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Alastair Reynolds: An exclusive short story for New Scientist
It was a foggy December, colder than usual. An old woman waded through the shallows of a concrete-bound river. She wore overalls and a breather mask, a meshwork hopper slung over her back. She leaned hard on two sticks, one with a grabber on the end, the other a net. At intervals, she scooped some…
A new species of hedgehog stands out for its short spikes
Initially mistaken for one of its close relatives, a group of small, spiky mammals in eastern China has now been identified as a new species: the eastern forest hedgehog. Researchers first scooped up one of these dark spike balls in the province of Anhui in 2018. It looked like a Hugh’s hedgehog (Mesechinus hughi), a…
Chinstrap penguins take thousands of very short naps every day
Chinstrap penguins sleep for a few seconds at a time benkrut/iStockphoto/Getty Images Chinstrap penguins are avid nappers, taking more than 10,000 a day – but each one lasts just 4 seconds. Dozing off for several short bouts every day is a common habit for birds. Pigeons, for example, can have hundreds of microsleeps a day,…