Image: iStock

Meet your personality, for the first time

Myers-Briggs. Rorschach inkblots. Astrology. There are many ways people have tried to sort, well, other people, and explain the idiosyncrasies of individual expression and temperament. But now researchers have revealed some types that may prove scientifically valid: reserved, role model, average and self-centered. The researchers mined the self-reported personality traits of more than a million people and tasked a machine learning algorithm with identifying clusters of traits. With some tweaking, out popped the four personality types with one -- average -- predominating. Is it a new, accurate evaluation tool or just another new phrenology? Time -- and more data -- will tell.

Image: Alstom

World's first hydrogen trains hit the rails

Locomotives are the original hybrids -- they've been pairing diesel and batteries for decades. But some new trains in Germany are even cleaner, employing only hydrogen in fuel cells to generate the electricity to power locomotion. The exhaust? Water. The trains can travel 1,000 kilometers between refuelings and are now serving passengers in Germany.

Image: Craig Foster

World's oldest known human drawing

Some 73,000 years ago, a member of our species sat down with some red ocher and used it to scrawl on a piece of rock. Though it may not look like much, that makes this rock the oldest known piece of art. Discovered in Blombos Cave in South Africa, the artwork was found in the same place researchers have uncovered shells with holes punched in them as well as pieces of ocher itself. It seems our ancestors were a crafty bunch ... or at least doodlers. 

Recently discovered

First private moon flight passenger to invite creative guests
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Monday that he plans to blast off on the first-ever private commercial trip around the moon and will invite six to eight artists, architects, designers and other creative people on the weeklong journey "to inspire the dreamer in all of us." The SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket is scheduled to make the trip in 2023, company founder Elon Musk announced. (Associated Press)

3 major cartels exposed for large shipments of illegal ivory
By genetically matching elephant tusks from large ivory seizures and comparing this information to details including the ivory's shipping port of export, researchers have exposed the three major exporters illegally smuggling the greatest amount of ivory out of Africa in a paper published on Wednesday. Their work reveals how tusks from the same elephant are often shipped by the same trafficker in separate shipments. The researchers hope the data presented in their paper can lead to a more direct way to police this illegal trade, and further, that it can help strengthen ongoing cases against particular cartels by tying their operators to large ivory seizures. (EurekAlert)

Blob-like Dickinsonia was one of earth's earliest animals
In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers used modern techniques to take a fresh look at Dickinsonia, a creature that predates the Cambrian explosion -- and one that has stumped scientists ever since. Was it an animal, protist, fungi or something else entirely? Mounting evidence now suggests Dickinsonia can in fact be classified as an animal, making it one of earth's oldest. (National Geographic)

What plastic item would you love to ban?
Yes, plastic straws are bad, but they're just a teeny drop in the giant ocean of plastic we're swimming in. Fifteen ocean experts (and TED speakers) tell us what item they would wipe off the face of the earth, if they could. (ideas.ted.com)

On this day in science

On September 21, 1937, JRR Tolkien published The Hobbit -- this science curator's favorite book as a young reader -- and, in 2003, engineers burned up the Galileo spacecraft in Jupiter's atmosphere to prevent any contamination of possible life on Europa.