BLOG FROM RAKESH KUMAR JHA

  Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new dwarf planet in our solar system, named 2017 OF201. Located far beyond Neptune, it orbits the sun every 25,000 years. Scientists have found evidence of a previously-undetected dwarf planet at the edge of the Solar System. The object, dubbed 2017 OF201, follows an extreme, oblong orbit, taking some 25,000 Earth years to circle the sun. The findings, which were confirmed by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. but have not yet been peer reviewed, were published May 21 on the preprint server arXiv. 017 OF201 is a roughly spherical body about 435 miles (700 kilometers) in diameter, lurking beyond Neptune's orbit. A team of scientists spotted it while poring through archival data from the Blanco telescope in Chile and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope based in Hawaii. The researchers tracked the object's motion across 19 sets of images spanning seven years. At its closest, the dwarf planet orbits at near...

  Clownfish have been shown to shrink in order to survive heat stress and avoid social conflict, Newcastle University research reveals. The fish, recognisable from the starring role in the film 'Finding Nemo', were studied by academics from the universities of Newcastle, Leeds and Boston, USA. The work was conducted in collaboration with Mahonia Na Dari Conservation and Research Centre, in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. The team measured the length of 134 clownfish every month for five months, and monitored the water temperature every 4-6 days, during a marine heatwave which are becoming increasingly common as a result of climate change. Publishing in the journal  Science Advances , they reveal the remarkable ability of clownfish to shrink, i.e. they can get shorter, in response to heat stress. Shrinking increased individuals' chances of surviving the heat stress event by as much as 78%. In a heart-warming discovery, they also show that coordination is important for clownfish...