Hi, I'm Scientific American assistant news editor Sarah Lewin Frasier.And here's a short piece from the June 2020 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 noncoronavirus stories from around the globe.From the U.S.:A hiker found two rusted, unexploded bombs from 1935 on the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii's Big Island.The bombs had been intended to help divert lava flow during an eruption.From France:Researchers report dinosaur footprints up to 1.25 meters long on the roof of a cave, likely coming from a type of titanosaur.Geologic processes buried and shifted the shoreline footprints to the cave's ceiling, 500 meters deep.From Kenya:A 20-year experiment revealed that cattle-grazing areas frequented by elephants store almost twice as much carbon as areas that bar the animals;soil in these areas also has higher nutrient levels.From Germany:In a Leipzig waste site, scientists found a soil bacterium that can break down components of polyurethane―and survive the toxic chemicals released in the process.In Oman:Daily growth rings on a 70-million-year-old fossilized mollusk indicate that Earth turned faster at the time, squeezing 372 days into each year.The creature's former habitat, a shallow seabed, is now on a mountaintop.
