This week on Break It Down: We’ve just seen our third-ever interstellar object whizzing though the Solar System, eating cheese really might give you nightmares (but so might dessert), cavers are rewarded with a treasure trove of blind, mummified invertebrates including the only known cave-adapted wasp, the Neanderthal fat factory is just a delicious as it sounds, orcas caught kissing out in the wild, and if the Moon gets slapped by an asteroid as NASA predicts there’s a 4.1 percent chance it might, it would be a 1-in-5,000-years spectacle for Earth to enjoy (from a safe distance).

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Interstellar object

Cheesy nightmares

Cave of mummified insects

Neanderthal fat factory

Collagen

Smooching orcas

Asteroid about to slap the Moon

Project Hail Memory

We Have Questions

CURIOUS magazine

The Big Questions

This week on Break It Down: feast your eyes on the stunning first images from the world’s largest digital camera, capturing millions of galaxies and thousands of new asteroids. Why killer whales are rubbing each other luxuriously with seaweed, the world’s oldest rocks aren’t that much younger than the planet, mice born from two dads prove they’re fertile, a French woman becomes the only known person in the world with a new kind of blood type, and we celebrate 50 years of the European Space Agency with a special interview with astronaut Luca Parmitano.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

World’s largest digital camera

Vera C Rubin images of space

Be the first to spot a galaxy

Orcas allokelping

World’s oldest rocks

Mice with two dads

Brand new blood type

Can we make blood?

50 years of ESA

Brain uploads

Bonus episode of We Have Questions

Dolphins help a lost whale

This week on Break It Down: Two spacecraft just created the first ever artificial solar eclipse, thanks to some impressive drone photos we know now dancing dinosaurs might have been leaping around to impress females in Colorado, a child from the world's oldest burial site appears to be a Neanderthal-Homo sapiens hybrid, for the first time we know what a Denisovan face looks like, a medical breakthrough means we could have a vaccine against HIV (if only anyone could buy it), and 50 years after JAWS was released, we take a look at the lasting impact on shark conservation the blockbuster movie made.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Artificial solar eclipse

Dancing dinos

Hybrid child

Denisovan skull

HIV vaccine

JAWS 50 Years On

Papahānaumokuākea marine conservation

Ghost Elephant

The Big Questions is back!

This week on Break It Down: Seeing the Sun’s south pole for the first time ever, Ice Age puppies frozen in permafrost turn out to be wolves, a world-first fossil discovery reveals a sauropod’s final meal, “razor blade throat” and a traveling nimbus reveal what to expect from the new COVID variant, the deepest map of the universe now reaches 13.5 billion years into the past, and is giving nature a personhood a good way to get it better legal protections? Maybe.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Sun’s butt

Permafrost puppies

Sauropod stomach contents

Her name is ANNE

Tyrannosaur stomach contents

COVID variant

Deepest map of the Universe

Should nature have personhood?

UNDERDOGS

Ed the Zebra

The Big Questions returns

This week on Break It Down: A great big explosion in space is the most energetic since the Big Bang, AI reveals the Dead Sea Scrolls could share the same authors as the Bible, it looks like the Milky Way and Andromeda will not collide in 5 billion years after all, pregnant female mice with low iron levels can lead to the development of male embryos with ovaries, two smiling porpoises are released back into the wild for the first time in a win for conservation, and we take a deep dive into why it's so hard to sex a dinosaur.

Second biggest explosion Dead sea scrolls Milky Way and Andromeda Yangtze finless porpoises Mice embryos Hard to sex a dino Spinosaurus Daddy Undersea Explosions Nine-Limbed Octopus

This week on Break It Down: The oldest fingerprint in the world might be left by a Neanderthal hoping to complete a face, scientists propose seeding life on Enceladus to see what would happen, we’re starting to understand more about the Incas’ mysterious string writing system, bioacoustics research could pave the way for us to chat to wolves in Yellowstone, prions prove they are just as scary as we always thought when they take over a woman's brain after 50 years, and we explore just how much memory humans really have in these big old noggins of ours.

Links:

Neanderthal fingerprints Injecting life Inca string writing system Language of wolves Prions Memory capacity of the brain Papahānaumokuākea Trawling impact Kilauea CURIOUS Magazine

This week on Break It Down: the Solar System just got a new member, capuchins have started stealing howler monkey babies on a remote island, the US ran a solar storm emergency drill and it didn’t go so well, stunning new fossil evidence reveals never-before-seen feathers that indicate Archaeopteryx could fly, a deep dive into Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA turns up six alleged relatives, and what Walking With Dinosaurs has to say about Spinosaurus’s parenting skills and T. rex’s nocturnal hunting.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

CURIOUS Live: Subscription 30% off with code VE30*

New member of the solar system

Capuchin kidnappers

US solar emergency drill

The Big Questions

Archaeopteryx could fly

Leo’s long lost “relatives”

Walking With Dinosaurs

Spinosaurus: great dad?

Where is life most likely to be in the Solar System?

Antarctic ozone hole

We Have Questions

CURIOUS Live – The uncanny valley – First human-to-human transplant

*Terms and Conditions: 30% OFF PROMO CODE: VE30 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual, 2-Year, or Monthly paid subscriptions only on iflscience.com. Valid from May 1, 2025, until May 24, 2025, 12:00 am EST. To apply the promo code, you must enter it prior to completing checkout. Your credit card will be automatically charged upon checkout completion, and your subscription will continue until you cancel auto-renew. You can cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period, and you will not be charged upon renewal. If you choose to renew, no action is required, and the full amount will be billed at the start of the renewed term. Taxes may apply. Promo codes are not transferable/redeemable for cash or credit. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, USA, United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.

This week on Break It Down: a new kind of leather is borrowing its foundations from fossil T. rex collagen, we’ve just discovered an enormous glow-in-the-dark gas cloud surprisingly close to Earth, a musical sea lion has shown it can keep beat better than some humans, a new-to-science embalming technique has been discovered in Austria, man who let himself be envenomated by all the snakes inspires an antivenom not thought possible, and do scientists have a responsibility to fight misinformation about their subjects? We asked them.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

T. rex leather

Glow-in-the-dark gas cloud

Get 30% off with code VE30*

Ronan the rhythmic sea lion

New embalming tekkers

What happens to eyes during the mummification process?

Novel route to snake antivenom

Scientists VS misinformation

5 kinds of headaches

Ballymacombs More Woman

*Terms and Conditions: 30% OFF PROMO CODE: VE30 offer for 1 billing period of an All Access Subscription: Annual, 2-Year, or Monthly paid subscriptions only on iflscience.com. Valid from May 1, 2025, until May 24, 2025, 12:00 am EST. To apply the promo code, you must enter it prior to completing checkout. Your credit card will be automatically charged upon checkout completion, and your subscription will continue until you cancel auto-renew. You can cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period, and you will not be charged upon renewal. If you choose to renew, no action is required, and the full amount will be billed at the start of the renewed term. Taxes may apply. Promo codes are not transferable/redeemable for cash or credit. Membership paid subscriptions are only available in Canada, USA, United Kingdom, and Australia. Our standard terms & conditions apply.