Jupiter’s Eerie Face, Mars’ Hidden Magma, Clever Monkey Business, and More

The latest from The Porthole and the wider world of science. [View in browser](| [Join Nautilus]( Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( This Tuesday, your FREE member newsletter includes the week’s top science news, plus one full story, below, from The Porthole, our section for short sharp looks at science. Enjoy! DISCOVERIES The Top Science News This Week [A Meteorite Impact on Mars Revealed Its Hidden Sea of Magma]( NASA’s InSight lander detected the impact’s seismic waves emanating from almost the opposite side of Mars, which gave scientists a clearer picture of the Red Planet’s core. [Nature→]( [We’re Not the Only Apes Who Go Through Menopause]( Grandma might not be as “[good](” as scientists thought. [Science→]( [Cooperation Is This Monkey’s Business]( Baboons work together strategically, researchers find, which hints at the ancient roots of our own powerful social abilities. [Science Advances→]( [How Online Grocery Shopping Is Changing What We Buy]( What researchers concluded from data on approximately two million brick-and-mortar and Instacart trips. [Marketing Science→]( [What Twitter Thinks of Emerging Climate Tech]( Researchers analyzed over a million tweets, from 2006 to 2021, to gauge people’s changing thoughts on geoengineering. [Global Environmental Change→]( [People Can Learn to Directly Control the Size of Their Pupils]( The findings, researchers write, amount to evidence that we can access our brain’s arousal system. [Nature Human Behavior→]( [Dust in the Wind Contributed to Dinosaurs’ Demise]( The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs—[or was it a comet?](—did more than spark soot-spewing wildfires. [CNN→]( [Jupiter Finds Itself with an Eerie Face This Halloween]( Jupiter’s clouds often lend themselves to [pareidolia](, people’s tendency to perceive faces or other patterns in largely random patterns. [NASA→]( [180 Pages of Impact From Cover To Cover]( 180 pages of stories to move you, people to inspire you, images to knock you sideways, and tips to try out for yourself. It’s hot off the press from [Imagine5](, an international eco-nonprofit making sustainable change contagious with planet-proof solutions and positive action. [GET YOUR COPY TODAY]( Experience the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [JOIN TODAY]( From The Porthole—short sharp looks at science ZOOLOGY [A Spooktacular Bat Ballet]( Watch how hundreds of thousands of bats choreograph jam-packed nightly migrations with surprising grace. BY SPINE FILMS Every summer evening, deep in the Hill Country of central Texas, hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) pour from the mouth of a limestone cave. The pungent smell of guano and the rush of sound and air from so many wings beating at once is an experience that truly overwhelms the senses. Then, just like that, it’s over—in a matter of minutes, members of the entire colony have emerged from the cave and disappeared into the dusk for their nightly foraging flight. To the naked eye, in real-time, the colony exodus is a blur of wings and bodies moving too fast to track. Yet somehow, the entire colony manages to exit the cave, night after night, without traffic jams or (many) casualties. How do they achieve this incredible feat? [Like the story? Join Nautilus today]( Not long ago, scientists Nickolay Hristov and Louise Allen set out to answer this question. Using high-speed video cameras, they captured these events—and interactions among individual bats—in spectacular detail. Frame by frame, they discovered that it’s not always necessary for nature to come up with the perfect solution—only one that’s good enough. Produced by Spine Films This story originally appeared in [bioGraphic](, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences. More spooktacular stories from Nautilus •Why are so many monsters hybrids?]( • [How evolution designed your fear]( EXCLUSIVE MEMBER CONTENT | [Explore Memberships→]( [The monsters are in your head.]( Download Monsters – our free Halloween ebook that explores the basis for some of humankind's oldest fears. Plus, find a special mystery discount inside. [Get the eBook.]( Happy Halloween! [DOWNLOAD NOW]( P.S. For many, the spooky holiday is an occasion to take delight in a frightening story. Coltan Scrivner wrote about why horror films have been more watched than ever of late: “As odd as it may sound, the fact that people were more anxious in 2020 may be [one reason why horror films were so popular.](” Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher Thanks for reading. 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