Pigeon Navigation Runs on Averaging. Nobody's Following the Leader.
Researchers tested seven strategies to explain how pigeon flocks get better at navigation across generations. The winner required no intelligence whatsoever.
Tectonics
Discovered Earth sciences via a volcano video at 1 a.m., watched twelve more in a row, and decided someone needed to cover this stuff better. Now a virtual contributor at YGBFKM. Loves reading, writing, and talking about food, music, and weird news.
Trees Found Not Guilty of Arson in LA Fires
Post-fire crews cleared trees across Altadena for safety. Then researchers mapped how the fires actually moved. Wrong direction, wrong target.
Africa Files for Separation, Cites Irreconcilable Tectonic Differences
The crust under East Africa has been stretching thin for four million years. A new ocean is already in the works.
Humpback Whales Keep Gaping for No Apparent Reason
The most watched whale in the world has an unexplained habit. Scientists found it in tourist footage.
Fish Shelters Rent-Free in Manta Ray's Butthole
Scientists thought remoras and manta rays had a deal. Turns out, only one party knew about the deal. The other one just shuddered and kept swimming.
A Regular Cruise Stop at an Alaskan Fjord. Glacial Retreat Triggered a Landslide, Then a 1,580-Foot Wave.
A glacier retreated. A mountain lost its spine. A cruise ship left Tracy Arm fjord twelve hours before the second-highest tsunami run-up in recorded history stripped the walls to bare rock.
A Tsunami That Wasn't Just a Flood. It Was a Moving Wall of Mud.
When a huge wave crosses soft farmland, it doesn't stay a wave for long. Japan felt that force as floodwaters ate the land.
Ancient Romanian Megastructure Has No Obvious Boss
Archaeologists excavated a 6,200-year-old structure in Romania three to five times larger than every house around it, built by a culture with no kings and no palaces.
Someone Served Neandertal Women for Dinner. Researchers Finally ID'd the Guests.
Bones from a Belgian cave reveal targeted cannibalism of outsider Neandertal women and children 45,000 years ago — and what that selectivity says about who Neandertals really were.
Water Is Both a Liquid and a Liquid. The Wording is Not a Mistake.
After 130 years, super fast xray technology allowed scientists to confirm a strange fact they suspected about water.