The brightest take on this week’s science

A controversial new study has found evidence that we wear our brain activity like a gleaming crown.

This isn’t some woo-woo aura floating around our heads. It’s an actual, measurable emission from busy electrons in our brains – it’s just too faint for the naked human eye to see.

Scientists have measured ‘biophotons’ before

But now, for the first time, researchers in Canada have detected the flickering light from outside the human skull.

• When study participants were seated in a dark room and asked to perform an auditory task, the light around their skulls changed.

• The discovery opens up a new possibility for gauging brain activity: a yet-to-be-developed technique researchers are calling photoencephalography.

Maybe in the future you’ll be able to see your friend’s flickering brain activity with a pair of special glasses. Just don’t be shocked if they’re not actually paying you any attention.

Read more.

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Introducing a formidable new competitor to the Amazing Race: A tiny moth that can fly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in the dark to a place it has never been before.

No directions or plane ticket necessary. All it needs is a starry night sky, its incredible instincts, and a brain the size of a sesame seed.

The Australian insect…

…called a bogong moth, has just a few weeks to race to a cool cave in time for the hot summer breeding season.

"Imagine someone gives you the task to walk such a distance without food or shelter, exclusively at nighttime without GPS or a compass,” zoologist David Dreyer told ScienceAlert.

“If one makes just a small, let's say five-degree, mistake while determining the walking direction on the first night, that means you are already 90 kilometers off target.”

In a race between bogongs and humans, our money is on the moths.

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A) Flower petal
B) Gastric glands
C) Bird feather
D) Rat tongue

Answer at the bottom.

When there’s a sphere in the sky like a big pizza pie that’s…

… a real chin-scratcher for astronomers.

Recently, a powerful radio telescope in Western Australia turned its gaze on a perfectly round bubble of light hiding in our galaxy.

Like proud new parents…

… researchers named it Teleios – the Greek word for ‘perfect’.

The way the structure glows has experts thinking it is the remnant of a supernova – one of the brightest types in the Universe.

In other words, you’re looking at a stellar pimple caught just as it’s bursting.

And what a beauty it is

Scientists think the exploding star must be located in an empty enough region of space that it can expand symmetrically without obstruction.

Pimple patches be damned.

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Orcas can mimic the sounds of other animals, like bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, and even humans.

Several years ago, a scientist taught an orca named Wikie to make vocalizations that sounded like "hello" and "bye-bye". 

These super-smart creatures aren’t just sinking our boats – now they’re openly mocking us.

Hope we blew your mind 🤯

Microscope answer: a rat tongue.

Rats have a surprisingly sophisticated palate, with taste buds all over their mouth. They might even taste bitter foods in a more nuanced way than you and me. (Guess Ratatouille wasn’t that far-fetched, after all!) 🐭