Slaughter of more than 1,400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands sparks condemnation worldwide

Slaughter of more than 1,400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands sparks condemnation worldwide | Bizarre tail on little dinosaur-age bird was literally a drag | 'Flying dragon' fossil found preserved inside a rock in the Chilean desert Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( September 17, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Top Science News [] [Slaughter of more than 1,400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands sparks condemnation worldwide]( [Slaughter of more than 1,400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands sparks condemnation worldwide]( (Sea Shepherd) Warning: This article contains graphic images. Hunters in the Faroe Islands riding speed boats and jet skis ambushed and slaughtered a super-pod of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins on Sunday (Sept. 12), leading to outcry from conservationists and even some supporters of the archipelago's centuries-old tradition of killing the marine animals for food. The dolphins' bloody, lacerated corpses have been left lined up on the beach following the killings. The scale of the slaughter drew outrage from conservationists, Faroese natives and pro-hunting parties alike. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society described the killings as a "massacre." Dolphin hunting is an ancient tradition in the Faroe Islands — an autonomous territory of Denmark located between Norway, Scotland and Iceland — that dates back to Viking times. Known as a Grindadráp, or just "the grind," the controversial custom involves driving pilot whales or other large dolphin species into the islands' fjords in order to kill them with a specialized lance. It is the only Indigenous whaling practice still undertaken in Western Europe. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/16) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] History & Archaeology [] [Bizarre tail on little dinosaur-age bird was literally a drag]( [Bizarre tail on little dinosaur-age bird was literally a drag]( (Gao Wei) A dinosaur-age bird's extravagant tail feathers may have helped it win over mates, but the fluffy rump was also literally a drag during flight, a study of a well-preserved fossil finds. The bird's tail is truly "bizarre," the researchers said; it had two lengthy plume feathers that were more than 150% of its body length. At the tail's base, a stiff fan of short feathers likely helped the bird fly, the researchers said. "We've never seen this combination of different kinds of tail feathers before in a fossil bird," study co-researcher Jingmai O'Connor, a paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, said in a statement. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] ['Flying dragon' fossil found preserved inside a rock in the Chilean desert]( ['Flying dragon' fossil found preserved inside a rock in the Chilean desert]( (Kevin Schafer via Getty images) Scientists have identified the fossilized remains of a winged lizard unearthed in Chile’s Atacama Desert as a "flying dragon" — the first of its kind to be discovered in the Southern Hemisphere. The pterosaur, which soared the skies 160 million years ago, had a wingspan of 6.5 feet (2 meters); a long, pointy tail; and outward-jutting teeth — features that give the Jurassic-era creature its fearsome "dragon" nickname. Although the exact genus and species of the winged lizard are unknown, scientists think it is a member of Rhamphorhynchinae, a subfamily of rhamphorhynchoids, which were one of the two major types of pterosaurs (alongside pterodactyloids). Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Baby elephants frolicked in an ancient 'nursery,' fossil footprints show]( [Baby elephants frolicked in an ancient 'nursery,' fossil footprints show]( (Illustration by J. Galán) More than a dozen young elephants — newborns, toddlers and teens — gamboled through mud in an ice age elephant "nursery" in southwestern Spain more than 100,000 years ago, according to new analysis of tracks that the youngsters left behind. Scientists examined 34 sets of tracks belonging to straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) — extinct relatives of modern elephants — at a site known as the Matalascañas Trampled Surface in Huelva, on the Iberian Peninsula. As the name implies, this was a high-traffic area for a short period of time during the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch (2.6 million to about 11,700 years ago), when diverse animals, including Neanderthals, crisscrossed the surface. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Math & Physics [] [New gravitational wave detector picks up possible signal from the beginning of time]( [New gravitational wave detector picks up possible signal from the beginning of time]( (Shutterstock) Two intriguing signals spotted in a small gravitational-wave detector could represent all kinds of exotic phenomena — from new physics to dark matter interacting with black holes to vibrations from near the beginning of the universe. But, because of the experiment's novelty, researchers are being cautious about claiming a discovery of any kind. Facilities such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) use gigantic laser-driven detectors to look for enormous ripples in the fabric of space-time known as gravitational waves. These come from the collisions of black holes and neutron stars out in the distant universe, which are events so powerful they shake space-time and send out surges with wavelengths measured in hundreds of miles. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Will There Ever Be Another Pangea? (Learn the answer [here]() [Vote]( [Yes]( [Vote]( [No](   [Sign Up]( | [Update Profile]( | [Unsubscribe]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Cookies Policy]( | [Terms and Conditions]( CONTACT US: [FEEDBACK](mailto:livescience@smartbrief.com) | [ADVERTISE]( © Future US, Inc. 555 11th ST NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004