Snake acrobatics

 By Pavel Kirillov via WikiCommons.

Brown tree snakes make a lasso with their tails to help them climb up wide trees. A non-indigenous invasive species in Guam, scientists think that this climbing technique may be a new adaptation to help them survive and persist in their new environment. The climbing technique isn’t easy, and requires a colossal amount of energy and concentration: but there is a reward at the end of it. The brown snakes eat the native birds – which is why they’re a problem – and also why they’re so determined to climb those trees.

Martian Curiosity

It looked like it shouldn't work. It looked like it couldn't work. It looked like NASA's most talented engineers had got drunk together at a party and, for a dare, designed the most ridiculous, dangerous way of landing a multi billion dollar robot rover on Mars possible then giggled  "Yeah, let's try that!" But early this morning, after screaming through the barely-there martian atmosphere in a fireball, the nuclear-powered "Curiosity" rover was lowered down from a hovering rocket platform and touched down softly and safely on the floor of the huge Gale crater.

The first pictures - although hazy and blurred - suggest it came down within a few kilometres of its goal: an ancient, layered mountain called Mt Sharp which rises up from the crater's heart to scrape the pink martian sky. Planetary scientists and armchair explorers alike are delighted and impatient for Curiosity to begin rolling across the crater floor and start exploring.
  

Artist's impression of Curiosity landing on Mars. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

But what will Curiosity actually be doing on Mars? Well, a Google search of its name will bring up a lot of stories in the media about how the "Mars Science Laboratory" is going to look for life. It isn't. It's been sent to Mars to travel back in time and see if Mars, or at least this part of Mars, was once capable of supporting life.