The megalodon may have looked very different than we thought
From natural history museums to the silver screen, this colossal shark, which went extinct over three million years ago, has been depicted as one of the most terrifying and ferocious creatures to ever roam the planet.
However, new research from the University of California, Riverside, published Monday in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, could forever change our perception of 'The Meg.'
Until now, the megalodon has been envisioned as a much larger version of the great white shark with a similarly chunky body type. Typical methods of estimating its shape and size have relied on teeth and limited vertebral specimens since no complete adult skeletons have been found.
'By examining megalodon's vertebral column and comparing it to over 100 species of living and extinct sharks, (researchers) determined a more accurate proportion for the head, body, and tail,' UCR stated.
Research now suggests that the megalodon more closely resembled a lemon shark with a much longer body—perhaps similar to a large whale—measuring about 80 feet in length and weighing 94 tons. Its slender body was designed for energy-efficient cruising rather than short, high-speed attacks.
'You lead with your head when you swim because it's more efficient than leading with your stomach,' said Tim Higham, a UCR biologist who contributed insights to the study. 'Similarly, evolution often moves toward efficiency.'
For comparison, great white sharks can grow up to 20 feet long, however its body is better suited for bursts of speed.
Researchers also believe that a newborn megalodon could have been nearly 13 feet long, roughly the size of an adult great white shark.
'It is entirely possible that megalodon pups were already taking down marine mammals shortly after being born,' said Phillip Sternes, a shark biologist at UCR.
UCR noted that the study offers insight into why only certain animals, beyond the megalodon, can evolve to massive sizes.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI-powered brain implant restores speech in paralysis patient after 18 years
Eighteen years after a brainstem stroke left her with near-total paralysis, Ann Johnson heard her voice again, thanks to a brain-computer interface (BCI) that decodes speech directly from brain activity. Johnson, then 30, was a high school teacher and coach in Saskatchewan, Canada, when the 2005 stroke caused locked-in syndrome, a rare condition in which a person remains conscious but unable to speak or move. Since then, she has communicated using an eye-tracking system at just 14 words per minute, a far from natural conversational speed of about 160 words per minute. In 2022, she became the third participant in a clinical trial led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco aimed at restoring speech for people with severe paralysis. The team used a neuroprosthesis that records signals from the speech motor cortex, bypassing damaged neural pathways to produce audible words. Turning thought into voice The device relies on an implant placed over the brain's speech production area. When Johnson attempts to speak, the implant detects neural activity and sends the signals to a connected computer. An AI decoder then translates these signals into text, speech, or facial animation on a digital avatar. Originally, the system used sequence-to-sequence AI models that required an entire sentence before producing output, creating an eight-second delay. In March 2025, the team reported in Nature Neuroscience that they had switched to a streaming architecture, allowing near-real-time translation with just a one-second delay. To personalize the experience, researchers recreated Johnson's voice from a recording of her 2004 wedding speech. She also selected an avatar to match her appearance, which can mimic facial expressions such as smiling or frowning. Engineering for everyday use Lead researchers Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Gopala Anumanchipalli (UC Berkeley), neurosurgeon Edward Chang (UCSF), and Berkeley Ph.D. student Kaylo Littlejohn say the goal is to make neuroprostheses 'plug-and-play,' turning them from experimental systems into standard clinical tools. Future improvements could include wireless implants, eliminating the need for direct computer connections, and photorealistic avatars for more natural interactions. The team envisions digital 'clones' that replicate not just a user's voice but also their conversational style and visual cues. The breakthrough could help a relatively small but highly vulnerable population, including people who lose the ability to speak due to stroke, ALS, or injury, reclaim faster, more natural communication. Researchers emphasize that the system only works when the participant intentionally tries to speak, preserving user agency and privacy. For Johnson, the trial was life-changing. 'I want patients to see me and to know their lives are not over now,' she said in a statement to UCSF. She hopes to one day work as a counselor in a rehabilitation center, using a neuroprosthesis to talk with clients. With latency down to about a second and ongoing advances in AI modeling, the researchers believe practical, real-time speech restoration could arrive within just a few years, reshaping how technology gives voice to those who have lost their own. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
A Dark Mirror Universe May Be Hiding Right Next Door, Scientists Say
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: We have not been able to detect dark matter yet, even though there are many aspects of the universe that suggest the existence of invisible matter. In one new theory, it is possible that dark matter exists in a mirror universe where there are only dark versions of forces that hold the universe together. Another new theory suggests that dark matter may have been created at the edge of the universe right after the Big Bang, then radiated into space as the universe expanded. Hypothetically, dark matter is supposed to exist, even though it has managed to elude every single detection attempt so far. It neither absorbs nor reflects light. Still, something has to be generating enough gravity to hold together immense galaxies that rotate so fast, they would otherwise end up annihilating themselves. We keep searching for it—but we might be searching in the wrong universe. There might be more exotic explanations for invisible matter that is supposedly right in front of us. Physicist Stefano Profumo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests it could have come from one of two origins. It might be lurking in a dark mirror universe contained within the visible universe. The merging of dark matter black holes in that realm may cause gravitational waves which can be detected. If this is starting to sound like one of the multiple mirrorverses in Stephen King's The Dark Tower, think of it as a shadow version of the same rogue chasing the same man in black through space and time. 'The nature of dark matter remains one of the most pressing mysteries in modern cosmology and particle physics,' Profumo said in a study recently published in Physical Review D. 