Iguanas Travelled 5,000 Miles to Fiji on Rafts 34 Million Years Ago
A new study suggests that iguanas crossed over 5,000 miles from North America to Fiji around 34 million years ago by clinging to rafts of floating vegetation. The journey, considered the longest-known transoceanic migration by a terrestrial species, is believed to have occurred shortly after Fiji’s islands formed. Researchers speculate that extreme weather events, such as cyclones, could have uprooted trees and carried iguanas across the Pacific. The reptiles, which are the only iguanas found outside the Western Hemisphere, have long been a subject of debate regarding their origins.
Genetic Study Reveals Direct Link to North America
According to the study published in PNAS, researchers found that Fiji’s iguanas share a closer genetic link with species from North America than previously thought. Simon Scarpetta, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at the University of San Francisco, stated in a press release that the evidence supports a direct journey from the West Coast of the United States to Fiji. This challenges earlier theories suggesting the reptiles may have arrived via Antarctica or Australia.
Reportedly, Jimmy McGuire, Professor of Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, said that alternative explanations for their migration did not fit within the geological timeline. It was noted that the iguanas likely reached Fiji soon after land became available in the region.
Adaptations May Have Helped Survival
More than 200 museum specimens were analysed for the research. The findings indicated that the Fijian iguanas, classified under the Brachylophus genus, are closely related to the Diposaurus genus, which includes desert iguanas found in North America. Scarpetta explained that these lizards are highly resistant to starvation and dehydration, which may have increased their chances of surviving the journey.
The estimated timeline of their migration aligns with the formation of Fiji’s islands. Researchers suggest that once land appeared, the iguanas established themselves, highlighting the remarkable nature of their journey.
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Ancient Roman Inscriptions help us understand laws, traditions, economy, and even the emotional perspective of ancient people. Their lives and histories, however, have been rendered difficult to understand because, over time, the inscriptions have been damaged. Every year, there are 1500 Roman inscriptions discovered, albeit many of them are incomplete. Fortunately, advancements in technology like the new Aeneas tool, is helping in the future understanding of the Roman inscriptions. It serves as a large language model specializing in reading, interpreting, and giving context to Roman inscriptions.
Decode Ancient Roman Inscriptions
As Per Report,Drawing its name from a hero in Roman history, Aeneas, the model has been trained on nearly 200,000 latian inscriptions, which span from the 7th century to the 8th century covering regions from Portugal to Iraq.Aneas has the capability to analyze images of damaged inscriptions and predict or even fill in missing letters or words. In addition to that, it is able to determine a time frame and location for the inscription, as well as cross-reference it with other inscriptions containing similar phrases or purposes.
Making History Clearer Through Technology
Since Aeneas is trained exclusively on Latin inscriptions, specialists believe that he is less prone to random or false errors when compared to general AI approaches. University of Sydney historian Anne Rogerson remarked that Aeneas’s proposals, as informed guesses, still involve real historical data as opposed to baseless conjectures.
Despite the model’s open availability,Made public alongside the model’s code and data, Aeneas’s creator, Google DeepMind, offered the model without restrictions.
Most impressively, Aeneas can be accessed for free, enabling students and researchers to shift through and reinterpret previously concealed fragments of Roman history to understand them on a deeper level.
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Astronomers using a global radio telescope array have captured a record-sharp image of the blazar OJ 287, showing its particle jet is sharply bent. This twisted jet provides compelling evidence that OJ 287’s core contains not one but two supermassive black holes in a tight orbit. For decades, OJ 287’s ~12-year cycle of flares hinted at a secondary black hole, and the new image confirms that model. In fact, this appears to be the most extreme binary black hole system ever observed. Researchers say the finding makes OJ 287 “an ideal candidate for further research into merging black holes and the associated gravitational waves”.
Twisted Jet Reveals a Cosmic Duo
According to the study, using an Earth-space radio interferometer, astronomers produced an ultra-sharp image of OJ 287’s center. The image shows the jet bends sharply three times within ~0.3 light-year and swings by about 30° over a few years. Such dramatic twists so close in are naturally explained by a second black hole tugging on the jet’s base. This fits the picture of OJ 287’s 12-year flare cycle: a ~150-million-solar-mass companion plunges through the primary’s accretion disk roughly every 12 years, triggering bright outbursts and bending the jet. The observations even caught a shock wave forming in the jet, unleashing a burst of gamma rays seen by NASA’s Fermi and Swift satellites. Astronomers say this twisted, ribbon-like jet is the clearest evidence yet of two supermassive black holes locked in a gravitational tug-of-war.
Implications for Black Hole Evolution
OJ 287’s black holes will eventually merge, but that won’t happen for a very long time. In the meantime, their orbit sends out ultra-long-wavelength gravitational waves that current detectors cannot pick up. Scientists expect pulsar-timing arrays – which monitor the ticking of distant neutron stars – may detect this faint gravitational-wave signal. Looking farther ahead, future space missions like ESA/NASA’s planned LISA observatory (2030s) could catch the final merger of such supermassive pairs.
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