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The Phenomena of Sharks Ingesting CocaineCocaine Shark sounds like a natural sequel to the movieCocaine Bear, and sadly this one would also be loosely "based on a true story." Between 2021 and 2023, scientists analyzed the tissues of more than a dozen Brazilian sharpnose sharks they bought from fishing boats in Brazil. These small sharks are endangered, but that doesn't stop them from being harvested. All of the sharks tested positive for cocaine in their tissues. The results showed an average of 23 micrograms per fish, which is considered a trace amount. But it shows how cocaine is polluting our waterways and making its way into fish. Also consider that these sharks were alive when caught. We have no idea how much a shark could ingest before it dies. Cocaine is a growing ocean pollutant, since it is shipped by boat and illegal. At signs of pursuit, the cargo can be tossed overboard, leaving large bales of the drug to infiltrate seawater and all that live in it. This kind of research is in its infancy, and further study is needed to see how cocaine will affect endangered species and our food supply. Read more about the cocaine found in sharks at Popular Science. -via Damn Interesting (Image credit: D Ross Robertson) 

16-inch-long Hairball Removed from Woman's StomachA 24-year-old woman in Ecuador was suffering from weight loss, pain, vomiting, and an inability to eat. She also had a hard stomach. Doctors at Verdi Cevallos Balda General Hospital in Portoviejo could feel the mass inside of her. In a 45-minute operation, they pulled a two-pound bezoar, or hairball, out of her stomach. The mass was 16 inches long, in the shape of her stomach and had protruded into the intestine. The medical report doesn't tell us how the hair was ingested, although it was estimated to be gathering for two years. A psychological condition called trichophagia is an eating disorder in which the patient is compelled to swallow hair. This woman was said to have a "psychoemotional ailment" that wasn't identified to the public. However, she is undergoing followup care. Read more about the case at Gizmodo. Be warned that there is a picture of the hairball. (Unrelated image credit: Bobjgalindo)

But Honestly, How Often Should You Poop? Once upon a time, TV ads made it seem necessary to be "regular," because there were so many products for "irregularity." But even if you have bowel movements at the same frequency over time, what is the proper frequency? Ads don't tell us, but science is working on it. People vary widely in how often they poop, and that may have some effect on our health. A new study published in the journal Cell tracked nearly 4,000 people to compare the frequency of their bowel movements and their health. The frequency ranged from one to two poops a week to diarrhea. The sweet spot for optimum health turns out to be one or two poops a day. So what if don't fit into that sweet spot? You might try more fiber, more water, and regular exercise. Extreme variations can indicate health problems, or even cause health problems. Read what those are and how your pooping schedule can change your body chemistry at BBC Science Focus.(Image credit: Lee Coursey) 

How Should We Define a "Planet"?Back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union laid out the standards for defining what is and what is not a planet, and Pluto didn't make the grade. A hue and cry went up from Pluto fans and those who didn't want to learn a new mnemonic, but Pluto still remains a dwarf planet, excluded from the pantheon of the solar system. The IAU is holding its General Assembly next month, and one of the issues will be a new definition of the word "planet." The new parameters that astronomers want for the definition will not help Pluto. It won't affect any of the planets in our solar system. But it may help define the nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered so far, and the ones yet to be discovered. Therefore, it will have to cover the definition of a star that a planet is orbiting, and stars come in all kinds. The new definition has a lower and upper limit to a planet's size, too. Those are things that we never had to ponder before, since we only knew nine, er, eight planets. Read about the proposed new definition of "planet" and what it means for interstellar research at Gizmodo.(Image credit: NASA/JPL) 

Conquering Olympic Swimming, with Math!In 2014, an Emory student majoring in physics and math was also a walk-on member of the school's swim team. Andrew Wilson got interested in using math to improve his swimming, and won the national collegiate swimming championship in 2016, and went on to earn a gold medal at the 2021 Olympics. His math professor who collaborated on Wilson's project, Ken Ono, is a technical consultant for the 2024 US Olympic swimming team. Ono is now with the University of Virginia, which sent a record number of swimmers to the US women's swimming team in both 2021 and 2024. Ono studies the data on talented swimmers, and applies Newton’s laws of motion to calculate acceleration, deceleration, and drag, and designs ways to improve all three to optimize a swimmer's speed through the water. Ono talked with Quanta magazine to explain how this project began, what data they analyze, and how physics can be used to improve a swimmer's performance. Read it, and then when the Paris Olympics swimming competitions begin on July 27, we'll see how UVA swimmers fare against the rest of the world. -via Real Clear Science(Image credit: Jorge mello ej)

New Species of Pterosaur Decribed as "Demon Pelican"A recently discovered species of prehistoric pterosaur had a 24-inch jaw full of sharp teeth and a wingspan of up to 40 feet. The fossils of this pterosaur were found in the outback of western Queensland, Australia. It is the most complete set of pterosaur bones ever found in Australia, and the species has been dubbed Haliskia peterseni. PhD candidate Adele Pentland and her team from Curtin University described H. peterseni as a sort of "demonic pelican" in the paper published in the journal Scientific Reports/Springer Nature. You can imagine the prey this reptile could hold in those jaws. Pterosaurs are the first vertebrates to fly, before birds ever existed. The specimen of H. peterseni under study lived around 100 million years ago. Read more about this new discovery at ABC.-via Strange Company (Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto)