After Leif Eiriksson’s original voyage to North American shores, the Greenland Vikings remained in “Vinland the Good” for a time—but for how long? A couple of decades, at least, according to new evidence reported in Nature.^1,2

About 1,600 years ago, salt miners in Iran apparently left their lamb lunch down the shaft. Their loss became scientists' gain. The now-mummified sheep carcass suggests that salt helps preserve sheepskin DNA.

Bats have the amazing ability to accurately and consistently detect the speed of sound.¹ This enables them to employ a complex system of echolocation in the dark of night to find food in mid-flight and to avoid slamming into trees.

One of the most famous living fossils is back in the news. The coelacanth is an endangered deep-sea fish. Its fins fit to unique, wrist-like bones, and unique bony plates envelop what scientists call its lung, which is like the swim bladder that controls buoyancy in other fishes.