SuppleMentally Blog

A multimedia supplement to the Mensa Bulletin’s SuppleMentally science column

By John Blinke

October 14, 2025

The red supergiant Betelgeuse has long puzzled astronomers with its strange fluctuations in brightness — was it about to explode, or hiding a secret companion? NASA scientists have now confirmed the latter, photographing a second star nestled within Betelgeuse’s outer atmosphere. Using the Alopeke speckle instrument on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, they combined thousands of ultra-short exposures to reveal the hidden partner.

The companion orbits Betelgeuse every six years and likely causes its flickering brightness — though in about 10,000 years, Betelgeuse will probably consume it.

NASA has the full story here, and astrophysicist YouTuber Space Mog breaks it down in this video.

October 9, 2025

THE FIRST POLYNESIAN ISLAND HOPPERS

Do you wonder how the Polynesian islands were settled in prehistoric times? People had to cross oceans to reach them. Was it luck, or were they able to navigate there? This Skeptic podcast episode is worth hearing.

September 19, 2025

BUNNY VS. SNAKE

There are all kinds of ideas about the great pyramids of ancient Egypt. Professional archaeologists say they were built by powerful rulers as monuments and launch pads to the afterlife. But pyramids also became giant “rob me” signs for thieves. In a YouTube lecture, archaeologist Beth Hart walks through the sequence of development, from ornate wooden pavilions in predynastic times to the massive Fourth Dynasty “Horizon of Khufu” that we call the Great Pyramid of Giza.

September 9, 2025

SOUTHERN MAMMOTHS

Forty thousand years ago, there was a lake north of Mexico City that attracted Colombian mammoths — the big ones: camels, horses, giant sloths — and every other kind of animal ththe carcasses of extinct animals remained and are now being excavated by the hundreds to make room for an airport on a military base. This lake was not a “tar pit” like Le Brea. It was full of sticky mud that small animals could escape. But the giants remained stuck for scientists to unearth. You could say researchers found enough to fill a museum, but the military actually had to build a museum to hold the fossils, and there still is not enough room for them! The excavations are being done by archaeologists because Mexico has plenty of those, and comparatively few paleontologists. The story was highlighted on the Science Magazine Podcast, which dives into the extraordinary scale of the discovery and what it means for our understanding of Ice Age megafauna.

September 16, 2025

THE UNCHAINED GODDESS (1958)

I watched this Bell Science Hour film as a kid, and I think it set me on the course I’m on today. Remarkably, it was already discussing climate change back in 1958.

September 2, 2025

WHY CO₂ MATTERS

At first, I had trouble tracking down Scottish geologist Dr. Iain Stewart (chalk it up to Bing, not him). Once I did, I found his videos refreshingly clear. One short demo in particular stands out: CO₂ absorbing infrared heat. In just a few minutes, Stewart makes visible what we usually can’t see — that carbon dioxide traps heat energy. That supports the idea that CO₂ contributes to global warming.

August 20, 2025

A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE

There was a time, between 635 and 720 million years ago, when the entire Snowball Earth was covered in snow and ice. It is called the Cryogenian Period, and Macroscopic organisms had not evolved yet. But single-celled organisms had evolved, and they persisted through the snowball period. MIT researchers went to the Antarctic to see how life survives there, under Snowball Earth conditions. They found microbes in sun-melted ponds on top of the ice. Every puddle contained eukaryotic life (that is to say, cells with a nucleus), and different ponds had different varieties depending on how salty they were. Dirty ice melted more easily and was more richly inhabited. Geologist Myron Cook explores how the intense glaciation of Snowball Earth flattened mountain ranges and exposed the geological mystery known as the Great Unconformity.”

August 14, 2025

OLD TREES

Science YouTuber Alexis Dahl cheerfully plugs Michigan (my home) every time she gets a chance. Here, she talks about 1,000-year-old cedar trees growing on Michigan cliffs over the Great Lakes.

