Star eats planets, erupts with gas
In the winter of 2002, V838 Monocerotis, a star 20,000 light years away, engulfed three nearby planets, resulting in massive explosions each time. In January of 2002, the star became the brightest in the Milky Way, 600,000 times brighter than our own sun. The star then faded, only to brighten again in February and March. Astronomers struggled to explain what had happened at the time, but now seem to agree that the explosions resulted from the star “eating” a nearby planet, which caused the star to erupt and expand, only to engulf another planet, and so on. This may happen to our own solar system in a billion years-Mercury and Venus will probably be engulfed, but Earth’s doubt remains in doubt.
Source: New Scientist
-Zoe Cormier
Monkey justice
A new study the behaviour of Capuchin monkeys shows that the primates have a sense of justice and fair play, like some humans. Researchers trained the monkeys to exchange tokens for food, usually a cucumber. If the monkeys saw their neighbour receive not a cucumber but a tasty grape, they responded by throwing their cucumber or token out of their cage (often at the researcher), sometimes even refusing to exchange future tokens for mere cucumbers. The monkeys became even angrier if they saw another monkey receive a grape for nothing. Only the females responded in this way-the researchers reasoned that the male monkeys were more interested in sex, the females in food.
Source: Nature
-Z.C.
