A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
The holey wheels of Curiosity
PHOTO FROM NASA WEBSITE
Martian soil is hard on rover wheels Curiosity. NASA unveiled photos of impressive holes in their aluminum coating in early February, while stating that they should survive as long as the minimum duration of nuclear batteries of Curiosity, i.e. until 2026. Curiosity has been surveying the red planet since 2012 and has traveled nearly 25 km.
Quiz
What have researchers discovered about a tsunami that hit three oceans in August 2021?
PHOTO GETTY IMAGES
South Sandwich Islands
Response
It was caused by five earthquakes separated by a few minutes, at the junction between the Antarctic and Atlantic oceans. The tsunami, the first to hit three oceans since the one that devastated Southeast Asia in 2004, caused no casualties. Its epicenter had initially been located in the South Sandwich Islands, but subsequent analyzes had invalidated this hypothesis. Caltech’s discovery was published in early February in the Geophysical Research Letters.
0.73 megaton
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
A Quebec field
A slight change in Quebec agricultural practices would remove 0.73 megatonnes of greenhouse gases per year from the atmosphere, according to a new report from the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, a left-wing think tank. This represents 0.9% of Quebec emissions and tens of millions of dollars in carbon credits.
A diplodocus flu
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
A portion of a diplodocus fossil. The white arrow indicates the pulmonary bone outgrowth.
American paleontologists have discovered the first evidence of respiratory infection in dinosaurs. These are bony growths similar to those created by such infections in birds, found in the lungs of a 150-million-year-old diplodocus fossil from Montana. The study by researchers at the University of New Mexico was published in early February in the journal Scientific Reports.
little royal horses
PHOTO FROM HERITAGE BRITAIN WEBSITE
Riders from the Bayeux Tapestry
Medieval war horses often stood less than 1.5m in height at the withers, according to a new British study. In L’International Journal of Osteoarchaeology In late January, researchers at the University of Exeter calculated that the horses of the Norman invaders of England in 1066 were 1.5m, and that horses in the royal tombs of later centuries were sometimes 1.3m. During the Hundred Years War, war horses did not exceed 1.6 m, which would place them today in the category of ponies. The analysis is based on 171 graves ranging from IVand in the XVIIand century.