August 5, 2025

VISITORS

Another interstellar object is heading our way. Is it a spaceship? Is it a comet? University of Nottingham astrophysicist Mike Merrifield unpacks the buzz around 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object to enter our solar system from interstellar space. Unlike ‘Oumuamua or Borisov, 3I/ATLAS appears to follow a hyperbolic trajectory and may have fragmented, fueling speculation about its nature. Merrifield walks viewers through what astronomers do and don’t know, cautioning against jumping to alien megastructure theories just yet, but acknowledging the scientific intrigue such rare visitors bring.

July 23, 2025

PROMISING EV NEWS

According to the Electric Viking channel on YouTube, automaker GM is going all out on electric vehicle design. They have a new compact electric car that claims a range of 745 miles after just 10 minutes of charging. This is possible because the battery runs on 800 volts, which is twice that of most electric cars. Such EVs will require special charging stations and are likely not yet available in the U.S. But now we know this can be done (if reports are accurate).

July 11, 2025

PLUTO ANNIVERSARY

Ten years ago, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Pluto. The mission blew away all expectations of what Kuiper Belt bodies would be like. Scientists had thought of them as boring billiard balls of ice. But Pluto is as diverse as any major planet, with a thin atmosphere and its own kind of tectonic activity. It even has a vast heart-shaped glacier of frozen nitrogen! Check out ScienceNews’s recent retrospective with updates.

June 17, 2025

BATTERIES R US

Hey, boomers — remember when you had to roll out an extension cord to plug in a heavy “portable” drill? Now we use lithium battery-powered tools. Batteries are great these days for tools and cars. According to “Just Have a Think” on YouTube, they’re getting better at an exponentially increasing rate. The price of lithium has plummeted nearly 90 percent since 2022, and newer chemistries are coming out all the time. The International Energy Agency says current global battery production capacity is around 3 terawatt-hours and could triple in five years if planned projects are completed. Leading the charge are companies like BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturer, and CATL, the world’s largest maker of lithium-ion batteries and a key supplier to automakers like Tesla and BMW.

June 10, 2025

POWER PLAY

Walmart has decided that, rather than renting space to EV charging companies, it will install its own vast network of high-speed EV chargers. The retailer plans to have thousands of locations and tens of thousands of chargers available by 2030, although the details depend on local conditions. Each charger will have both a NACS and CCS connector to fit nearly every electric vehicle. Staff from the nearby store will be available for assistance.

May 23, 2025

WISE EATING

Is sugar bad for your health? Not in moderation. However, processed sugars added during manufacturing can be unhealthy due to their high concentration. Our cravings for sugars and fats stem from ancestral survival needs for high-energy foods. Consuming fruits with natural sugars is generally fine, as they come with fiber and nutrients. Dairy milk is beneficial for children who aren’t allergic to it. For those with dairy sensitivities, soy milk is a close nutritional substitute. Almond milk, on the other hand, offers minimal nutritional value, being largely water-based. Establishing healthy eating habits by age 5 is crucial. Children might need to be offered a new food up to seven times before accepting it, so persistence is key.

May 16, 2025

SQUIRREL BOT

Watch a squirrel for a while, and you’ll have to admire its ability to get around. Engineers will be happy if they can duplicate even part of that agility, like leaping to a small perch and sticking the landing. That’s what scientists at the University of California, Berkeley are working toward with their one-legged Salto robot. They’ve taught it to crouch, stand tall, or windmill its arms (really, a weighted pinwheel) to land upright on narrow perches. It turns out one leg is best for jumping extremely high, even if four would help in trickier terrain. –ScienceDaily, March 19, “Squirrel-Inspired Leaping Robot Can Stick a Landing on a Branch” (Science Robotics)

May 9, 2025

ONE-IN-A-BILLION MOMENTS IN NATURE

What’s the last thing you want to see right before skiing down a glacier?

