NASA asteroid detector 'looks up' to scan entire sky every 24 hours

300-year-old Arctic sponges feast on the corpses of their decaying, extinct neighbors | Pet hamsters sparked a coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong | NASA asteroid detector 'looks up' to scan entire sky every 24 hours Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( February 8, 2022 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Top Science News [] [300-year-old Arctic sponges feast on the corpses of their decaying, extinct neighbors]( [300-year-old Arctic sponges feast on the corpses of their decaying, extinct neighbors]( (Alfred-Wegener-Institut/PS101 AWI OFOS system/Antje Boetius, medien@awi.de) On an underwater mountain in the Arctic Ocean lives a community of sponges with a ghoulish secret. With little to eat in the nutrient-poor water, the sponges survive by digesting the remains of long-dead animals that once inhabited the seamount peaks where the sponges now live. And they've been feasting on their extinct neighbors' corpses for centuries. Scientists recently discovered these macabre creatures on the Langseth Ridge, part of a former volcanic seamount in the Central Arctic, at depths of 1,640 to 1,969 feet (500 to 600 meters) where temperatures hover just above freezing. In those icy depths, researchers found thousands of sponges covering an area measuring 5.8 square miles (15 square kilometers). Full Story: [Live Science]( (2/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] COVID-19 [] [Pet hamsters sparked a coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong]( [Pet hamsters sparked a coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong]( (Paul Starosta via Getty Images) Imported pet hamsters carried the delta variant of the novel coronavirus into Hong Kong, sparking a local outbreak, a new study suggests. The research, posted Jan. 28 to the database Preprints with The Lancet, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it provides the first evidence of hamster-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Hamsters can be infected with the coronavirus in laboratory settings and are often used in research, but prior to the Hong Kong outbreak, there wasn't evidence of the rodents passing the virus to humans, Nature reported. So far, the outbreak has affected about 50 people and has prompted government officials to cull thousands of pet hamsters in the city, according to Nature. Full Story: [Live Science]( (2/7) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Space Exploration [] [NASA asteroid detector 'looks up' to scan entire sky every 24 hours]( [NASA asteroid detector 'looks up' to scan entire sky every 24 hours]( (Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images) NASA's asteroid monitoring system has been upgraded so that it can scan the entire night sky once every 24 hours for potentially hazardous space rocks that are heading our way. The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) is essential for tracking of asteroids and debris that could be on a collision course with Earth, and it is operated from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. ATLAS began as an array of just two telescopes in Hawaii, but it has now expanded to include two more telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere — giving it a complete view of the sky. Full Story: [Live Science]( (2/7) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Climate Change [] [Mt. Everest's highest glacier lost 2,000 years worth of ice since the 1990s]( [Mt. Everest's highest glacier lost 2,000 years worth of ice since the 1990s]( (Getty Images) Even the glaciers on Mount Everest are not safe from climate change, new research suggests. In a record-setting study, a team of scientists scaled the world's highest peak to monitor the mountain's highest-altitude glacier — the South Col Glacier, standing nearly 26,000 feet (8,000 meters) above sea level — for signs of climate-related ice loss. After installing the two highest weather stations on Earth and collecting the world's highest ice core from the glacier, the team found that South Col is losing ice roughly 80 times faster than it took for the ice to accumulate on the glacier's surface, they reported Feb. 3 in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. Full Story: [Live Science]( (2/7) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Curious Creatures [] [What did 'the meg' look like? We have no idea.]( [What did 'the meg' look like? We have no idea.]( (Warpaintcobra via Getty Images) What did megalodon, the most massive shark that ever lived, look like? Scientists have no idea, a new study finds. Despite many depictions of the now-extinct shark, including the one in the 2018 sci-fi action movie "The Meg," nobody alive today has a clue about the proportions of megalodon's head, fins and body shape. Full Story: [Live Science]( (2/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Can hamsters pass SARS-CoV-2 to people? (Learn the answer [here]() [Vote]( [Yes]( [Vote]( [No](   [Sign Up]( | [Update Profile]( | [Unsubscribe]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Cookies Policy]( | [Terms and Conditions]( CONTACT US: [FEEDBACK](mailto:livescience@smartbrief.com) | [ADVERTISE]( Future US LLC © 1100 13th St. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005