Science News Roundup: Singapore battles record dengue outbreak with more mosquitoes; Scientists calculate Earth's Ice Age temperatures and more

Mammal-like Triassic creature beat polar winters by hibernating The tusks of a stoutly built plant-eating mammal relative that inhabited Antarctica 250 million years ago are providing the oldest-known evidence that animals resorted to hibernation-like states to get through lean times such as polar winters. The research published on Thursday focused on a four-legged forager called Lystrosaurus whose fossils have been found in China, Russia, India, South Africa and Antarctica.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Singapore battles record dengue outbreak with more mosquitoes

From the high balcony of a Singapore public housing block, an environment official steadies his mosquito launcher, the latest contraption authorities have devised to combat a record outbreak of the tropical disease dengue. With the click of a button and a whirr of a fan, a hatch opens and 150 lab-reared male mosquitoes are sent flying, off in search of a female companion with whom they can mate but not reproduce.

Mammal-like Triassic creature beat polar winters by hibernating

The tusks of a stoutly built plant-eating mammal relative that inhabited Antarctica 250 million years ago are providing the oldest-known evidence that animals resorted to hibernation-like states to get through lean times such as polar winters. The research published on Thursday focused on a four-legged forager called Lystrosaurus whose fossils have been found in China, Russia, India, South Africa and Antarctica. It was an early member of the evolutionary lineage that later gave rise to mammals.

How low did it go? Scientists calculate Earth's Ice Age temperatures

Guided by ocean plankton fossils and climate models, scientists have calculated just how cold it got on Earth during the depths of the last Ice Age, when immense ice sheets covered large parts of North America, South America, Europe and Asia. The average global temperature during the period known as the Last Glacial Maximum from roughly 23,000 to 19,000 years ago was about 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7.8 degrees Celsius), some 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7 Celsius) colder than 2019, the researchers said on Wednesday.

Fossil embryo dubbed the 'small giant' packs surprises about a big dinosaur

The skull of a dinosaur embryo from Argentina is providing surprising details about baby facial features present in one species from an important dinosaur group called titanosaurs that included the largest land animals that have ever lived on Earth. Scientists on Thursday said the fragile fossil is among the best-preserved dinosaur embryonic remains ever found - a nearly intact skull about 1.2 inches (3 cm) long that has remained three-dimensional rather than being flattened during the fossilization process.

(With inputs from agencies.)