Maria

Exploring and curating insights across science, nature, and beyond. Adding context and explanations to spark curiosity.

[Interesting Universe @InterestingUni]

How does your dog find the words in everything you say?

Scientists in Budapest read the brain waves of twenty family dogs hearing made up words. Their brains locked onto the consonants, the same trick human brains use.

No other animal had been shown to do it.

[Interesting Universe @InterestingUni]

Scientists mapping Antarctica by radar have found a hidden world under the ice

675 lakes that never see daylight, a mountain range like the Alps buried whole, the deepest land on Earth 3,500 m below sea level,

and 138 volcanoes under the west.

Nobody has seen any of it.

[Maria @MariaExplains]

📹 suhail khan

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Don’t let the goofy look fool you this robot is insanely fast.

[Curious Mind @Curious_MND]

In September 2023, Rafael Chacón raised his camera toward a small fox beside a road in Cozumel.

Nobody had ever photographed 1 before. 😮

There had been no confirmed sighting of a Cozumel fox since 2001.

Before that morning, the only physical evidence scientists had came from subfossil bones found at archaeological sites on the island.

Those bones showed that a remarkably small fox had lived on Cozumel for thousands of years.

But the population had never been studied genetically or formally recognized as a distinct species.

Scientists did not know how many remained.

They did not even know with certainty whether any remained.

Early on September 14, reports began spreading through phone calls and social media about a disoriented fox beside Cozumel’s coastal highway.

Chacón and a team from the Fundación de Parques y Museos de Cozumel went looking for it.

At about 6 a.m., they found an adult male near kilometer 29, partly hidden behind vegetation.

Chacón took the photographs.

The rescue team safely recovered the fox and kept it under observation.

After veterinary care and a physical assessment, it was released 3 days later into the Laguna Colombia State Reserve, away from the highway.

The photographs transformed scattered reports and ancient bones into evidence that the fox was still alive.

They also revealed how little anyone knew about it.

In 2026, researchers began the 1st survey designed specifically to find Cozumel foxes.

They placed 84 motion activated cameras across nearly 100 square kilometers of habitat.

Some stations also use scent lures and small hair traps, hoping that a passing fox will leave behind enough DNA to reveal whether this population is genetically distinct.

The team is trying to learn where the foxes live, what threatens them and, most urgently, how many are left.

The photograph proved that at least one fox had survived.

Now scientists are trying to find out whether a population did.

[Interesting Universe @InterestingUni]

Four teenagers entered a dark hole in the French countryside in 1940.

They were not archaeologists. They were not looking for treasure. They had no idea that what they were about to see had been hidden for thousands of years.

The teenagers were Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agniel and Simon Coencas. Marcel was 17. His dog, Robot, was with him.

A few days earlier, Marcel had noticed an opening in a hillside near Montignac. On September 12, he returned with his three friends. They widened the opening and climbed inside.

Using a makeshift lamp, they moved through the darkness.

Then they saw the walls.

They were covered with prehistoric paintings of horses, bulls, deer and other animals.

The teenagers had discovered Lascaux, one of the world's most remarkable collections of prehistoric art.

The next day, Marcel returned with a rope and descended an eight metre shaft. There he found another extraordinary scene, showing a human figure facing a bison.

The paintings had been created thousands of years before these teenagers were born. Current research places activity at Lascaux roughly 21,000 years ago.

Think about that moment.

Four teenagers, standing underground with a homemade light, suddenly looking at artwork created by people who had lived more than twenty thousand years earlier.

They knew nothing about those artists.

They didn't know their names.

They didn't know their language.

They didn't know why they painted those animals.

But the paintings had survived.

Generations disappeared.

Civilizations rose and fell.

Languages changed.

And yet, the images remained on the walls.

Until four teenagers walked into the darkness and found them.

They went into that cave as curious boys.

They came out having found a piece of humanity's distant memory.

[Maria @MariaExplains]

A beaver gnawing at a log

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Marble block quarrying

[Maria @MariaExplains]

📹 Sukhumvit Homes

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Big, wild, and caught red handed Khao Yai’s giant elephant in action.

[Maria @MariaExplains]

📹 lindayecookingtime

[Maria @MariaExplains]

I couldn’t believe the flower and butterfly were made from boiled eggs!

Dyed with dragon fruit and delicately shaped into beautiful designs.

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Frogs raised between corn

[Maria @MariaExplains]

The sheep can’t take its eyes off Seagal’s little foot taps in the water.

📹 : Whitehouse Farm Centre

[Maria @MariaExplains]

In Chongqing, small farmers from rural areas use Metro Line 4 to bring fresh vegetables into the city, where they can reach more customers and earn better prices.

Arriving as early as 6 a.m. with baskets, poles, or carts, they’ve earned the line the nickname “Basket Carrier Line.”

[Maria @MariaExplains]

The lonely bloom

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Where perspective changes

[Maria @MariaExplains]

📹 Randy Shao

[Maria @MariaExplains]

Goals: to be this unbothered in this universe 😌

[Maria @MariaExplains]

The spheres always move in a straight line. It's an optical illusion.