00:00Here is Costello. It's a Brazilian reef octopus.
00:04But Costello is not an ordinary octopus.
00:07Observing him, scientists have discovered that he might have nightmares.
00:11When he slept, he changed color, made big movements,
00:15expelled water and even released ink.
00:18They decided to study Costello for a while.
00:21His behavior during his sleep looked like stress and fear.
00:25The study showed that he could have very intense, sometimes scary dreams.
00:30Although it is only one case, these cute underwater creatures
00:34are known for their intelligence and their behavior sometimes close to that of humans.
00:39And it is therefore quite possible that they have dreams like us.
00:43In the case of Costello, he may be haunted by his memories of his life off the Florida Keys.
00:48He has a charged past.
00:50He lost a tentacle because of a predator before his captivity.
00:54This is perhaps what he sees in his dreams.
00:57If this discovery turns out to be accurate, it could change our conception of intelligence and consciousness,
01:02both in animals and in humans.
01:05Plants can speak.
01:07Scientists have discovered that they emit ultrasonic clicks when they are stressed.
01:14Imagine tomatoes and completely crazy tobacco plants.
01:20The sounds are similar to those of bubble wrap that burst,
01:24but at a frequency far too high for our ears.
01:27These are called ultrasonic signals.
01:30This would be their way of manifesting their stress.
01:33This would mean that plants can communicate with each other
01:36and that stressed plants particularly like to complain.
01:40They emit between 30 and 50 of these noises per hour.
01:43Calm and healthy plants are much quieter.
01:48And not only do plants speak, but they have their own language.
01:52They emit different sounds depending on whether they are thirsty,
01:55whether a stem cuts the genes, and so on.
01:58In addition, some of these noises ring the alarm
02:01even before the plants show signs of dehydration.
02:05That is to say, they know that their situation is about to worsen.
02:09Scientists do not know exactly why they act this way.
02:13They think it could be cavitation,
02:16a term that refers to air bubbles dancing in the plant's pipe.
02:21The plants that sing these symphonies are corn, wheat, grapes, and even cacti.
02:28This is an important discovery for agriculture.
02:31It could, in particular, allow us to know when our crops are thirsty.
02:36So now we're going to listen to the plants and decipher their secret language.
02:41It's time for the universal information.
02:44Recent studies have shaken up what we thought we knew about the age of the universe.
02:49The results obtained over the last few decades
02:52have shown that the universe must have been around 13.7 billion years old.
02:57However, a new study shows that it could be almost twice as old,
03:00up to 26.7 billion years old.
03:03Keep in mind that this is not proven and that, for the moment,
03:07the official figure remains unchanged.
03:09To measure the age of the universe,
03:11scientists relied on the time since the Big Bang
03:14and on the study of ancient stars.
03:16But some stars seemed strangely older than the universe.
03:20For example, the star Methuselah,
03:22whose age is estimated at about 14 billion years,
03:26which would be older than the universe.
03:28And then the James Webb Space Telescope
03:30discovered galaxies that were already very mature,
03:33a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
03:37All this poses serious problems for astronomers.
03:40This new hypothesis combines the theory of the expansion of the universe
03:44with that of tired light.
03:47The latter suggests that light loses energy
03:50as it travels the cosmic distances.
03:53This is combined with the theory of the expansion of the universe.
03:56And there you go.
03:57As the universe expands, light gets tired,
04:00which explains why we cannot see all the super-ancient stars
04:04and very far from us,
04:06so it is possible that we are wrong in our calculations
04:09about the age of the universe.
04:11This new model also refutes the moment
04:13when galaxies would have begun to form.
04:16It suggests that the first galaxies spotted by the Webb Space Telescope
04:20took much longer to form than we thought.
04:23This study shook the scientific community.
04:26If we have made such an important calculation error,
04:29we will have to review the fundamental principles of astrophysics.
04:33It would be a giant step and everything would have to be flattened.
04:37Or almost.
04:38That's why we have to be very careful.
04:41Scientists are testing this new theory.
04:44And we have to be patient.
