Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that got ID\u2019d, caught on camera, internally probed, and married off.First, scientists have confirmed the identities of four sailors who died in a grisly Victorian voyage. Then: the sights and sounds of an Arctic seafloor, a glimpse into the guts of ice giants, and a wedding kiss of death.As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.Putting a face, and names, to lost Arctic sailorsStenton, Douglas R. et al. \u201cDNA identifications of three 1845 Franklin expedition sailors from HMS Erebus.\u201d Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.Stenton, Douglas R. et al \u201c\u2018Some very hard ground to heave\u2019: DNA identification of Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, HMS Terror.\u201d Polar Record.Scientists have identified four men who died in Sir John Franklin\u2019s disastrous expedition of 1845, a British mission to chart a passage through the Arctic that ended in misery, starvation, and cannibalism, leaving no survivors.\u201cSince the late nineteenth century the coast of Erebus Bay on King William Island, Nunavut, has been a focal point for historical and archaeological investigations of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage expedition,\u201d said researchers led by Douglas Stenton of the University of Waterloo. \u201cIts significance comes from the nature and volume of materials derived from an extraordinary and ultimately tragic event: the fatal attempt by 105 surviving sailors to escape their icebound ships in the spring of 1848 by walking hundreds of kilometres south to the mainland of North America.\u201dGraves at Franklin Camp on Beechey Island, Nunavut, Canada that memorialize Franklin expedition crew members. Image: Gordon LeggettUsing DNA extracted from skeletal remains, a study has confirmed that the 180-year-old bones belong to the able seaman William Orren, the ship’s boy David Young, the officers’ steward John Bridgens, and captain of the foretop Harry Peglar. Orren, Young, and Bridgens served on HMS Erebus, the expedition\u2019s flagship, and their remains ended up in Erebus Bay on Canada\u2019s King William Island.\u00a0The remains of Peglar, who served on the secondary vessel HMS Terror, were found nearly 80 miles away from the others and are reported in a separate study led by Stenton. Stenton\u2019s team has previously identified the Erebus engineer John Gregory as well as the Captain of Erebus, James Fitzjames, whose remains were subject to cannibalism.The researchers matched the DNA of these sailors to samples provided by living descendants or relatives to conclusively confirm their identities. In addition to solving a scientific mystery, this process literally puts a face to one man as the team included a reconstructed portrait of David Young, who was around 20 when he died.David Young, Boy 1st Class from the HMS Erebus, in a 2D Forensic Facial Reconstruction. Image: Diana Trepkov, Investigative Forensic Artist\u00a0The results also help to piece together key details of the nightmarish fates that befell these sailors as they endured starvation, exposure, disease, and despair.\u00a0\u201cFor their descendants, the identifications of John Bridgens, David Young, and William Orren reveal that, like John Gregory, they had survived the first three years of the expedition,\u201d the researchers said. \u201cThey also unveil the locations where their deaths occurred, and the fact that none of the men were alone when they died.\u201dPeglar did die alone, however, and he remains the only member of the Terror crew who has been identified. In the study about his farflung remains, the team concludes with a passage Peglar wrote a few days before the survivors abandoned their stuck vessels and embarked on the retreat that would ultimately kill them all.\u00a0Peglar noted the need to procure new boots as \u201cwe have got some very hard ground to heave.\u201dIn other news\u2026Scenes from an Arctic seafloorPodolskiy, Evgeny A. et al. \u201cSeafloor video-acoustic monitoring in a Greenlandic glacial fjord records hyperbenthos, backward-swimming fish, and narwhals.\u201d PLOS One.Though the Arctic has many deadly perils, this region is also home to some of the most amazing lifeforms found anywhere on the planet. Scientists have now captured rare footage and recordings of \u201ca highly turbulent environment\u201d on the seafloor of a glacial fjord in northwest Greenland, according to a study.\u00a0Here, at depths of about 850 feet, the songs of narwhals reverberate along the seafloor, crustaceans called copepods move in sudden hops, and \u201cmarine snow\u201d made of particulate matter falls in blizzardlike bursts. A snailfish was also caught on tape making a particularly memorable exit.\u201cOne snailfish showed peculiar backward swimming, passively drifting backward with the current,\u201d said researchers led by Evgeny A. Podolskiy of Hokkaido University. \u201cIt curled its tail and remained motionless for at least 16\u2009seconds before disappearing from view.\u201d\u00a0You\u2019ve heard of the Irish Goodbye and the Minnesota Goodbye, but I\u2019m not sure anything can top the Greenlandic Glacial Fjord Snailfish Goodbye.The flavorful fillings of ice giantsRamirez, Vanesa et al. \u201cReassessing planetary composition: Evidence of rock-dominated envelopes in Uranus and Neptune.\u201d Astronomy & Astrophysics.\u00a0What\u2019s inside Uranus? Or Neptune, for that matter? Nobody really knows, and we have to rely on models until someone can figure out how to get a direct look inside the guts of these ice giants.\u00a0To that end, researchers ran simulations of the possible evolution and composition of the two planets\u2019 interiors based in part on observations of their atmospheres. The results suggest that \u201cthe deep interiors of the two planets exhibit distinct compositions\u201d with Neptune having \u201crelatively rock-rich mantles\u2026whereas Uranus is inferred to have more ice-rich mantles,\u201d according to researchers led by Vanesa Ramirez of Leiden University.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOur results indicate fundamental differences in the internal architectures of Uranus and Neptune, challenging the traditional view of these planets as compositional twins,\u201d the team added.To put in confectionary terms, Neptune appears to be more of a rocky road, while Uranus may be a refreshing ice slushy. Either way, the study underscores how much there is left to learn about these solar system worlds.Mob Wives, but it\u2019s scienceCatino, Maurizio et al. \u201cMarrying for power: Gendered alliances in mafias.\u201d PLOS One.In a genuinely gangster new study, scientists took a whack at unraveling the marital power dynamics at work within the ‘Ndrangheta mafia syndicate, an infamous crime ring built around familial ties.\u00a0\u201cInterfamily marriages have long been recognized as a strategic resource in mafia organizations,\u201d said researchers led by Maurizio Catino of the University of Milano-Bicocca. \u201cDrawing on judicial records documenting\u2026906 marriages among 623 \u2019Ndrangheta clans, we analyze how matrimonial ties relate to power and cohesion within the organization.\u201dWhile nuptials between the most powerful clans are important for group cohesion, the team found that the marriages among less influential families were the real \u201cload-bearing\u201d relationships in the network. In part, this is because boss families tended to be \u201cassociated with redundant, overlapping unions\u201d whereas there is more elasticity in the outer circles.Say hello to my little chart. Image: Catino, Maurizio et al.The study is packed with wild and often disturbing anecdotes\u2014and some that seem directly lifted from a Scorsese flick.\u00a0For instance, take the case of Emanuele Mancuso, whose aunt tried to dissuade him from cooperating with law enforcement with this pitch-perfect guilt trip: \u201cHow is your mother doing? She\u2019s not well! She knows she no longer has a son, how do you think she feels?\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s stressful enough to plan a wedding without the additional pressure of figuring out how you will fit into an international criminal syndicate. You can only hope the union will end in holy (not holey) matrimony.\u00a0Thanks for reading! See you next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"