Science News Roundup: Early adopters in Mexico lend their eyes to global biometric project; Amazon switches rockets for first test satellites to avoid launch delay and more

The continent's minimum summer ice cover, which last year dipped below 2 million square kilometres (772,000 square miles) for the first time since satellite monitoring began in 1978, fell further to a new low in February, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. Ancient preserved flamingo egg found in Mexico during airport construction An ancient flamingo fossil egg between 8,000 and 12,000 years old was uncovered at a busy construction site for a new airport in Mexico, officials from the Latin American country said.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Early adopters in Mexico lend their eyes to global biometric project

Eager early adopters recently descended upon a Mexico City cafe where their eyes were scanned by a futuristic sphere, part of an ambitious project that ultimately seeks to create a unique digital identification for everyone on the planet. Mexico is one of nearly three dozen countries where participants are allowing the sphere, outfitted with cameras and dubbed an orb, to scan their iris. The project's goal is to distinguish people from bots online, while doling out a cryptocurrency bonus as a incentive to participate.

The climate-friendly cows bred to belch less methane

When Canadian dairy farmer Ben Loewith's calves are born next spring, they will be among the first in the world to be bred with a specific environmental goal: burping less methane. Loewith, a third-generation farmer in Lynden, Ontario, in June started artificially inseminating 107 cows and heifers with the first-to-market bull semen with a low-methane genetic trait.

No quick fix to reverse Antarctic sea ice loss as warming intensifies - scientists

Sea ice in the Antarctic region has fallen to a record low this year as a result of rising global temperatures and there is no quick fix to reverse the damage done, scientists said on Tuesday in a new study of the impact of climate change on the continent. The continent's minimum summer ice cover, which last year dipped below 2 million square kilometres (772,000 square miles) for the first time since satellite monitoring began in 1978, fell further to a new low in February, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.

Ancient preserved flamingo egg found in Mexico during airport construction

An ancient flamingo fossil egg between 8,000 and 12,000 years old was uncovered at a busy construction site for a new airport in Mexico, officials from the Latin American country said. The remarkably preserved egg from the Pleistocene period is incredibly rare. It is the first discovery of its kind from the Phoenicopteridae flamingo family in the Americas and only the second in the world, according to Mexico's heritage institute INAH on Wednesday.

Long before whales, pioneering marine reptile was a filter-feeder

The blue whale and other baleen whales, the gentle giants of the sea, sift huge quantities of tiny prey from ocean water using a filter-feeding system in their mouths. But they were not the first marine creatures to feed like that. Fossils unearthed in China's Hubei Province indicate that a curious marine reptile called Hupehsuchus nanchangensis that lived 248 million years ago in the Triassic Period employed a similar system during a time of tremendous evolutionary innovation following Earth's worst mass extinction.

Amazon switches rockets for first test satellites to avoid launch delay

Amazon.com Inc plans to launch its first pair of prototype internet satellites late next month on a different rocket than previously planned, a spokesman said on Monday, again switching rides for the spacecraft to avoid mounting rocket delays. The company will launch the first two satellites for Amazon's Kuiper program, which aims to offer internet globally from space, aboard a dedicated Atlas V rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA), spokesman James Watkins said.

Russia to launch first moon lander since 1976 in race with Indian spacecraft

Russia will launch its first lunar landing spacecraft in 47 years on Friday in a race with India to the south pole of the moon, a potential source of water to support a future human presence there. The launch from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow, will take place four weeks after India sent up its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander, due to touch down at the pole on Aug. 23.