Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Martian meteorite ​found in the Sahara is 4.1 ​billion years old

A meteorite found in 2022 ‌in ​the Sahara in Mali formed in the Martian crust at least 4.1 billion years ago, according to scientists, making the reddish igneous rock ‌perhaps the oldest of the 435 meteorites from Mars known on Earth. The researchers said the composition of the meteorite, called Teghaza 001, is providing insight into the environment early in the history of Earth's planetary ‌neighbor, with fresh evidence of liquid water on the surface that bolsters the notion that primordial ‌Mars may have been conducive to microbial life.

Long-distance flights can interfere with the internal clocks of seabirds

People who travel across many time zones, like a trip from London to Tokyo, may experience jet lag, with the body's internal 24-hour clock — ⁠the ​circadian rhythm — thrown out ⁠of sync with the local time at the arrival location. A new study shows that birds that fly long distances ⁠may experience a similar phenomenon that causes them to drift off course. Research involving seabirds called Manx shearwaters found ​that crossing the Atlantic at speed can throw their internal clocks out of sync with local ⁠time, causing errors in the strategy they use to navigate their way home.

Strange beaked 'hell chicken' is the first fruit-eating dinosaur

While dinosaurs ⁠ate ​a lot of different things, including each other, fruit long seemed to have been absent from their menu. But scientists now have found fossils of a turkey-sized and toothless dinosaur possessing ⁠a parrot-like head that exhibited multiple adaptations for a specialized fruit diet. This first-known frugivorous dinosaur, named Infernogallus jamesi, ⁠lived about 66 ⁠million years ago during the Cretaceous Period at the twilight of the age of dinosaurs and displayed traits on its beak and jaws for mashing ‌soft food ‌like fruit. It is known from fossils unearthed in ​Montana and North Dakota.