Experts say the creature looks just like a floating buttocks.

Deep beneath the ocean’s surface, in the Midnight Zone where no sunlight reaches, scientists have discovered a peculiar creature.

Known as the pigbutt worm, Chaetopterus pugaporcinus was first spotted in 2001 off the coast of California. This translucent, marble-sized blob immediately baffled researchers.

Its rounded shape and distinctive lobes earned it the humorous nickname, as it amusingly resembles a pig’s behind. Marine biologists have since identified it as a type of bristle worm, though its exact life stage—whether adult or larval—remains uncertain. Unlike most of its relatives, which burrow into the seafloor, this worm floats freely in the water column, showcasing an unusual adaptation known as neoteny, where juvenile traits persist into adulthood.

Beyond its quirky appearance, the pigbutt worm possesses remarkable survival skills. Scientists have observed it generating mucus nets to trap marine snow and organic debris for sustenance. Even more astonishingly, it glows in the dark—flashing blue bioluminescence when disturbed, while its mucus net sometimes emits green light, likely as a defense mechanism against predators.

NETL helped scientists at Montana State University evaluate microscopic cementing agents developed by the University that can more effectively penetrate microfractures to improve underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂), enhance gas well efficiency and seal fluid pathways in shales fractured for natural gas recovery.

The research targeted use of a process called ureolysis-induced calcium carbonate precipitation (UICP), which produces a biomineral solution that can reduce undesired fluid flow. This could enable the more effective restimulation of previously hydraulically fractured shale formations and reduce flow through fractured rocks above storage formations.

The collaborative project involved researchers at Montana State, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NETL and was supported by EPSCoR, a National Science Foundation program that improves research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions and a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program that supports Ph.D. thesis research.

A new bill introduced into the US Senate claims to make us safer. Instead, it would destroy all virology research, and for no real cause.

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A low-dose, single-exposure electron diffraction approach is used to reveal the dislocation character and operative slip systems in beam-sensitive molecular crystals.

Lead-208 is the heaviest known doubly magic nucleus and its structure is therefore of special interest. Despite this magicity, which acts to provide a strong restorative force toward sphericity, it is known to exhibit both strong octupole correlations and some of the strongest quadrupole collectivity observed in doubly magic systems. In this Letter, we employ state-of-the-art experimental equipment to conclusively demonstrate, through four Coulomb-excitation measurements, the presence of a large, negative, spectroscopic quadrupole moment for both the vibrational octupole 3_1^- and quadrupole 2_1^+$ state, indicative of a preference for prolate deformation of the states.