Four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves. Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results!
When you’re a child who reads you will whizz through books at a rate that will leave adults flabbergasted. I used to go to the library every week and I had three library cards (my parents gave me their cards) so I was reading over 30 books a week
You've seen the meme: one opossum eats 5,000 ticks a season. But when researchers dissected the stomach contents of 32 wild opossums, they found zero ticks.
The 5,000-tick number came from a single lab study that got stretched into a feel-good statistic and repeated.
But the opossum's actual résumé is impressive enough without the tick myth. It's the only marsupial in North America, a creature with a body plan that reaches back toward the age of dinosaurs. It's highly resistant to the venom of pit vipers, including copperheads and rattlesnakes, and can prey on venomous snakes that would kill many other mammals, including you.
Opossums are so resistant to pit viper venom that scientists have studied their blood for clues that might someday lead to better snakebite treatments.
It cleans up dead animals, fallen fruit, slugs, snails, insects, and even rodents if given the chance. Also cool: it rarely carries rabies. Researchers think its unusually low body temperature may be one reason rabies is so uncommon in opossums, but the jury is still out on that one.
It does all of this without much fanfare, at night, without asking for anything, and still gets shooed off a porch for looking a little weird.
When one waddles through your yard after dark, you're watching your neighborhood wildlife cleanup crew doing its thing. Leave it be. It'll keep working for you.