In 2021, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill No. 2158, a law requiring the Texas Education Agency to “provide identification kits to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools for distribution to the parent or legal custodian of certain students.”
My favorite bit about this is imagining a librarian finding a bat on a shelf and their first thought is “Wait, wait, I have exactly the book for this!”
One laser + one optical chip = more than the traffic of the entire internet
European scientists claim to have achieved a data transmission speed
of 1.8 petabits per second, all with a single laser and an optical
chip.
For those unsure, 1.8Pbit/s is a lot. As in, more than the total
volume of global internet traffic sent every second, the Technical
University of Denmark (DTU) said in a statement.
The team credits the characteristics of the frequency comb generated on its chip for the breakthrough, even though it wasn’t designed for the purpose.
This is not the first time a frequency comb has been used to help
improve the transmission of optical information across a fiber. A group
of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, set an
especially lengthy record for data transmission in 2015, using the technique to avoid distortion. …
🐢Did you know? The alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) is the largest freshwater turtle in North America—and is one of the largest in the world!
Males can weigh as much as 175 pounds (79 kilograms), and their shells have an average length of 26 inches (66 centimeters). This colossal species lives in rivers, lakes, and swamps in the southeastern United States. It’s a scavenger and hunter; when on the prowl for food, it lets its worm-like tongue hang out to lure in unsuspecting fish. In addition to fish, it preys on mollusks, reptiles, small mammals, and birds.
Photo: Ashley Wahlberg (Tubbs), CC BY-ND 2.0, flickr
💓Looking for ways to keep cozy this cuffing season? Take a page from the Rosy-faced Lovebird’s (Agapornis roseicollis) book.
🪶To keep warm during cooler weather, this bird fluffs out its feathers and huddles with its flock! It lives in southwestern Africa, where it might be spotted in parts of Namibia or Angola. It’s very social, often hanging out in groups that consist of anywhere from five to 20 birds, and sometimes up to 100!
Photo: Charles James Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
