after the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against innocent Israeli civilians, Tapper openly suggested that “there’s no reason to doubt” Hamas figures about the death toll in Gaza. “Let's go to a major story developing right now in Gaza, what the Palestinian government is calling a war crime, the government in Gaza says the Israeli Defense Forces struck a hospital in the center of Gaza City, the al-Ahli Baptist hospital,” he announced on October 17. The purported attack was less than a few minutes old but Tapper was rushing to parrot Hamas claims that the number of people killed was “between 200 and 300” with “many more innocent people still trapped under the rubble.” His colleague Anderson Cooper would later note that it could have been a Hamas rocket that fell short, but Tapper quickly shot back: “Yeah, I know. I mean, this is always a very difficult situation, because right now, we have reports of hundreds killed and there's no reason to doubt that.”     But in the light of day, it was clear we had every reason to doubt that. Not only was it a rocket that was fired from Gaza, it landed in the parking lock and only blew out the windows of the hospital, and the casualties were minuscule compared to upwards of 300 or more. Tapper largely avoided accountability for his defense of the propaganda number put out by Hamas, but more recently (May 13) he did a segment on The Lead highlighting how “the United Nations quietly revised downward its numbers on fatalities for Palestinian women and children.” Omitting the specific detail that the number was 50 percent lower, Tapper relied on correspondent Jeremy Diamond to spin the revelation as just some necessary bookkeeping (Click “expand”): We'll Jake, this isn't about saying that fewer Palestinian women and children have been killed during this conflict. This all has to do with where the United Nations is pulling its data from. The United Nations is now listing women and children who have been killed, but only those who have been whose identities have been fully documented. That means that they you know, the names, the dates of birth, the identity card numbers of those individuals. But that brings the United Nations to more than 7,000 children who have been killed, about 5,000 women. But there are thousands more women and children that the Palestinian Ministry of Health says have been killed in this conflict since October 7. But in many of those cases, they don't have someone who has identified them by name with a specific date of birth, for example. That brings the Palestinian Ministry of Health to about 15,000 children, about 9,900 women who have been killed. Diamond went on to defend the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health by arguing that “both U.S., as well as United Nations and other humanitarian aid agencies, these officials have all said that the Palestinian Ministry of Health figures have checked out in previous conflicts.” “Right. The Palestinian Ministry of Health, obviously run by Hamas itself, and they don't distinguish between fighters and innocent civilians,” Tapper added, essentially suggesting the number was accurate and it just included Hamas fighters. But the next day (May 14), Tapper struck a far more skeptical tone regarding reports from the Israeli Defense Forces that they had struck a Hamas “war room” in a U.N. school. “Israel says it killed more than ten terrorists, though CNN cannot independently confirm Israel's claim,” he declared. Tapper was suspicious of IDF claims that Hamas was in U.N. school while we know multiple U.N. workers took part in the October 7 attack and accounts from former hostages show U.N. workers aided the terrorists. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to believe Tapper is an honest broker of facts for a presidential debate? The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Lead May 13, 2024 5:38:32 p.m. Eastern (…) JAKE TAPPER: Jeremy, though, of course we can see the horror on the ground, clearly. It's been harder to get an accurate estimate of how many Palestinians have been killed since October 7 in Gaza. Last week, the United Nations quietly revised downward its numbers on fatalities for Palestinian women and children. Tell us more about that. What led to the change? JEREMY DIAMOND: We'll Jake, this isn't about saying that fewer Palestinian women and children have been killed during this conflict. This all has to do with where the United Nations is pulling its data from. The United Nations is now listing women and children who have been killed, but only those who have been whose identities have been fully documented. That means that they you know, the names, the dates of birth, the identity card numbers of those individuals. But that brings the United Nations to more than 7,000 children who have been killed, about 5,000 women. But there are thousands more women and children that the Palestinian Ministry of Health says have been killed in this conflict since October 7. But in many of those cases, they don't have someone who has identified them by name with a specific date of birth, for example. That brings the Palestinian Ministry of Health to about 15,000 children, about 9,900 women who have been killed. And it's important to note that both U.S., as well as United Nations and other humanitarian aid agencies, these officials have all said that the Palestinian Ministry of Health figures have checked out in previous conflicts. But, of course, there is a difference between how the Palestinian Ministry of Health sees the casualty figures in Gaza and what the Israeli government is saying. We've heard from Israeli government officials, including the Israeli prime minister now saying they believe that about 14,000 plus militants have been killed and about 16,000 civilians. That's obviously a very big discrepancy with the numbers coming from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. TAPPER: Right. The Palestinian Ministry of Health, obviously run by Hamas itself, and they don't distinguish between fighters and innocent civilians. (…) May 14, 2024 5:50:29 p.m. Eastern TAPPER: And we’re back with our world lead. Israel's military claims that it struck a Hamas war room in central Gaza in its effort to root out the terrorists group following the October 7 attack on Israel. The war room, Israel says, was imbedded inside a school in Nuseirat. That's the town. And operated by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA. Israel says it killed more than ten terrorists, though CNN cannot independently confirm Israel's claim. It’s clear the IDF is pounding that area. (…)