Family photo!
🦉 The rabbit owl is a day owl with unusual habits!
This miniature long-legged owl (23 cm) lives in America.

❕ Features:
✔ Lives in burrows in open landscapes
✔ Active during the day (rare for owls!)
✔ Collects dung in nests to lure beetles 🐛

🎨 Coloring: Red-gray with white speckles and bright yellow eyes.
#humor #animals #birds

👑 The face of a Mycenaean princess: a look through 3500 years!
Digital technology has made it possible to see the face of a Mycenaean queen who lived 3500 years ago. Her remains were found in Mycenae, the city of King Agamemnon from the Iliad.
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🔍 What we know
➡️ Age: ~35 years old.
➡️Period of life: 16th-17th centuries BC (300 years before the Trojan War!).
➡️ Buried with a golden mask and three swords - perhaps she was a warrior!

💡 Interesting
🟣 Swords used to be thought of as belonging to men.
🟣 DNA tests showed that it was her brother, not her husband, who was charroned next to her.
🟣 The arthritis in her spine and arms are traces of exhausting weaving, like the mythical Helen of Troy.
🟣“She's incredibly modern... It's like she's looking through the ages,” historian Emily Hauser.

📌 Why it matters
The reconstruction breaks stereotypes: the women of Mycenae could inherit power and bear arms, not just be wives.

📖 Why it matters
Look into the eyes of the past - and see how myths intertwine with reality!
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Reconstruction by digital artist Juanjo Ortega.
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#news #animals #mammals #humans

🌱 Secrets of fertile soil from Perm scientists!
Tired soil is the cause of poor harvests. How to restore its strength?
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🔍 Signs of soil exhaustion:
- Lumps or dust instead of loose soil.
- Poor yields even with care.
- Lots of weeds, few worms.
- Change in soil color.

🌿 Organic Helpers
Compost - humus from leaves, grass, waste. Improves structure, nourishes plants.
Manure - rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Important: compost fresh manure to kill weeds and pathogens.

Siderates (rye, mustard, lupine):
✅ Protect against erosion,
✅ Nitrogen rich,
✅ Suppress weeds and pests.

⚗️ Mineral fertilizers
Needed to make up for deficiencies!
- Apply strictly according to the instructions.
- Feed even in winter: the nutrition will penetrate the soil with melted snow.

🥔 After monocultures - resuscitation
If potatoes have been planted for years:
Loosen the soil.
Add straw, leaves, wood chips.
Plant siderates (mustard, clover) and plow them at a height of 10-15 cm.
Apply complex fertilizers.

🪱 Worms are your best allies
- Biohumus from worms - super fertilizer!
- How to breed worms:
- Dig a ditch (50 cm), protect with netting from moles.
- Fill with organic matter + sand.
- Populate 20 worms → by fall there will be 2000!

🧪 Check the acidity (pH) yourself
Mix the soil with distilled water.
Dip a litmus strip in.
Compare the color to the scale:
- <7 - acidic (add lime),
- >7 - alkaline (add peat or sulfur).

🐛 Pest control
- Wireworm → deoxidize the soil (alkali!).
- Nematodes → plant velvets.
- Snails → sprinkle sand on beds.

🌾 Mulching - protection and nutrition
Use:
- Straw - retains moisture.
- Sawdust - mix with nitrogen fertilizer.
- Needles - for acid-loving plants (blueberries, rhododendrons).
“Healthy soil is a symbiosis of organics, microorganisms and your care” - Maria Kombarova, biologist.
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Based on popular science article on the site naked-science.ru
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#ecology

🦉 Female long-eared owls glow brighter than males!
Ornithologists have discovered that female long-eared owls (Asio otus) outperform males in fluorescence!
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🔍 Key findings
- Females and adults have more porphyrin pigments in their feathers (glow red in UV light).
- Males and young owls have lower concentrations.
- In large females, pigments are independent of weight - perhaps their levels are maximal.

🌡️ Why is this necessary?
Scientists hypothesize: porphyrins help conserve heat during egg incubation. They were previously found in egg shells for thermoregulation!

💡 Interesting
- Brightly colored feathers are not just a “male thing”! Females have more pigments, which disproves stereotypes.

🔬 What's next?
It takes research to figure out:
✔️ How pigments break down after molting.
✔️ Whether their production is linked to metabolism.
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The article was published in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. DOI: 10.1080/15594491.2024.2444031.
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#news #animals #birds

Seahorses are the wonder of the ocean!
These fish (2-30 cm) camouflage themselves among algae by changing color!

