MEXICO
Small freshwater fish known as sulfur mollies synchronously splash their tails to create waves, and scientists have now demonstrated that this technique can deter hungry birds. Researchers triggered the wave-making course of utilizing slingshots and located that birds waited twice as lengthy between assaults.
CHILE
An investigation of sedimentary rock cores revealed that a large, previously undocumented tsunami slammed into Chile’s coast in 1737. The discovering means that tsunamis hit the nation’s shoreline extra usually than beforehand thought and that hazard assessments ought to contemplate each geologic and historic information.
CANADA
Scientists discovered proof of bacteria “mining” silver in historic underwater worm poo. A microscopic evaluation of fossilized feces revealed specks of the metallic, which doubtless amassed about 500 million years in the past as dung-dwelling micro organism extracted it from the surrounding water.
GREENLAND
Computer simulations suggest climate change was among the reasons Vikings deserted Greenland in the fifteenth century. An increasing ice sheet would have depressed the land and pulled seawater onshore, flooding coastal settlements with as much as 5 meters of water.
U.Okay.
Researchers in northeastern England unearthed an exoskeleton fragment from the largest arthropod ever discovered, in a genus known as Arthropleura. By referencing associated fossils’ physique proportions, the workforce estimates this millipede would have weighed 50 kilograms and measured 2.6 meters lengthy.
TANZANIA
New work suggests 3.66-million-year-old footprints would possibly come from a hominin that walked with a strange gait, strutting by crossing one foot in entrance of one other. The tracks are distinct from Australopithecus afarensis—the space’s recognized hominid species—suggesting early people with very totally different strides might have coexisted.
This article was initially revealed with the title “Quick Hits” in Scientific American 326, 3, 23 (March 2022)
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0322-23