April 28, 2025

ADVENTURES IN COMPOSTING

You can turn table scraps and yard debris into soil conditioner. But too much enthusiasm can trip you.

I bought a compost tumbler online. It holds a bushel of material and is designed to tumble to mix the compost. In my first season, I had too much brown material like dead leaves, paper shreds, and chipped-up branches and not enough topsoil. So I had messy, stinky goo to deal with. The usual recipe calls for an equal mix of slowly processing brown material and fast stuff like grass clippings, table scraps, and freshly pulled weeds. In addition, you need lots of topsoil. I mean LOTS of topsoil. This provides organisms that decompose the compost, and it physically breaks it up so it doesn’t clot too much. In my experience, the right amount looks like there is all soil in the tumbler. It should hide most of the other contents. You can dig a hole to get soil or buy some bags of cheap topsoil at a nursery.

Tumble the heck out of the mixed stuff at least once per week. You must also keep it damp enough to process. Just squirt it with a garden hose and tumble for a while to mix. Not too wet or it can rot. It should feel like a wrung-out rag if you squeeze it in your hand.

My tumbler came on skids. That’s fine when it is mostly empty. But the compost gets heavy when it is wet. I want to move it around to avoid killing a spot on the lawn, so I made a platform with wheels and can push it around every couple of days. That works fine, but I wish I had wider wheels.

How do you know when the compost is done processing? Who cares? Stop at the end of summer, or any time before it freezes solid, because you have to make room for next season’s batch. At the end of the summer it is mostly black and looks like soil. If there are a few unprocessed carrots, you can live with it. Scavengers will probably take any chewable bits that are left. Spread the compost on low spots on your lawn or add it to the garden. You can screen lumps out of it through wide carpenter cloth if you want to use it for lawn fill.

Last note: You can add meat scraps to compost. But it might attract raccoons or bears (if you live in that kind of neighborhood). It might be better to put those items in the garbage and just process veggie stuff.

Pro tip No. 1: You will add scraps to the composter starting from the time you dumped the last batch, probably in the fall. You do not have to wet it because it will be frozen all winter anyway. If you add stuff dry, you can tumble it effectively and it will be lighter when you have to move the tumbler around.

Pro tip No. 2: Don’t bother with additives other than topsoil and compostable scraps. You don’t need worms or nutrients. Just trust Nature to know her job.

April 15, 2025

HOPEWELL CIRCLES

Much of North America was once covered with ceremonial earthworks created by Indigenous peoples like the Hopewell culture. They had up to 10,000 mounds just in Ohio before European settlers arrived. The Great Circle Earthworks near Newark consisted of earthen circles, squares, and an octagon figure, all covering 5 square miles. First reported by settlers in 1800, the site might have served as a center of philosophical or religious inspiration, since tribute items seem to have flowed into the area but not out of it. Hopewell ceremonial culture could have been similar to one of the large religions of today, with churches in many places sharing more or less the same philosophical message, modified locally as needed. Farmers leveled many of the structures of the Great Circle Earthworks, and railroads used the heaped-earth burial mounds as a handy source of fill for their train tracks. The few remaining mounds are now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

April 4, 2025

PYRAMID SCHEMES

April 1, 2025

INFRARED RADIATION ABSORPTION BY CO2

One of my favorite videos relating to infrared theory and climate change: Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth, UK, demonstrates infrared radiation absorption by carbon dioxide.

John Blinke has been the Mensa Bulletin’s science editor since 1984 and is a two-time recipient of American Mensa’s National Service Award. He lives in the wilderness of Michigan and keeps busy with a wide range of hobbies, including astronomy, RC models, drones, photography, model rockets, and fooling around with microscopes and other scientific gear. John spent 50 years as an electrician with Ford Motor Company. He holds a BA in English from Wayne State University, completed the UAW-Ford electrical apprenticeship, is a certified Level II Thermographer, and has an Extra Class amateur radio license. Email him at BulletinSupplementally@us.mensa.org.