Researchers used an aerial quadcopter to help count the massive penguin breeding colony. (Image credit: Thomas Sayre McChord, Hanumant Singh, Northeastern University, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Explorers beware: The Danger Islands — a remote handful of rocks huddled among sheets of treacherous sea ice near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula — are full of penguins. One might not imagine penguins to be dangerous per se, but then again, one has probably never seen (or smelled) 1.5 million of them breeding at once. According to a new paper published today (March 2) in the journal Scientific Reports(opens in new tab), that’s about…
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The Kardashian-Jenner clan have more than 1.2 billion followers combined. The popular family rose to prominence when they starred in the hit show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, with their fame rocketing since The Kardashian-Jenner family have reached an incredible Instagram milestone, after attracting more than one billion followers between them. As the popular family members continue their quest for global dominance it has been revealed peak popularity with their combined social media fan base. The family now have more than one billion followers – which is almost one eighth of the population of the entire world, which has an estimated…
A colony of 1,000 breeding pairs of African penguins nests on the beaches and in the gardens of Simon’s Town It’s a warm, sunny afternoon in mid-May when I step on to the white sand beach in Simon’s Town, a dramatically picturesque spot 25 miles outside of Cape Town, South Africa. Giant granite rocks rise up from the sheltered cove’s seafoam green water, lending the beach its moniker: Boulders Beach. The first living beings I spot are a pair of African penguins perched companionably atop one of the large boulders. While one is preening, the other appears to be standing…
On the south-eastern island of Oland, Swedish archeologists found evidence of a massacre of the 5th century. The team writes about the 1,500-year-old attack on Sandby borg in a paper published in the journal Antiquity. Dozens of corpses have been found in the walled fort, their bodies left to rot where they fell. All of the victims were killed with “brutal force”, team leader Helena Victor said. Some victims were found inside houses, others in the streets. The archaeologists discovered decapitated bodies, blunt force trauma wounds to victims’ heads, and even one person who seemed to have fallen into a…
A five-planet alignment will be visible in the night sky on Tuesday. Don’t miss your lucky chance to see the stars — or planets — align next week. A five-planet alignment of Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus and Mars will be visible in the night sky on Tuesday, March 28. The large planetary alignment can be spotted March 28, 2023.ABC News Photo Illustration Bill Cooke, who has a Ph.D. in astronomy and heads N.A.S.A’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, spoke to “Good Morning America” about the best ways to catch this upcoming alignment. He said to grab a pair…
The origins of the ancient supernova of A.D. 1181 remained a mystery for 840 years. The remnants of the oldest documented supernova, which Chinese astronomers documented in A.D. 185 (not the supernova of A.D. 1181) (Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO & ESA; Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Williams (NCSU)) In the 12th century, Chinese and Japanese astronomers spotted a new light in the sky shining as brightly as Saturn. They identified it as a powerful stellar explosion known as a supernova and marked its approximate location in the sky — but its cause remained a mystery. Now, astronomers say they have solved the 840-year-old puzzle:…
World’s Biggest Mass Child Sacrifice Discovered In Peru, with 140 Killed in ‘Heart Removal’ Ritual Skeletons at the sacrifice site showed evidence to suggest their chests had been cut open and their hearts removed. The largest child sacrifice on record took place after a torrential rainfall, when about 140 children and 200 young llamas likely had their hearts ripped out by the ancient Chimú culture in A.D. 1450, in what is now Peru. The reason for the sacrifice, however, remains a mystery, according to a new study. Even so, the scientists of the study have several ideas. For instance, heavy…
Thousands of Northern Gannets gather nest material as they prepare for the new breeding season on the Bass Rock. Jane Barlow – PA Images / Contributor via Getty Images The latest avian flu outbreak, which has led to the deaths of millions of domestic birds in the United States, has spread to wild seabird colonies in the United Kingdom. At least a thousand northern gannets in the world’s largest colony of such birds, in Scotland, have died from the illness. Avian flu has also spread to wild birds in Norfolk and the Farne Islands in England. Seabirds already face multiple human-generated threats,…