'While numerous candidates have been proposed, from weakly interacting massive particles to axions, the search for the fundamental nature of the dark matter and of the 'dark sector' it resides in continues.' Alternately, dark matter particles might have formed at the edge of the observable universe, or the cosmic horizon, as it expanded at breakneck speed right after the Big Bang. Profumo thinks these particles might still be radiated into space similarly to how Hawking radiation describes particles evaporating from right outside the event horizon of a black hole. The cosmic horizon is something like the universe's equivalent to a black hole's event horizon. Though Profumo admits both of his theories are highly speculative, they are not impossible. He was inspired by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which explains how the strong force of gravity binds together the quarks and gluons which make up protons and neutrons. The dark mirror universe he envisions has its own versions of particles and forces that operate just like those in the universe we exist in. Dark quarks (which create protons) and gluons (which glue quarks together into protons) should be able to bind and create baryons such as protons and neutrons, which are the dark reflection of the baryons we can detect. Black holes (or at least objects that behave much like them) could have formed from dark baryons in the nascent universe. While there have been theories about primordial black holes forming as dark matter, researchers have seen them as the product of density fluctuations rather than emerging from a mirror universe. If clouds of dark baryons became dense and massive enough, they would have collapsed into themselves and formed nano-black hole. Enough of these black holes can contain all the dark matter in existence. With such a behemoth amount of gravity, they would also have a profound effect on the shape of the universe. Another possibility that Profumo explores is dark matter particles radiating from the cosmic horizon. The universe is already thought to have fast-forwarded through a period of inflation after its birth, and he argues that in the beginning, because it expanded faster than the speed of light, dark matter particles were released from its edges. While inflation has slowed down dramatically since then, the universe and the very fabric of spacetime are still expanding, which can be seen by the increasing distance between objects that are not gravitationally bound. That means dark matter should keep radiating for as long as expansion continues. 'The underlying mechanism leading to the production of the cosmological dark matter (DM) is at present an open question and a matter of ongoing, intense scrutiny,' Profumo said in a second study also published in Physical Review D. If a mirror universe controlled by the dark side of physics really does exist, is there a portal into it? Maybe the answer to that question will see the light someday. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Meta AI takes first step to superintelligence — and Zuckerberg will no longer release the most powerful systems to the public
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Researchers at Meta claim to have observed the company's artificial intelligence (AI) systems improving themselves without human input. "Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a policy paper published July 30 on the company's website. "The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable." Zuckerberg added that self-improving AI is the first step towards achieving artificial superintelligence (ASI) — an artificial intelligence that is capable of surpassing the cognitive abilities of humans. Broadly speaking, AI researchers consider AI's capabilities in three strata. While current AI models can achieve extraordinary superhuman feats, like predicting protein structures, these capabilities are extremely narrow. In such cases, the system can only outpace humans in one specific area but lacks general intelligence for this capability to apply across different disciplines. The next tier is called artificial general intelligence (AGI), and refers to models that can understand, learn and adapt in much the same way as the human brain. ASI is the final state that Zuckerberg referenced in the blog post, and concerns models that have evolved to far exceed human potential — and could improve themselves at an exponential rate, leading to an "intelligence explosion." Scientists refer to the hypothetical moment that we achieve AGI as the technological singularity. Related: AI is entering an 'unprecedented regime.' Should we stop it — and can we — before it destroys us? Zuckerberg's reference to catching sight of AI self-improvement is not the first time this phenomenon has been spotted. In October 2024, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara published a paper to the preprint arXiv database centered on the notion of self-improvement. In it, they defined, created and tested an AI framework based on the idea of a Gödel Machine — a theoretical device capable of improving itself by rewriting its own code and instructions. Importantly, the machine would only implement a change if it could produce a formal proof that the change would be beneficial. Related: AI could soon think in ways we don't even understand — evading our efforts to keep it aligned — top AI scientists warn The team experimented with an AI framework based on that concept, and proved that their Gödel Agent could improve its own performance in various tasks, including coding, science, math and reasoning. Almost all models are not typically empowered to rewrite their own code. The Gödel Agent could not only access its entire codebase but also the code used to develop improvements, while showing that those improvements were beneficial. The AI consistently showed better performance in key areas than the human-designed agents to which it was compared, according to the said that ASI could represent a transformative step in humanity's technological progress, and that it could lead to the "discovery of new things that aren't imaginable today." RELATED STORIES —New AI system can 'predict human behavior in any situation' with unprecedented degree of accuracy, scientists say —The more advanced AI models get, the better they are at deceiving us — they even know when they're being tested —AI could soon think in ways we don't even understand — evading our efforts to keep it aligned — top AI scientists warn That said, he added that Meta would be far more careful about which models the company chooses to release to the public under an open source framework — meaning anybody could have access to it. "I am extremely optimistic that superintelligence will help humanity accelerate our pace of progress. But perhaps even more important is that superintelligence has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where people will have greater agency to improve the world in the directions they choose," Zuckerberg wrote. "As profound as the abundance produced by AI may one day be, an even more meaningful impact on our lives will likely come from everyone having a personal superintelligence that helps you achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, experience any adventure, be a better friend to those you care about, and grow to become the person you aspire to be."
