Weekly Webcrawl: April 18, 2014

Just a pretty picture of a jellyfish from the California Academy of Sciences. Photo by Sonny Abesamis via Flickr.

Just a pretty picture of a jellyfish from the California Academy of Sciences. Photo by Sonny Abesamis via Flickr.

It was a big week for potential life-supporting conditions in space. Scientists found that Pluto may have a deep, underground ocean, which could explain it’s unique relationship with it’s moon, Charon. And they also discovered a distant planet called Kepler-186f that looks more similar to Earth than anything they’ve seen before.

It seems hard to believe that one of the most fundamental processes in human life–namely fertilization–is still so poorly understood. Well, British scientists gleaned a little more insight this week when they discovered how sperm and egg cells recognize each other, which could mean big things for birth control and fertility treatments.

Here’s a little more quirky experiment we learned about this week: Italian “embodiment” researchers convinced people their hands were made of stone.

And here’s a freaking awesome gif-gallery of MRI scans of fruits and vegetables for your viewing pleasure. Bon appetit!