Whether they’re the size of a molehill or a mountain, meteorite impacts are one of the most destructive forces in the solar system. Here on Earth, flying space debris triggered mass extinctions, but the same deadly asteroids might also have delivered the seeds of life soon after Earth was born. The effects of asteroid impacts linger for billions of years. Here are the 10 biggest impact craters known, from largest to smallest. Vredefort crater In the abraded heart of South Africa’s Vredefort impact crater lurk striking green-black rocks, some of the only remnants of a magma sea that once filled…
Basic information about the Artemis program’s Space Launch System and Orion capsule. A full Moon is in view from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14, 2022 with the Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher. The first in an increasingly complex series of missions, Artemis I will test SLS and Orion as an integrated system prior to crewed flights to the Moon. (Image credit: NASA) The Artemis mega moon rocket is NASA’s latest and most powerful launch vehicle, intended to return astronauts, robots, and supplies to the moon…
The Kardashians might seem to have it all: a reality TV show, three to five mansions in Calabasas, numerous businesses, a growing generation of grandchildren, and a host of philanthropic endeavors, from paying off Tyga’s debts to paying off Kanye’s debts. Even after achieving the American dream of having an organic chicken in every pot and five matte black Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons in every garage, the Kardashians are the first to admit that their lives aren’t perfect. For every Vogue cover shoot and casual trip to Cuba, there’s a mid-season ratings grab where the Kardashian sisters have to eat their own placentas. For…
The incident is the first time a predator has broken into the exhibit in its 50 year history The zoo’s flamingos live in a 9,750-square-foot outdoor yard with a heated pool and barn. Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute A wild fox snuck into the outdoor flamingo habitat at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute on Sunday night and killed 25 of its American flamingos—about a third of the 74-bird flock, per a zoo statement. A Northern pintail duck was also found dead, and three additional flamingos were injured. “This is a heartbreaking loss for us and everyone who…
Model and reality-TV star Kendall Jenner recently revealed that she’s afraid to go to sleep because of a condition called sleep paralysis. “I wake up in the middle of the night, and I can’t move,” Jenner said on the Nov. 6 episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” on E!. “I looked it up online, and it’s a weird thing called sleep paralysis,” she said. The experience is “terrifying,” Jenner told her mother, Kris Jenner, on the show .”It’s so scary when it happens — you literally feel like you’re never going to get out of it,” she said. Experts say that sleep…
The object likely came from a Chinese rocket launched in 2014 A Long March 3C rocket blasts off in Xichang, Sichuan on October 1, 2010 (Image credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images) A rocket stage set to smash into the moon on March 4 is no longer believed to be a piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but rather a booster from a Chinese rocket sent to the moon in 2014, experts say. Bill Gray, an astronomer and the developer of the asteroid tracking software Project Pluto, initially identified the errant space junk (which had been given the temporary name WE0913A) as the upper stage…
NASA’s Prime-1 ice-driller will ride an Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander to the moon. An illustration of the private Nova-C moon lander built by Intuitive Machines with NASA’s Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) attached to the spacecraft. (Image credit: Intuitive Machines) NASA has set its sights on the moon’s south pole in its quest for ice. This week, the space agency and the company Intuitive Machines announced Shackleton Crater landing site at the south pole of the moon for a small lander set to launch next year. The location is called the “Shackleton connecting ridge” and NASA data hint at ice lurking below the…
Europe’s Oldest Battlefield Yields Clues to Fighters’ Identities in Germany After decomposition, the bones were somewhat jumbled by the movement of the river. Europe’s Oldest Battlefield Yields Clues to Fighters’ Identities: It was one of the biggest and most brutal battles in the Bronze Age. Now archaeologist has shed new light on the mysterious people who fought in the Tollense Valley 3,250 years ago. A study of the skeletons at the sites in north-eastern Germany suggests that more than 2000 people were involved in the battle. And while experts are yet to pinpoint exactly where the fighters were from, DNA…
