The brightest take on this week’s science

Come get ready with an orca as it swims you through its favorite skincare routine.

Today’s look is natural glam with a killer complexion.

The secret?

Exfoliating with kelp.

For the first time ever, scientists have recorded southern resident orcas regularly rolling pieces of seaweed between their bodies.

• No one knows for sure why orcas do this, but scientists suspect ‘allokelping’ is a unique form of social grooming.

• It’s the first example of tool use ever documented among the species, which are some of nature’s most intelligent animals.

"Unlike swimming through a kelp mat or a kelp forest, pairs of whales can allokelp on the go, continuing to travel with the rest of the pod,” marine zoologist Michael Weiss of the Center for Whale Research told ScienceAlert.

“I also suspect that they're able to target specific areas more precisely… "

Fish gut facials and salmon sperm injections are so last year. Whale-approved kelp scrubs? Already in our Sephora carts...

Read more.

• 🏅This week’s most read: Tinnitus is linked to a crucial bodily function

• 🩸 Your blood type affects your risk of an early stroke

• 🕷️ New discovery of deep sea 'spiders' is unlike anything we've seen

• 🧠 Parkinson's disease might not start in the brain

An absolutely gigantic comet is making quite a scene in our Solar System.

As the icy monstrosity barrels into our solar neighborhood at full steam, it is farting big time, leaving huge jets of carbon monoxide streaming in its wake.

Comet C/2014 UN271 …

... is the largest known comet in the Oort Cloud, on the fringes of our Solar System. It was spotted for the first time in 2014, and scientists have now confirmed its massive size.

It is no less than 137 kilometers (85 miles) wide.

That's almost 14x bigger than the asteroid that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs.

Thankfully, the comet isn’t headed our way, so there’s no need to prepare for asteroid Armageddon. Astronomers suspect the ginormous object will only creep as close as the orbit of Saturn, probably sometime in early 2031.

Now we can safely sit back, watch, and wonder… far away from its flatulence.

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A) Spider leg
B) Wasp antenna
C) Bat wing membrane
D) Fern fiddlehead

Answer at the bottom.

There’s gold hiding in your junk drawer. Scientists at Flinders University in Australia have now discovered a safe and sustainable way to extract this precious metal from our mountains of electronic waste.

• Each year, humans produce more than 60 million metric tons of electronic trash.

• That’s enough to fill more than 1.5 million garbage trucks – and less than a quarter is properly recycled.

Yesterday’s trash could be tomorrow’s treasure

• The new gold extraction method relies on a non-toxic chemical commonly used in water sanitation and pool chlorination.

• In experiments, the substance bound itself to gold and removed it from old circuit boards, even when other metals were present.

The results are promising, but more work is needed before this proof of concept can replace other, more toxic techniques for gold recycling.

Let’s hope it pans out!

Read more.

There are some people hiding among us with incredible superpowers.

When they scroll past a silent GIF, they can actually ‘hear’ it with their eyes.

These unique individuals have what scientists call ‘visual ears', meaning they can listen to silent motion, thanks to the way their brains are wired.

Wondering if you’re one of them?

Drum roll, please …

Hang in there… the weekend is almost here!

Microscope answer: A wasp antenna.

A wasp’s antennae can be used like our fingers, noses, ears, and eyes to taste, smell, touch, and communicate. Some species may even use their antennae like medicine cabinets or cross them like swords during a fight – en garde!