Today in Science: 500-lb. prehistoric bird was a 'giga-goose'

Science, insight, inspiration June 4, 2024: Today we're covering new insights into how creative types get into the zone, why insects fly to their death at light sources  and reconstructed "giga-goose" skulls.   —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor TODAY'S NEWS • COVID's six-foot social distancing rule made scientific sense at the time. | 2 min read • Why bird flu is causing eye infections in dairy workers. | 5 min read • Tiny fern has world's largest genome. | 3 min read • China's Chang'e 6 probe lands on the far side of the moon. | 4 min read More News TOP STORIES Prehistoric "Giga-Goose" A newly published description of a collection of skulls and skull parts in Australia from what paleontologists had assumed was a monster-sized emu reveals that the fossils once headed up Genyornis newtoni—a 6.5-foot-tall, 500-pound flightless bird. The animal's face was found to most strongly resemble that of a duck or goose, leading to the nickname "giga-goose." But that moniker is a bit of a stretch. "There's no close analogue for these birds. They are truly a unique Australian island experiment, as unique as koalas and kangaroos," says paleoecologist Nic Rawlence, who was not involved in the research. How they did it: The partial skulls were dug up at Lake Callabonna, now mostly dried-up and salty, between 2013 and 2019, reports Kate Evans. Skulls are far more revealing of birds' distinctive features, so previous well-preserved fossils of the animals' lower bodies didn't help much with identification efforts. "The skull is what will retain those more complex family indicators," says evolutionary biologist Phoebe McInerney, co-author of the new description. Why it matters: The beast roamed Australia about 50,000 years ago along with jumbo kangaroos, wombats about the size of a rhinoceros and other mammoth animals. Hunting, climate change or both factors might have caused the extinction of all these megafauna. The new finding will aid efforts to understand how the giga-goose evolved and behaved, Rawlence says. An artistic life reconstruction of Genyornis newtoni, the last of the dromornithids, at the water's edge. Jacob C. Blokland The Lure of Light in the Night An intensive, new set of experiments and fieldwork offer a plausible explanation of why insects around light bulbs, campfires and candles behave as if "drawn like a moth to a flame." It has to do with how insects navigate, not attraction to heat or confusing a light source with the moon, as some scientists have assumed. Insects determine which way is up and fly straight by keeping a light sensor on their backs oriented to the sky, which was the primary source of bright light even at night until humans invented fire and electricity. Nowadays, our light sources confuse insects, causing them to orient their backs to bulbs and flames rather than to the sky. That can yield the erratic loops that often end with an incinerated insect. How they did it: In one experiment, the researchers took high-speed videos of two ultraviolet lighting scenarios—one with light reflected from above (to simulate the sky) and one with light from below (to simulate human light sources). As illustrated in the graphic below, the latter condition "caused the insects to tilt, fully invert and come crashing down," write interdisciplinary artist and scientist Immy Smith and Scientific American senior editor Gary Stix. Why this matters: Insects are undergoing dramatic population losses, for various reasons, while human light pollution is on the rise. Innovations in lighting could help preserve insects, which are crucial to the health of ecosystems worldwide. Immy Smith; Source: "Why Flying Insects Gather at Artificial Light," by Samuel T. Fabian et al., in Nature Communications, Vol. 15; January 2024 (reference) WATCH NOW A"Beary" fun story A recent Internet meme, "if not friend, why friend-shaped," referring to features of bears that humans find endearing, inspired Scientific American editors Carin Leong and Kylie Murphy to interview a wildlife expert for evolutionary insights. The resulting TikTok explains the two related phenomena: why bears have large ears and so much fur, and why we perceive bears as cute. EXPERT PERSPECTIVES • A study of 32 jazz guitarists has clarified the inner mechanisms behind a "flow state," that is, the artistic experience of being "in the zone," during which people find they can easily generate high-quality creative ideas. Previously, researchers were not sure whether it was intense concentration or the opposite, that is, a release of attention, that drove flow states. Neuroscientists John Kounios and David S. Rosen write about their recent research on musicians showing that creative flow occurs when sufficient practice leads to the development of a "specialized brain network for performing" and a release of conscious control, which stops us from overthinking and allows that brain network to produce ideas on autopilot. | 4 min read More Opinion All this animal authorship reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of science writing. It's not exactly meant to be science writing. It's Tim Flannery's review, Extravagant, Aggressive Birds Down Under, of Tim Low's book Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World. It's a compelling book review, featuring an astonishing war story.  Please send your comments and animal insights to: newsletters@sciam.com. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters here. 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