A mysterious mass grave has been unearthed by archaeologists in Croatia. The 6.5ft wide and three foot deep pit contains remains of 41 individuals who were massacred around 6,200 years ago. What triggered the slaughter remains unknown but researchers say growing populations or climate change may have caused the bloody event. They also add that senseless murder and ‘large-scale indiscriminate killing is a horror that is not just a feature of the modern and historic periods’. All 41 victims were then thrown into a pit three feet (one metre) deep and six feet (two metres) wide. Bones and pottery remains were dated to…
Researchers pinpointed the group of roughly 500 birds in West Antarctica Emperor penguins rely on sea ice to reproduce and, as a result, are vulnerable to global warming. Peter Fretwell / British Antarctic Survey Geospatial scientist Peter Fretwell was really studying sea ice loss. But as he pored over satellite images of Antarctica, he couldn’t help but notice a small, brown stain amid the otherwise pristine blue and white ice. Fretwell, who works for the British Antarctic Survey, knew right away that he needed to investigate further, as brown stains in Antarctica typically mean only one thing: penguin poo. He’d been looking at…
Angry Alaskans burned a village to the ground and executed 28 inhabitants by tying them up and knifing them in the head ‘in a feud over a darts game’ in the mid 17th Century Archeologists have uncovered in Alaska a 350-year-old massacre that took place during a war that might have started over a game of dart. The discovery reveals the gruesome ways in which people were executed in a city and confirms part of a legend passed down by the Yup’ik people over the centuries. A recent excavation in the town of Agaligmiut (which today is often called Nunalleq)…
Not all asteroids are planet-killers — most are tiny and others are huge. So what are the largest and smallest asteroids in the solar system? An asteroid field in deep space. (Image credit: Maciej Frolow via Getty Images) Asteroids constantly zoom around our solar system and sometimes smash into planets, including Earth. As such, in the name of planetary defense NASA conducted a test, dubbed DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), to deflect a space rock like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs (or the one Bruce Willis blew up at the end of the movie Armageddon). Not all asteroids are planet killers,…
On a remote peninsular in the Arctic circle, enormous wounds are appearing in the permafrost – as something that is worrying scientists bursts out from underground.I It appeared suddenly and explosively, leaving a ragged pockmark on the landscape. Around the crater’s edge, the earth is a torn, grey jumble of ice and clods of permafrost. The roots of plants – newly exposed around the rim – show signs of scorching. It gives some idea of just how violently this hole in the middle of the Siberian Arctic materialised. From the air, the freshly exposed dirt stands out against the green…
Hot on the market! Kendall Jenner has dated some of the sexiest men in Hollywood and a few of the most skilled players on the basketball court. The brunette beauty went Instagram official with pro baller Devin Booker on Valentine’s Day 2021 after months of speculation. They were first spotted on a road trip together in April 2020, and just one month later, Kendall was seen giving Devin a lift from Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. They were then photographed enjoying dinner at Nobu in Malibu on August 15 and were joined by Kendall’s sister Kylie Jenner in photos obtained by TMZ. Their casual dinner came shortly after Kendall…
Kendall Jenner and her Olympian boyfriend Devin Booker soaked up the sun in Sardinia on Thursday. The model, 25, and her NBA-star beau, 24, were kicking back on a yacht while she showed off her bikini body as she frolicked in a tiny two-piece while looking through her phone. Their Italian trip comes after Devin shared a picture of Kendall wearing his 2021 Tokyo Olympics gold medal as she relaxed on a boat on a lake while sipping a beer. Sizzling: Kendall Jenner and her Olympian boyfriend Devin Booker soaked up the sun in Sardinia on Thursday Kendall Jenner shows off her supermodel figure…
Spotted a white dove? Learn how to tell if you’re seeing an albino mourning dove. Plus, see other backyard birds with unusual white feathers. If you’ve ever noticed a mourning dove that looks different with white splotches or patches of all-white feathers, does that mean it’s an albino dove? Read on for expert advice to identify a white mourning dove and other uniquely colored backyard birds. Leucistic bird vs albino bird: learn the difference. White Mourning Dove: Albino or Leucistic? “An unusual dove (above) has frequented my feeder for two years. Can you identify it?” asks Birds & Blooms reader Marla Neiss of Navarre, Ohio. This unique…