Sea Grant: A Science Partnership Serving America’s Coasts - NOAA (.gov)

Credit: Jeffry Madrigal. Baby manta rays escape predators by avoiding them until they grow large enough for a face-off, a new study has found. Tracking data shows that young giant manta rays in Central America strictly stick to comparatively safe coastal areas for the first few years of their life. When they’re large enough that natural enemies are a lesser concern, they leave these sanctuaries and embark on journeys spanning hundreds of kilometers. This shift in space use allows mantas to grow in safety before facing another type of danger in the open oceans: industrial fisheries and vessel strikes in unprotected waters. The authors say underwater corridors are needed to protect adult mantas on their treks. Giant manta rays can grow up to nine meters long with a disc size of seven meters across and weigh up to 2,000kg. This size leaves them with very few natural enemies once they reach adulthood at around eight to ten years old. But giant manta ray babies, called pups, cannot rely on their size to protect them from predators that live in the open ocean, including several species of shark and orcas.

One of the manta rays tracked in the study. Credit: Jeffry Madrigal Giant manta rays can grow up to nine meters (30 feet) long with a disk size of seven meters (23 feet) across and weigh up to 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds). This size leaves them with very few natural enemies once they reach adulthood at around eight to 10 years old. But giant manta ray babies, called pups, cannot rely on their size to protect them from predators that live in the open ocean, including several species of shark and orcas.

Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… Prototype solid-state cells from NASA's SPEARS project survived minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit without damage and ran, at reduced performance, down to minus 112 degrees.

Engineers introduce a 3D-printed, hybrid aluminum-and-rubber cloaking device that blocks an object’s thermal signature by guiding heat around it, rendering it invisible to infrared cameras. Credit: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. An object doesn’t have to be visible to give away its location. Sometimes, the way it disrupts the flow of heat is enough to reveal that something is hiding there, much to the despair of camouflaged soldiers who have to endure thermal vision drones on the battlefield. Now, engineers have developed a device that can make that thermal signature almost disappear (although sadly it won’t work for infantry).