From today's featured article
The katipō (Latrodectus katipo) is a species of cobweb spider found only in New Zealand. It inhabits sand dunes close to the seashore and is found on most of New Zealand's coastline, except for the far south and the West Coast. In the South Island and the lower half of the North Island, the female has a distinct red stripe bordered in white running down its abdomen (example pictured); in more northern populations, this stripe is absent or paler. It is most closely related to the Australian redback spider. Like the redback, the katipō is venomous to humans, with its bite being capable of producing the toxic syndrome latrodectism. Bites are very rare and antivenom is available in some hospitals. It mainly feeds on ground-dwelling insects which it catches with an irregular tangled web spun among dune plants. Due to habitat loss, colonisation of their natural habitat by invasive spiders and hybridisation with the redback spider, the katipō population is regarded as declining. ( Full article... )
Did you know ...
- ... that ZTF J1239+8347 (pictured) contains two brown dwarfs orbiting so closely that material flows between them?
- ... that actor and designer Rollo Peters helped transform a barn into a professional theater?
- ... that The Shikoku Shimbun , which published numerous articles about video game addiction, also published an advertisement that says "don't just study, play some games"?
- ... that the Genshin Impact character Gaming was used to promote the art of lion dancing in China?
- ... that a Kanye West song originally titled "Gas Chambers" made the UK and US charts in April 2026?
- ... that Shlomo Erell participated in an attack on Hitler's yacht before being appointed the commander of the Israeli Navy?
- ... that The Behavior of Law argues that people of higher social status are more likely to use the law than people of lower status?
- ... that "Today is the first time I have seen snow falling" were the last words written by a Raja of Kolhapur in his diary?
- ... that the Three Rivers Museum holds an annual event titled "Polar Express Pajama Party"?
In the news
- The Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Gaston Browne (pictured), wins an increased majority in the general election .
- J. Craig Venter , who led the first commercial sequencing of the human genome, dies at the age of 79.
- A train collision near Jakarta, Indonesia, kills 16 people and injures 91 others.
- In the London Marathon , Sabastian Sawe and Tigst Assefa win the men's and women's races, both setting world record times.
On this day
May 5 : Lixia begins in China (2026); Uyghur Doppa Day in China; Cinco de Mayo in Mexico and the United States
- 1654 – Cromwell's Act of Grace , which pardoned the people of Scotland for any crimes committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, was proclaimed in Edinburgh.
- 1936 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: Italian troops (pictured) captured the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa unopposed.
- 1961 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital spaceflight on board Freedom 7 , becoming the second person to travel into outer space.
- 2020 – Philippine broadcast network ABS-CBN was forced to go off-air by the National Telecommunications Commission after Congress failed to renew its franchise granted in 1995.
- Guru Amar Das (b. 1479)
- Charlotte of Bourbon (d. 1582)
- Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler (b. 1883)
- Chris Birchall (b. 1984)
Today's featured picture
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Impossible colors are colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Different color theories suggest hypothetical colors that humans are incapable of perceiving for one reason or another, and fictional colors are routinely created in popular culture. While some such colors have no basis in reality, phenomena such as cone-cell fatigue enable colors to be perceived in certain circumstances that would not be otherwise. This image presents three demonstration template for viewing chimerical colors, a type of impossible color that can only be seen when cone cells in the eyes become fatigued. Such colors are perceived after steadily looking at a strong color (in the left column), then looking a different color (in the middle column) once the cone cells have become fatigued. These templates demonstrate three categories of chimerical colors: stygian colors, which are those that are simultaneously dark and impossibly saturated; self-luminous colors, which have a glowing effect even on non-luminescent media; and hyperbolic colors, which have a saturation beyond the gamut allowed under trichromatic theory. Template credit: Craig DeForest, after Paul Churchland; edited by Alexander Zhikun He Recently featured: |