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In this week's news roundup, Rachel Feltman of The Washington Post tells us about the oldest-known specimen in the modern bird lineage, a seagull-like creature called Archaeornithura meemannae that lived some 130 million years ago in what is today northeastern China. Plus, the most distant galaxy known to astronomers. And a critical look at a fearmongering study on the beard microbiome.
 
After the news roundup, it’s “Good Thing, Bad Thing.” You’ve heard the term “filter bubble”—the idea that website algorithms customize the online experience to weed out viewpoints we disagree with. But just how “filtered” is your Facebook news feed? Mashable.com science editor Andrew Freedman weighs in on a new study that attempts to answer that question.


News Roundup: The Oldest Bird, a Distant Galaxy, and the Beard Microbiome

Ryan Rykaczewski describes one of the most massive migrations on the planet, driven by the sun. Image by Tintinnidguy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

#ExplainTheSun  - The Largest Migration on The Planet

Once, there was the ordinary incandescent light bulb. It shone brightly, but wasted much of the energy put into it as heat. Then came the compact fluorescent. And as costs have dropped, consumers have increasingly been switching to light-emitting diode (LED) technology for many lighting applications, in an ongoing search for a more efficient bulb. Now, in work published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, researchers report that nanophotonic devices may be able to breathe new life into old incandescent technology. Marin Soljačić and Ognjen Ilic, two authors of the study, explain how they’ve been able to “recycle” some of the incandescent bulb’s wasted heat and re-emit it as visible light, boosting efficiency.

For the Lowly Incandescent Bulb, a Ray of Hope

Science, technology, and other cool stuff from public radio's Science Friday. It's brain fun, for curious people. From WNYC Studios.

News Roundup: The Oldest Bird, a Distant Galaxy, and the Beard Microbiome

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