Alien-like cookiecutter sharks terrorize animals of all sizes

Mysterious object called 'The Accident' has been careening through the Milky Way for 10 billion years | Health officials quietly moved the date of the 1st US COVID-19 death to January 2020 | Artistic giant Michelangelo was actually quite short Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( September 3, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE]( [] Top Science News [] [Mysterious object called 'The Accident' has been careening through the Milky Way for 10 billion years]( [Mysterious object called 'The Accident' has been careening through the Milky Way for 10 billion years]( (IPAC/Caltech) Astronomers have taken the first detailed look at a mysterious Milky Way object known as "The Accident" — and discovered that it's even more perplexing than previous studies indicated. The Accident is not quite a star (scientists can tell from its dim glow that there's no nuclear fusion powering the object), and it's not quite a planet, either. According to a study published June 30 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, The Accident is something in between — a rare class of object known as a brown dwarf, or a failed star. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/2) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] COVID-19 [] [Health officials quietly moved the date of the 1st US COVID-19 death to January 2020]( [Health officials quietly moved the date of the 1st US COVID-19 death to January 2020]( (Shutterstock) The first recorded death from COVID-19 in the U.S. occurred a month earlier than previously thought: A Kansas woman's death certificate was recently amended to say she died from the disease in January 2020, according to news reports. The 78-year-old woman, Lovell "Cookie" Brown, died on Jan. 9, 2020 in Leavenworth, Kansas, several weeks before the first cases of COVID-19 were identified in the U.S., according to The Mercury News. Initially, Brown's death certificate said she died of a stroke and chronic obstructive lung disease. But in May 2021, her doctors quietly updated the certificate to add "COVID-19 pneumonia" as a cause of death, The Mercury News reported. That makes Brown the first documented COVID-19 death in the United States. Until recently, the first known COVID-19 death in the U.S. was thought to have occurred on Feb. 6, 2020, in a woman living in San Jose, California, Live Science previously reported. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] History & Archaeology [] [Artistic giant Michelangelo was actually quite short]( [Artistic giant Michelangelo was actually quite short]( (Copyright Casa Museo Buonarroti/Anthropologie) As an artist, the legendary Michelangelo Buonarroti left behind some big shoes to fill. But in real life, the great painter's shoes weren't big at all — and neither was Michelangelo. Italian researchers recently examined three shoes that were found in Michelangelo's home after his death and are thought to have belonged to the Renaissance artist: a pair of leather shoes and a single leather slipper (the companion was stolen in 1873), in the collection of the Casa Buonarroti Museum in Florence, Italy. The researchers' analysis is the first to estimate physical characteristics of the artist based on measurements of personal objects such as footwear, and they found that Michelangelo, while still an artistic giant, stood no more than 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 meters) tall. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [8-foot-tall pagan idol unearthed in Irish bog]( [8-foot-tall pagan idol unearthed in Irish bog]( (John Channing/Archaeological Management Solutions) A 1,600-year-old pagan idol, made from a wooden pole carved from an oak tree, has been unearthed in a bog in western Ireland. Archaeologists say the idol dates to the very late stage of pagan Ireland, only about 100 years before the conversion of the Irish to Christianity during the mission of St. Patrick in the fifth century. The idol appears to have been broken in two — a common practice with sacrificial objects, perhaps signifying that it was "dead" and could no longer be used — and deliberately deposited in the bog, maybe as a substitute for a human sacrifice or "bog body," according to the archaeologists. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Space Exploration [] ['Red light' warning flashed during Richard Branson's historic spaceflight, Virgin Galactic insiders say]( ['Red light' warning flashed during Richard Branson's historic spaceflight, Virgin Galactic insiders say]( (Virgin Galactic) When Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson became the first billionaire to fly to space with his own company on July 11, he could have also come close to becoming the first billionaire to crash during a spaceflight, according to a report from The New Yorker. But Virgin Galactic disputes the claim, asserting that no one was ever in any danger. Nearly one minute into VSS Unity's powered flight, a yellow caution light appeared on the space plane's console indicating that the craft was veering off course. "The light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical," The New Yorker report by writer Nicholas Schmidle states. "If they didn't fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent." Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Astronomy & Astrophysics [] [Dead stars crashing into live stars may trigger a new type of supernova]( [Dead stars crashing into live stars may trigger a new type of supernova]( (Chuck Carter) Astronomers have uncovered evidence of explosions triggered by dead stars ramming into live stars, possible proof of a new type of supernova, a new study finds. Supernovas are gigantic explosions that can occur when stars die. These outbursts can briefly outshine all of the other suns in these stars' galaxies, making them visible from halfway across the cosmos. For decades, researchers have known of two main supernova types. Large stars more than 10 times the sun's mass collapse in their centers when their cores burn all their fuel, causing the outer layers to explode and leaving behind a stellar remnant such as a neutron star or black hole. In contrast, stars less than eight times the sun's mass burn out over time, leaving behind a dense core known as a white dwarf, and these remnants can pull fuel onto themselves from companion stars until they detonate in a thermonuclear explosion. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Curious Creatures [] [Alien-like cookiecutter sharks terrorize animals of all sizes]( [Alien-like cookiecutter sharks terrorize animals of all sizes]( (Pally/Alamy Stock Photo) Cookiecutter sharks are known for ripping small, cookie-shaped chunks out of sharks and whales much larger than themselves, but a new study finds that they actually terrorize animals of all sizes. The green-eyed, alien-like sharks look like sinister sock puppets made of pastry dough and can grow up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. These odd creatures use their pointed teeth to feed off great white sharks 10 times their size and are even known to nibble chunks out of human flesh, Live Science previously reported. Scientists frequently observed cookiecutter markings on larger animals and thus assumed that's what the sharks primarily ate. But it turns out, these sharks munch on animals at the bottom of the food chain as well, giving them a unique role in the ocean ecosystem, a new analysis of shark specimens finds. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [World's largest rodents are taking over a fancy gated community in Argentina]( [World's largest rodents are taking over a fancy gated community in Argentina]( (STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images) The residents of a gated community in Argentina are struggling to get along with some unruly new neighbors: hundreds of the world's largest rodents. The capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), also known as carpinchos, have been running rampant for weeks inside Nordelta, an affluent neighborhood north of Buenos Aires that is home to around 40,000 people. Local residents have reported that the robust rodents, which can reach over 4 feet (1.2 meters) long and weigh up to 174 pounds (79 kilograms), have been pooping in gardens, destroying flower beds, causing traffic accidents and allegedly biting pet dogs, although capybaras are not known to be aggressive toward humans or pets, according to Argentine newspaper La Nacion. However, environmentalists say the capybaras are not invading Nordelta but rather taking back their home from the multimillion-dollar development, which, in the late 1990s, was built on top of ecologically important wetlands surrounding the banks of the Paraná River, the second-largest river in South America. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/3) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Could a spaceship fly through a gas giant like Jupiter? 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