National Geographic reports on a study which suggests that birds can “see” the Earth’s magnetic field. From the article:

• Scientists have thought for years that migratory birds may use an internal compass to navigate between their nesting areas and wintering grounds.
• The new research helps explain how this natural compass may work.
• The finding strongly supports the hypothesis that migratory birds use their visual system to navigate using the magnetic field.

This would only allow the bird to know it’s direction, and not its position, so there must be more to it. Another study is also referenced suggesting that “birds may use magnetic crystals in their beaks to sense the intensity of the magnetic field and thus glean information on their physical location.”

Velociraptors are the intelligent, fast and vicious little buggers that caused all sorts of problems in the Jurassic Park movies. However, National Geographic writes that they probably weren’t much like their portrayal in the movies.

• There is now evidence that they had feathers, especially on their forearms
• They probably only weighed about 15kg

It seems like many of the two-legged dinos actually had feathers.

National Geographic has this article about an insane wildebeest accident which caused the drowning of more than 10,000 animals. Every year during the migration hundreds of thousands of wildebeest must cross rivers. However, this huge herd stampeded into the river at a point where the opposite bank was too steep to climb.

A female bird (of the species shown here) was recently measured flying 11,500 kilometers from Alaska to New Zealand over the Pacific. The plucky little thing flew all that way without stopping at all.

National Geographic has the full story of this record breaking trip.

National Geographic has a pretty cool article about the almost perfectly preserved bodies of 3 Incan children sacrificed on a mountain top 500+ years ago.

Because they were sacrificed at such high altitude, the cold and thin air has kept their bodies remarkably preserved.

From the article:

• The mummy, called La Doncella or The Maiden, is that of a teenage girl who died more than 500 years ago in a ritual sacrifice in the Andes Mountains.
• The girl and two other children were left on a mountaintop to succumb to the cold as offerings to the gods.
• The excavation of the mummies at the mountain’s peak was the world’s highest archaeological dig.
• La Doncella was found dressed in a ceremonial tunic and adorned with a headpiece, tokens of her new status as a messenger to the heavens.
• The girl had also drunk corn liquor, likely to put her to sleep, scientists say, and her mouth still held fragments of coca leaves, which the Inca chewed to lessen the effects of altitude sickness.
• “[They] weren’t being sacrificed to feed the gods,” Reinhard told National Geographic News in 2005. “They were being sacrificed to enter into the realm of the gods. It was considered a great honor.

This is a pic of the mountain on which these mummies were found. Looks absolutely beautiful out there.