Abstracts: Snails in Love, Election Polls, Speedy Bats, and More
• Here’s some happy news: Jeremy, the “lonely snail,” has finally found love. Jeremy’s shell spirals the wrong way, so he cannot physically align and mate with normal snails. But a snail enthusiast contacted Jeremy’s owner to say she had found him a partner with the same rare alignment. The two have been introduced and observed “flirting” ever since. (CBC)
• If the results of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election caught you by surprise, that may be because the polls were way off. Here are some reasons why. (FiveThirtyEight)
• Peregrine falcons hold the record for speed when they dive, but when it comes to flying horizontally, the Brazilian free-tailed bat zooms past everything else at over 160 km/hour. (Phys.org)
• Though early humans interbred with Neanderthals, natural selection weeded most of their genes out of our DNA. (Science Daily)
• The election of Donald Trump — who has called global warming a “hoax” — has raised concerns among scientists about U.S. participation in the Paris climate agreement. (Associated Press)
• A controversial hypothesis that human brains act like quantum computers will be experimentally tested. (The Atlantic)
• Sounding sure of yourself may seem like the best way to convince people you’re right, but a new study found that sounding uncertain can sometimes be more convincing. (Scientific American)
• Researchers have discovered that calcium build up in the womb may be a cause of preterm births. (STAT)
• And to end on another happy note, the founder of a games company has donated $15 million to protect 7,000 acres of the Box Creek Wilderness in North Carolina, an area that is home to more than 130 rare and vulnerable species. (Citizen Times)