{"id":498446,"date":"2026-06-13T23:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T23:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498446\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T23:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T23:38:14","slug":"this-week-in-science-worlds-biggest-scorpion-a-whale-graveyard-and-more-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498446\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Science: World’s Biggest Scorpion, a Whale Graveyard, And More! : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week in science: A world record, a world first, and much more!<\/p>\n

We start with a scorpion you absolutely don’t want to meet.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, you probably won’t have to worry about running into this critter. After all, this scorpion lived 415 million years ago. Let’s just say it’s big. Scary big.<\/p>\n

This week, we’ve also got news about a world-first gene therapy that could reverse some symptoms of aging.<\/p>\n

Despite the considerable promise, it’s worth noting that the technique comes with substantial risk. We can explain.<\/p>\n

Also: What happens when you simulate a nuclear fireball in the lab?<\/p>\n

Researchers found something unexpected when they simulated that very thing \u2013 and the discovery helps us understand more about the mysterious phenomena that take place during a nuclear event.<\/p>\n

Watch the video below for all the details, and read on for even more in science news!<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen>Scientists Identify The World’s Biggest Known Scorpion, The Size of a Dog\"PraearcturusAn artist’s impression of Praearcturus gigas. (Franz Anthony<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The world’s biggest scorpion has been identified: a dog-sized critter that was one of the first apex land predators 415 million years ago.<\/p>\n

“Praearcturus lived when life on land was just starting out and the ancestors of reptiles, mammals and birds were yet to leave the water,” says lead author Richie Howard, a paleontologist from the Natural History Museum in the UK.<\/p>\n

“It suggests that this species might have grown so big because there weren’t any other large predators, allowing it to dominate its environment.”<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

World First: Patient Receives High-Risk Therapy to Make Cells Young Again\"World(Siarhei_Fetisenkov\/Creatas Video+\/Getty Images Plus)<\/p>\n

A world-first gene therapy has entered human trials. The hope is to reverse age-related vision loss, but it may be ‘high risk’.<\/p>\n

It’s one of the most anticipated clinical trials<\/a> of the year, and some think it could be a pivotal moment for the field of longevity research.<\/p>\n

Other scientists argue it is “extraordinarily high-risk” and are skeptical it will work at all.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scientists Simulated Nuclear Fallout in The Lab And Got a Surprise\"NuclearA diagram of the plasma flow reactor used to examine particles as they move from a hot plasma (left) to a cooler condensed state (right). (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Scientists have simulated nuclear fallout in the lab. The experiments revealed that cesium cools and mixes in an unexpected way.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

“By studying these processes in a controlled system, we can replace assumptions with measurements, improve the models used to interpret nuclear debris, and support decision-making when it matters most,” says chemist Rakia Dhaoui.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Huge Psilocybin Dose Has Incredible Effect on Elderly Dementia Patient\"Huge(James MacDonald\/Bloomberg Creative\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

An 80-year-old dementia patient temporarily regained some cognitive function after a huge dose of psilocybin<\/a>, a case study reports.<\/p>\n

Before the experimental treatment, the patient could only speak in monosyllables, rarely initiated communication with others, and was very dependent on assistance for basic activities of daily living.<\/p>\n

Roughly 19 hours after the oral dose, the woman suddenly began to talk to herself. She kept doing so for several hours.<\/p>\n

Over the next few days, the elderly patient was reportedly able to control her bladder, dress and walk by herself, and engage in conversation, holding eye contact and smiling back.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Giant Whale Graveyard Found in The Ocean Is Like a Drowned City of The Dead\"whales(Gerard Soury\/The Image Bank\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A giant ‘whale graveyard’ has been discovered at a depth of 7,000 m. It contains the remains of almost 500 whales, up to 5.3 million years old.<\/p>\n

“These findings,” writes a team led by deep-sea scientist Xiaotong Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, “reshape the understanding of the limits and biogeography of whale-fall ecosystems and establish some deep-sea floors as a fossil archive for tracing cetacean evolution over geological time.”<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Commonly Used Sleep Aid May Have a Dangerous Side Effect\"High(Drazen Zigic\/iStock\/Getty Images Plus)<\/p>\n

A drug called quetiapine, commonly used as a sleep aid, has been found to significantly impair users’ reaction times the next day.<\/p>\n

On a 10-minute psychomotor vigilance test, participants were slower to react after taking quetiapine compared with after a placebo<\/a>. Their attention lapses during the test also rose from a median of 2 after placebo to 10 after quetiapine.<\/p>\n

In the driving simulation, participants drifted an extra 33 percent farther from the center of their lane, on average, after being given quetiapine compared with placebo.<\/p>\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week in science: A world record, a world first, and much more! We start with a scorpion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,2209,82,263],"class_list":["post-498446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}