04:46But there is not only news about space.
04:49The new technologies of the IAEA
04:51are already actively used for scientific research.
04:55The IAEA helps us to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
05:00The researchers of the IAEA have created automatic learning algorithms
05:04that allow us to pass the cosmic noise to the creepers
05:07faster and more efficiently.
05:09When you point a radio telescope at the stars,
05:12it is as if you are connected to a celestial radio station
05:15filled with different signals.
05:17We capture everything,
05:18from pulsars to radio galaxies,
05:20through terrestrial interferences.
05:23Obviously, it is difficult to identify
05:25a possible extraterrestrial signal in all this mess.
05:28For more than 60 years,
05:30scientists have had to do all this manually.
05:33It was a hard task to scrutinize the sky
05:35and explore the stars and radio frequencies.
05:38But today, the IAEA has just helped us.
05:41These algorithms are trained to recognize
05:43and distinguish known interference models,
05:46such as those of mobile phones
05:48and electronic devices,
05:49in the middle of cosmic data.
05:51They locate everything that deviates from these models.
05:56And we have already made some breakthroughs.
05:59Astronomers have detected 8 signals
06:01that did not correspond to the known model.
06:04Even if it is not confirmed that it is extraterrestrial life,
06:07these signals show that there is great potential
06:10for future research.
06:12To get back to animals,
06:14let's now look at prehistoric Earth.
06:17Imagine turtles so massive
06:19that they would make their cousins today
06:21look like tiny toys.
06:23Recently, scientists came across
06:25the fossilized remains of one of these giants.
06:28It is a sea titan
06:29that swam through European waters
06:31about 75 million years ago.
06:34The discovery was accidental.
06:36A hiker from northern Spain
06:37came across fragments of this creature
06:39near the Pyrenees.
06:41This turtle was the size of a rhinoceros,
06:434 meters long.
06:45To give you an idea,
06:46it corresponds to an average car.
06:48This shows that extreme sizes
06:50were more common before the Great Extinction.
06:53The turtles we know today,
06:55smaller but nevertheless always imposing,
06:58dominated later on.
07:01But the oceans were once full of giant turtles
07:04that ate molluscs and jellyfish.
07:07This discovery also raises the question
07:09of the idea that giant turtles
07:11only lived in North America.
07:13The existence of this turtle
07:15proves that these colossal reptiles
07:17also frequented European waters.
07:20It may therefore be
07:22only the emerged part of the iceberg.
07:24Finally, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
07:27made a great discovery.
07:29It detected a crucial carbonate compound
07:32in space.
07:33It is cation methyl.
07:35And this tiny molecule,
07:37even if it seems insignificant,
07:39could help us to uncover
07:41the secrets of interstellar organic chemistry.
07:44Carbon is incredibly important.
07:46Carbon molecules are the basis of everything,
07:49from stars to planets,
07:51including us.
07:52It is the key ingredient of life.
07:54And scientists are impatient to understand
07:57how it shaped our existence on Earth
08:00and if it could do the same elsewhere in the universe.
08:03Cation methyl plays a very important role
08:06in the creation of complex carbon-based molecules.
08:09This is why the discovery of cation methyl,
08:12even if it is very distant,
08:14is so important.
08:15NASA scientists found it
08:17in a young stellar system.
08:19This system is located
08:21about 1,350 light-years away from us,
08:24in the Orion Nebula.
08:26The star of this system,
08:28which is smaller and a little weaker than our Sun,
08:31is bombarded by an intense ultraviolet light
08:34coming from hot, young and massive stars
08:37located nearby.
08:39One might think that a UV radiation
08:41as intense as this would destroy complex organic molecules.
08:44But the team of researchers thinks
08:46that it could actually revive
08:48the formulation of these carbon compounds.
08:50Maybe powerful stars
08:52and their level of unintended radiation
08:54actually work as energy sources for life.
08:57They trigger a chain chemical reaction
09:00that results in complex carbon substances
09:02like plants and animals.
09:04It seems that we have found
09:06a new piece of the puzzle.
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