Starship might be running late, but it’s still likely to be the most capable heavy-lift launch vehicle when it’s ready. Europeans looking to develop an alternative that isn’t governed by America or the whims of SpaceX’s CEO have suggested a similar design could be made to deliver a new European-centric …
Read More »Old Bird Wings in Amber
The partial skeletal remains of an enantiornithine bird that lived 99 million years ago (Cretaceous period) have been found preserved in a piece of amber from northern Myanmar (Burma). Photograph of the amber specimen from the Angbamo site, Myanmar. Scale bar – 5 cm. Image credit: Xing et al, doi: …
Read More »Heaviest Soaring Bird
In a new study, a team of researchers from the United Kingdom, Germany and Argentina deployed high-tech flight-recorders on the world’s heaviest extant soaring bird, the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus), to assess the extent to which this species can operate without resorting to powered flight. Their data revealed the lowest …
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