00:00Meet Costello. He's a Brazilian reef octopus, but Costello isn't a regular octopus. While watching him,
00:07scientists began to suspect that he might be experiencing nightmares. When he was sleeping,
00:12he was changing colors, making some wild movements, expelling water, and even releasing ink.
00:18They decided to study Costello for a while. His behavior during sleep resembled stress and fear.
00:25The study showed that he might see vivid dreams, which are, at times, spooky.
00:30Well, it's just one octopus. These cute underwater creatures are known for their intelligence and sometimes human-like behavior.
00:38So it's entirely possible that they see dreams just like we do. In Costello's case,
00:44he might be haunted by memories of tough times off the coast of the Florida Keys. Poor Costello has a rough past.
00:51He lost a tentacle to a predator before captivity, so maybe that's what he sees in his dreams.
00:57If proven true, this discovery could reshape how we perceive intelligence and awareness in both animals and humans.
01:06Well, it turns out plants can talk. Well, kind of.
01:11Scientists found out that plants actually make ultrasonic clicks when they're stressed.
01:16Imagine tomatoes and tobacco plants in a jam.
01:18They're making sounds like popping bubble wrap, but way too high for us to hear. These are called
01:24ultrasonic signals, and they might be their way of indicating stress.
01:29That would mean that plants can't communicate with each other, and stressed plants prefer to be drama queens and let
01:35everybody know about their troubles. They make around 30 to 50 pops and clicks per hour.
01:40Calm and healthy plants don't do nearly as much.
01:44And not only do plants talk, but even have their own language.
01:49They make different sounds depending on whether the plant is experiencing thirst or is bothered by a snipped stem or something else.
01:58Moreover, some of them are so dramatic that they start ringing alarms even before they show signs of dehydration,
02:04when they know they're getting close to it.
02:07Scientists aren't sure why they do that, though.
02:10They believe that it might involve cavitation, a term that means air bubbles dancing in the plant's plumbing.
02:16Plants that sing these symphonies include corn, wheat, grapes, and even cacti.
02:21That is quite a big discovery in agriculture.
02:25We could use it to check if our crops are thirsty and stuff like that.
02:29So now we'll be eavesdropping on plants and deciphering their secret language.
02:34Okay, time for some universal news.
02:36Recent studies are shaking up what we thought we knew about the universe's age.
02:40Our findings during the last decades showed that the universe must be around 13.7 billion years old.
02:47However, a new study shows that it might be almost twice as old, up to 26.7 billion years.
02:54Keep in mind that it's not proven, so for now, the official number stays the same.
03:00Scientists were using the time since the Big Bang and studying ancient stars to measure the universe's age.
03:06But some stars were playing hard to get, looking older than the universe itself.
03:11For example, the ancient star Methuselah, which is estimated to be around 14 billion years old,
03:17which would be older than our universe.
03:19Also, the James Webb Space Telescope caught galaxies looking super mature just a few hundred million years ago.
03:27All this poses some hard puzzles for astronomers.
03:31But this new hypothesis combines the expanding universe theory with something called the tired light theory.
03:38It suggests that light loses energy as it zips across cosmic distances.
03:43Combine this with the expanding universe theory, and bam!
03:47As the universe expands, the light loses energy,
03:51As the universe expands, the light loses energy,
03:54so we simply can't see all the super ancient stars that are very far away from us.
03:59Which is why we could make a mistake in calculating our universe's age.
04:04The new model also pushes back when galaxies started forming.
04:08It suggests that those early galaxies spotted by the Webb Telescope took way longer to form than we originally thought.
04:15This study is a serious shake-up in the scientific community.
04:18If we made such a huge mistake in calculations, we'd have to rethink the very fundamental astrophysics principles.
04:25That would be a giant leap, and we'd have to make a huge makeover of almost everything.
04:31Which is why we need to be very cautious about it.
04:34So, while scientists test this new theory, we just have to wait for the results.
04:39Now these aren't the only space news.
04:42The new AI technology is already being actively used for scientific research.
04:47Each time, AI is helping us to look for signs of extraterrestrial life.
04:52Researchers in SETI created machine learning algorithms that would help us sift through the cosmic noise faster and more efficiently.
05:00When you point a radio telescope at the stars, it's like turning into a celestial radio station that's full of different signals.
05:07We catch everything from pulsars to radio galaxies and earthly interference.
05:13Obviously, it would be pretty hard to identify a potential signal from extraterrestrials in all this mess.
05:20For over 60 years, scientists had to do all this manually.
05:24It was a daunting task to scan the skies and explore countless stars and radio frequencies.
05:29But now, AI came to help.
05:32The algorithms are trained to recognize and distinguish known interference patterns,
05:36like those from mobile phones and electronic devices, amidst the cosmic data.
05:41They spot anything deviating from known patterns, the potential needle in the haystack.
05:47And we've already had some breakthroughs here.
05:50The astronomers caught 8 signals that didn't fit known patterns.
05:54While not confirmed as extraterrestrial life, they show that there's a great potential for future research.
06:02Going back to animals, this time we're visiting prehistoric Earth.
06:06Imagine turtles so massive they make today's turtles look like tiny toys.
06:11Recently, scientists stumbled upon the fossilized remains of one of these giants.
06:15It's a sea-dwelling titan that cruised the European waters about 80 to 70 million years ago.
06:21The discovery was accidental.
06:23A hiker in northern Spain stumbled upon fragments of this creature near the Pyrenees Mountains.
06:29This turtle was roughly the size of a rhino, around 30 feet in length.
06:33Just to give you an idea, this creature would be about the size of an average car.
06:39It shows that extreme sizes were more common before an extinction event.
06:43The turtles we know now, of smaller, still substantial sizes, dominated afterward.
06:49But the ancient oceans were filled with giant turtles munching on mollusks and jellyfish.
06:55This discovery also challenges the idea that gigantic turtles were exclusive to North America.
07:01The existence of this turtle proves that these colossal reptiles were hanging out in European waters too.
07:07So this might be just the tip of an iceberg.
07:09And you'll want to steer around that one too.
07:14And finally, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has made a great discovery.
07:19It detected a crucial carbon compound in space.
07:22It's called methylcation.
07:24And this tiny molecule, even if it might seem insignificant,
07:28could help us unlock the secrets of interstellar organic chemistry.
07:32Carbon is incredibly important.
07:35Carbon molecules are building blocks that construct everything from stars to planets to, well, us.
07:42It's the key ingredient for life.
07:44And scientists are eager to understand how it shaped our existence on Earth,
07:48and if it could do the same elsewhere in the universe.
07:52And methylcation plays a very important role in the creation of complex carbon-based molecules.
07:59That's why it's very cool that we discovered methylcation, even if it's very far away.
08:05NASA scientists found it in a young star system.
08:08This system is chilling about 1,350 light-years away from us, in the Orion Nebula.
08:14The star in this system, which is smaller and a bit weaker than our Sun,
08:18is bombarded by intense ultraviolet light from nearby hot young massive stars.
08:24You'd think such strong UV radiation would destroy complex organic molecules.
08:30But the research team believes that it might actually kick-start the formation of these carbon compounds.
08:37Maybe stronger stars and their insane radiation levels actually work as energy sources for life.
08:43They set off a chemical chain reaction, which results in complex carbon stuff like plants and animals.
08:49Seems like we found yet another puzzle piece.
08:57That's it for today.
08:58So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:03Or, if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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