Liquid water at -44 ℃
Engineers at the University of Houston have succeeded in lowering the freezing temperature of liquid water to -44 ℃. It is normally much higher, but for fairly small droplets in contact with flexible surfaces, a freezing point of -38 ℃ had previously been observed. In Nature Communications, in mid-November, Texas researchers explain having lowered this record by reducing the size of the water droplet to two nanometers. This finding could help predict ice formation on wind turbines and airplane wings as well as in clouds.
Quiz
What last season did dinosaurs have before their extinction?
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ROBERT DE PALMA
Tangled fish at Tanis, North Dakota site
The beginning of spring, according to an American study published in the journal Scientific Reports. According to paleontologists at Florida Atlantic University, this explains the magnitude of this extinction – 75% of species are extinct – which occurred 66 million years ago, after Earth was struck by an asteroid of at least 11 km in diameter. If the collision had taken place in winter, a less crucial season for the reproduction of living species, the extinctions would perhaps have been fewer, suppose the authors. The study comes from an analysis of sediments in Tanis, North Dakota, which retained a snapshot of a river’s flash flood at the time of impact.
The number
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH
The 2,700-year-old leather chainmail found at the Yanghai site in China
2700 years
This is the age of a leather chainmail that was found in northwest China, and that was made in the Neo-Assyrian Empire in Mesopotamia. This is the first example of a “high tech” business. This could mean that mercenaries have been active in both China and the Middle East much earlier than previously assumed. The analysis of the chain mail, unearthed in 2013, was made by archaeologists from the University of Zurich and published in early November in the journal Quaternary International.
Ethiopia 2000 years ago
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Sakaro Sodo website
The monoliths at the Sakaro Sodo site in southern Ethiopia date from 2,000 years ago, not 1,000 years ago. This is what archaeologists at Washington State University have found, with advanced carbon dating techniques. The 10,000 Sakaro Sodo monoliths, some of which reach 6m, are in the running to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because it is the largest place of its kind in Africa. The analysis, carried out in particular by a researcher of Ethiopian origin, was published in the Journal of African Archeology.
The beginnings of the electric car
PHOTO FROM THE SITE OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE
An 1890 Morrison electric car
Electric cars could have taken hold in the United States 120 years ago if the electricity grid had grown faster, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden. Swedish economists analyzed 36,000 early 20th century car modelse century. They observed that the low speed of the electric cars of the time was not a disadvantage in cities then dense and, above all, not yet surrounded by residential suburbs. The ease of establishing gasoline distribution networks prevailed, however, because it was not until the New Deal in the 1930s that a reliable national electricity grid was established.