When spiders come to mind, you probably picture creepy crawlers like black widows and haunted houses strewn with filmy cobwebs.

However, the spider world is far more diverse, and perhaps far cuter, than you might think. 

Peacock spiders, known for their elaborate mating dances and fantastically-colored abdomens, are one such species. Roughly the size of a fingernail, peacock spiders are strikingly adorable. 

It is hard to believe that anything good could come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virus has infected hundreds of thousands of people around the world and caused governments to impose travel restrictions, curfews, and business closures. 

However, as people are being told to stay home to avoid the spread of the disease, social distancing has proved to be a blessing for nature and the global climate. 

Let’s explore the ways that social distancing is helping our planet.

The Effects of Social Distancing

Plants: we eat them, juice them, weave them — and now it seems we can mine them too!

After a successful experiment on the island of Borneo, Botany Professor Alan Baker and a group of researchers want to introduce phytomining (harvesting minerals from plants) as a better, partial substitute for traditional mining.

By having farmers collect the nickel-rich sap of certain plants, Baker and the team were able to gather thousands of dollars of raw nickel, and are now looking to repeat the experiment on a larger scale.

What is Phytomining?

When you think of prehistoric Earth, you may think of ancient creatures roaming the land. But long before the dinosaurs, our planet may have been covered entirely by water!

According to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, continents may not have existed three billion years ago during a period known as the archean eon. 

University of Colorado Boulder researcher Boswell Wing and Iowa State University researcher Benjamin Johnson found evidence of the ancient oceanic planet in an unusual place -- the outback of northwestern Australia.

Imagine you are on vacation. You step out of your hotel and expect to see a tropical paradise filled with pristine beaches and clear water. Instead, you are greeted by an “apocalyptic” orange sky and sand flying at dangerous speeds.

On February 23, 2020, the Canary Islands were hit by an intense sandstorm that brought record-breaking winds and temperatures.

The sandstorms reduced visibility, forced residents to stay indoors, shut down schools, and led to flight cancelations. Let’s look at what this weather phenomenon is and its impact. 

Did you know that gray whales travel around 10,000 to 12,000 miles a year?

Starting off in Mexico, where they mate or birth calves, they then head to the Arctic to feed. Finally, they return to Mexico, completing one of the longest known animal migration trajectories with impressive precision. 

But how do these whales know where to go? How do they travel for so long and end up in the exact same locations, every time? 

Earth's Magnetic Field: A Gray Whale’s Compass? 

In May 2019, Botswana -- a country in south-west Africa, officially lifted the ban on elephant hunting. 

Botswana is now auctioning permits to hunt elephants at approximately $39,000 each. Seventy permits have already been sold and the government is allowing 272 elephants to be culled this year. 

Let’s look at why the ban was lifted and Botswana’s plan to cull elephants.

Elephant Numbers In Botswana

Swarms of bright yellow insects blanket the sky, devouring crops and plants in their path. 

This seemingly Biblical scene comes from East Africa, where people are experiencing the worst locust outbreak in decades. 

These yellow insects are desert locusts, a type of short-horned grasshoppers that travel in dense swarms. A single swarm can be as large as several hundred square kilometers and have 80 million locust adults per square kilometer!

On February 14th this year, space enthusiasts celebrated the 30th anniversary of a very special photograph -- a speck of dust caught in a beam of light. 

James O'Donoghue, a planetary scientist from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, recently remade a 2008 animation from NASA, revealing what the world would look like if the oceans were drained.

The animation was recreated at a higher resolution and a tracker was included to identify how much water was being drained. Let's look at the video first and some of the things that we learned.