Least Amount of Sleep Among Mammals
Despite the little sleep you may suffer from, it is likely that your sleep is better than that of the northern elephant seal. During months-long hunting trips at sea, this seal naps for less than 20 minutes at a time and averages a total of no more than two hours of sleep a day. This is on par with African elephants in getting the least sleep (SN: 4/20/23).
Oldest Horse Riders
The Yamna people may be the oldest horse riders in the world, having been riding horses since 3000 B.C., centuries before the earliest known depiction of horseback riding (SN: 4/8/23, p. 12). The Yamna remains discovered in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary show clear signs of horsemanship, including marks on the thighs and pelvis that could be the result of sitting atop horses and damage to vertebrae from falling.
Most Sun-Exposed Places on Earth
Visitors to the Altiplano plains in the Atacama Desert of Chile should be sure to wear sunscreen. This high-altitude region receives an average of 308 watts of sunlight per square meter – the highest solar radiation intensity anywhere on Earth (SN: 8/26/23, p. 5). At times, solar radiation exceeds 2000 watts per square meter, nearing the amount of sunlight expected to fall on Venus, which is much closer to the sun than Earth.
Oldest Black Hole
A massive black hole located about 13.2 billion light-years from Earth is the oldest known supermassive black hole ever. This beast dates back to when the universe was about 470 million years old, making it about 200 million years older than the black hole announced in 2021 and about 100 million years older than the black hole that gained its title in July (SN: 12/18/21 & 1/1/22, p. 29). Since the new black hole has the same mass as the surrounding galaxy, researchers believe that the black hole could have only formed from the collapse of a massive gas cloud. This discovery could help shed light on how the first generations of supermassive black holes were born in the universe.
Fastest Claws
The little shrimp famous for its speed is no match for the little mantis shrimp. High-speed video reveals that the mantis shrimp can close its claws at speeds of up to about 600 kilometers per second – achieving acceleration 20 times faster than adults. The acceleration of the adult shrimp claw is in the same range that a 9 mm bullet moves out of a gun, and it is the highest acceleration of a body part that can be reused underwater (SN: 4/8/23, p. 5).
Oldest Wooden Structure
Despite what happened to the second pig’s house, wood has long been proven to be a strong and reliable building material – possibly for up to half a million years. The carved and interlocking wood discovered in Zambia dates back nearly 480,000 years, making it the oldest known wooden structure (SN: 9/20/23). The structure – which may have been a corridor, a sitting area, or a storage unit – indicates that some human relatives may have led a less nomadic lifestyle than previously thought.
Heaviest Animal Ever
It seems the animal kingdom has a new heavyweight champion. An analysis of fossils discovered in Peru suggests that the extinct whale named Perucetus colossus may have weighed up to 340 metric tons, about twice the weight of the heaviest blue whales (SN: 9/9/23, p. 5). This colossal mammal is believed to have roamed shallow waters 39 million years ago – but what it could have eaten to sustain its size remains a mystery.
Source:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/record-breaking-science-discovery-2023
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