🔍 Interesting
- The offspring are bred by the male - up to 1000 fry at a time! 🥚
- Swim vertically thanks to a special bubble.
- They feed like a “pipette”: they suck in crustaceans with water. 🦐

❗️ 30 out of 57 species are on the Red List because of poaching.
#facts #animals #fishes

Scientists have revealed the secret of the “former algae”! 🧬
Nitzschia (Nitzschia sp.) is a diatom alga that has learned to photosynthesize and turned into a heterotroph!
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A new study in PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003038) has shown how it “cheated” evolution

🔍 What they found
➖ Nitschia stole the PL7 gene from a marine bacterium.
➖ This gene allows it to break down sugars in brown algae (like seaweed).
➖ The gene has changed (mutated) 91 times over millions of years!

🌱 Why is this important?
An example of a unique adaptation: an algae became “herbivorous” by eating other algae.

💡 Interesting
Nitzschia live on brown algae thalloms and use up to 40% of their polysaccharides! Now they look more like protozoa than their photosynthesizing relatives.
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#facts #plants #algae

Capybaras in bombshell style! 🐾
In Brazil, capybaras are true masters of swimming! The video shows these cute giants jumping into a lake to escape passersby and the heat.

🔍 Interesting
- Capybaras are the largest rodents in the world (up to 65 kg!).
- They love water: they swim, dive and even sleep in a semi-submerged state!
- They live in packs - it's more fun together!
#facts #animals #mammals

🔬 The microbiota: why is it important?
There is a whole universe of microorganisms living in each of us - trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses!
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🟣 The microbiota are the “inhabitants” themselves: gut, skin, lung bacteria. Their composition is unique and depends on diet, lifestyle, ecology.
🟣 The microbiome is the totality of their genes. By studying it, scientists understand how microbes affect our health.

👶 Where do they come from?
Formation begins while still in the womb! 🧬 In 2020, they discovered the microbiome in fetal lungs as early as the first trimester. After birth, bacterial colonies grow rapidly:
1st day: E. coli
2nd: lactobacilli.
3rd: bifidobacteria.
Breast milk and natural childbirth are critical to your baby's healthy microbiota!

💡 What are they good for?
Digest fiber, synthesize vitamins (B, K).
Protect against pathogens, strengthen the immune system.
Influence the brain through the “gut-brain axis”: regulate sleep, appetite, mood.
Control inflammation, metabolism, blood pressure.

❗️ Microbiota imbalance (dysbiosis) is associated with:
Obesity, diabetes, asthma.
Skin problems (acne, psoriasis).
Cardiovascular disease.

✅ How to improve the microbiota?
Nutrition: fiber (vegetables, whole grains), fermented foods (kefir, sauerkraut). 🥦
Probiotics: after antibiotics or stress.
Sports and sleep: moderate exercise, regimen.
Stop bad habits: alcohol, smoking, fast food.

The microbiota is our invisible protector. Take care of it, and it will take care of you!
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By Sber's blog (Habr.com)
#animals #mammals #human #microbes

🦟 Robot flies: how Drosophila became part of future technology
Scientists have turned Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies into living micro-robots!
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With the help of light and odors they were taught:
🟣 Draw letters (“HELLO WORLD”) along a given route;
🟣 Carry loads up to 1.1 mg (almost as much as their own weight!);
🟣 Work in a swarm to create complex patterns.

❔ How does it work?
🟣 Visual control: a striped pattern projector guides the flies using their natural reflex of moving towards the light.
🟣 Olfactory stimuli: activation of neurons by odors causes flies to turn in the desired direction.

❔ Why it's needed.
⚫️ Searching for survivors in rubble: swarms of flies will be able to penetrate inaccessible places.
⚫️ Environmental monitoring: collecting data on air or soil.
⚫️ Micro-cargo transportation: for example, delivering drugs inside the body.

✔️ Amazing facts
Flies can work for hours without reward (no motivational candy! 🍭).
In experiments, they have traveled distances 200,000 times their body length.

✔️ Что next?
Scientists plan to create “backpacks” with chips to autonomously control flies in the real world. Perhaps the tiny biorobots will soon become our indispensable assistants!
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The study is published in PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2426180122.
#appears #animals #insects

🦦 Beavers are super parents: carry their babies in their paws like humans!

Did you know that beavers carry their cubs as if in a hug? 🥰 Beaver cubs are born with open eyes and thick fur, ready to swim. But even these independent babies need care!

👉 Check out this cutest video of a mom beaver showing touching care. And these “nature engineers” are also saving ecosystems by creating dams and restoring forests
#facts #animals #mammals