29 August 2020 | New Scientist | 21PalaeontologySex ratios Wearable technologyStrange clouds at
our galaxy’s coreAstronomers have spotted
two clouds of cold, dense
gas speeding away from
the centre of the Milky
Way at 300 kilometres
per second – faster than
they should move in theory.
The clouds carry a type
of hydrogen used to build
stars, so its expulsion
may be slowing star
birth at the galaxy’s core
(Nature, doi.org/d62b).Dinosaurs had
lightweight bones
We have discovered a
feature of dinosaur biology
that helps explain the huge
sizes they achieved. Scans
of fossils show that some of
their bone was less dense
than that of other animals,
but still strong, so their
skeletons could grow large
without being too heavy
(PLoS One, doi.org/d6z9).AI speeds up
MRI scansAn AI built by researchers
at Facebook and NYU
Langone Medical Center
in New York can create
magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) scans with
only a quarter of the data
normally required. It is
hoped the system could
speed up scans (American
Journal of Roentgenology,
doi.org/d6z2).Ancient marine reptile
was killed by its mealONE ancient marine reptile
seems to have bitten off more
than it could chew. A fossil of a
5-metre ichthyosaur has the
body of a 4-metre-long animal
in its stomach. The ichthyosaur
seems to have died soon after
consuming the massive meal.
Ichthyosaurs, which resemble
dolphins, thrived from around 250
to 90 million years ago. The shape
of their teeth suggests that some
of them were top predators thatAN ESTIMATED 6.8 million
fewer female births could be
recorded in India between 2017
and 2030 than would be
expected without practices
such as sex-selective abortion.
India’s ratio of male to female
births has been imbalanced since
the 1970s, largely driven by a rise
in families choosing to abort female
fetuses because they want sons.
Fengqing Chao at King
Abdullah University of Science
and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi
Arabia, and her colleagues have
modelled future sex ratios at birth
in 29 Indian states and territories
that encompass more than 98 percent of the country’s population.
The team used birth data as well
as national survey data on people’s
preferences to have a son or
daughter to come to the 6.8 million
figure. The prediction started
from 2017 because this is the year
after the most recent birth data.
The model projected that the
highest deficits in female births
would occur in the state of Uttar
Pradesh in the north of India
(PLoS One, doi.org/d647).
Identifying regions with strong
biases could enable the targeting
of policies or campaigns to prevent
abortions of female fetuses,
says Chao. Layal Liverpooltackled big prey, but there is little
direct evidence of what they ate.
In 2010, Ryosuke Motani at
the University of California, Davis,
and his colleagues found a large
ichthyosaur fossil in a quarry in
south-west China, identified as
being in the Guizhouichthyosaurus
genus. Preparing the fossil
revealed a surprise. “There was
something in its stomach that
was protruding,” says Motani.
The meal was another marine
reptile called a thalattosaur. This
lizard-shaped animal was nearly
as long as the ichythyosaur, but
much skinnier, says Motani.Eye-tracking mask
gauges reactionsA MASK that tracks the wearer’s
eyes and measures their pulse
could be used to study people’s
reactions to things they see.
Trisha Andrew at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst and
her colleagues have developed
fabric-based electrodes that
enable continuous monitoring
of the wearer’s eye movements
and pulse for up to 8 hours.
This could make it useful for
monitoring sleep, for example,
because the eye’s behaviour is an
indicator of rapid eye movement
(REM) sleep, says Andrew.
Andrew and her colleagues
tested their mask – which they
have named Chesma – on three
volunteers. They are now using
it for sleep studies in larger
groups of people alongside
smart pyjamas to monitor
sleep posture and breathing.
The mask could also be useful
for human-computer interactions.
It can tell which quadrant of a
screen your eyes are drawn to, says
Andrew (Matter, doi.org/d646).
“Coupled with pulse, that provides
insight into awareness and
emotional state,” she says.
In future, this could allow
the wearer to communicate
with a computer using
their gaze alone. LLThe ichthyosaur bit off the
head and tail of the thalattosaur,
probably by shaking it. It then
swallowed the body whole
(iScience, doi.org/d64x).
But at some point, perhaps
during the attack, the ichthyosaur
injured its neck. “The neck was
broken to the extent that it could
not hold its skull,” says Motani.
“It could not breathe.”
The body of the thalattosaur
shows no sign of being broken
down by digestive juices and its
tail was found nearby, suggesting
the ichthyosaur died quickly after
the meal. Michael Le PageMillions of missing female
births predicted in India
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