Hi, I'm Scientific American podcast editor Steve Mirsky.And here's a little unfinished 2019 business, the short piece from the December issue of the magazine,in the section called Advances: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Science, Technology and Medicine.The article is titled "Quick Hits," and it's a rundown of some science and technology stories from around the globe,compiled by assistant news editor Sarah Lewin Frasier.From Spain:Summer's powerful drought revealed a more than 4,000-year-old oval of at least 100 standing stones called the Dolmen of Guadalperal,which had been submerged since 1963 in an engineered reservoir.From Russia:Scientists identified a small group of Nordmann's greenshanks, among the most endangered shorebirds, in a bog in Russia's far eastern region.They helmed the first in-depth study of the bird since 1976 and are the first ever to capture a photograph of an adult on a nest.From New Zealand:Researchers found that humpback whales traveling near Raoul Island, 700 miles off New Zealand's coast,learn songs from members of other breeding grounds.From Indonesia:Climate models have more firmly connected a record-setting cold European summer in 1816 to the previous year's eruption of Indonesia's Mount Tambora,which injected sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and caused widespread surface cooling.
