#mexico

Great White Shark Social Club Found Near Guadalupe Island, MexicoIt’s a special gathering spot for great whites only.Experts discovered a secret shark social club in the waters of Guadalupe Island, near Mexico. According to the research, which was published in Biology Letters, the band of great whites formed their elite group during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Some of the members of the clique were observed hunting and patroling around the waters with another of the same sex. The longest time that a pair of sharks were observed to be together was for about 70 minutes. "Seventy minutes is a long time to be swimming around with another white shark," marine scientist Yannis Papastamatiou, the lead researcher of the study, explained.The observed social network had their “meetings” near a seal breeding ground, which suggests that the sharks could be hanging out where their prey is near. This means that they both socialize and use each other as backups during hunting. "They aren't working together but being social could be a way to share information," Papastamatiou said. Image credit: Jakob Owens#sharks #greatwhites #animals #biology #marinebiology #GuadalupeIslang #Mexico

Why Did Hundreds of Birds in Mexico to Suddenly Fall From the Sky?A security video camera caught a chilling footage of a bizarre wildlife event in the city ofCuauhtémoc in northern Mexico: a flock of birds suddenly plummeted out of the sky and slammed into the ground. While most of the birds managed to fly away, dozens of them were left on the ground, apparently dead from the impact.The birds were a flock of migratory yellow-headed blackbirds (Tordo Cabeza Amarilla or Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus), which migrated to the southwestern United States and Mexico in the winter.But what could have caused hundreds of birds to fall from the sky like that?Local newspaper El Heraldo de Chihuahua, which reported the event on February 7th, surmised that the birds were affected by toxic gas or pollution from wood-burning heaters and agricultural chemicals and the cold weather in the area. Wild guesses and conspiracy theorists had a field day: fanciful theories like avian flu, 5G or collision with an invisible spaceship were touted on various social media posts.  Others suggest that the birds hit an electrical power line and were electrocuted.But ornithologist Kevin J. Mcgowan think that "the only thing that makes sense" was that the birds were fleeing from a predator, and they made a big mistake in swooping down while flying. "This truly was an 'oops' moment for the birds," he said to The Washington Post, "A really big 'oops' moment."Another ornithologist, ecologist Dr. Richard Broughton with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, concurred. "This looks like a raptor like a peregrine or hawk has been chasing a flock, like they do with murmurating starlings, and they have crashed as the flock was forced low,' he said to The Guardian. 'You can see that they act like a wave at the beginning, as if they are being flushed from above.'

The Internet Dealer of Rural MexicoFiber optic service (FiOS) is currently the newest and fastest internet service to date. Urban areas around the globe already have this. However, some rural areas like Arroyo Prieto in Mexico do not have access to FiOS and still rely on satellite internet providers. Unfortunately, as satellite internet is prone to interferences, clouds and rain showers often mean a slow or broken connection. It is without saying that the residents of Arroyo Prieto have a hard time connecting to the internet, not to mention that subscribing to internet service is expensive (and more expensive if you're in a rural area.)Fortunately, there are those like Quirino de la Cruz Nicolás. He's an internet dealer who provides Wi-Fi to his community at a rate of 10 pesos (48 cents) an hour. In recent years, however, de la Cruz has had to lower the rate to 5 pesos (24 cents), as four of his neighbors also became internet dealers (and they had better coverage).De la Cruz and his neighbors may be the last internet dealers of rural Mexico, as Mexican value-added resellers, or VARs, which resell satellite internet company data to rural towns, have arrived and they can provide better deals for the community.Today, de la Cruz's business has slowed to a trickle. However, when the time comes when better internet deals arrive, he plans to build a cyber café in Arroyo Prieto.Image Credit: TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay#Technology #DigitalDivide #Internet #Satellite #FiberOptic #rural #Mexico

These Pictograms Are The First Written Accounts of Earthquake in the Americas in pre-Hispanic TimesMesoamerican civilizations have had their share of earthquakes in centuries past. After all, earthquakes happen frequently in their place. It is then no surprise that they have documented them in their pictograms, according to Gerardo Suárez, a researcher from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He, along with Virginia García-Acosta of the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, have studied pictograms in the Codex Telleriano Remensis, a 16th century document created in Mexico. This Codex is said to report 12 earthquakes that occurred between 1460 and 1542.The pictograms offer little information on the location, size or damage caused by the earthquakes, the authors note in the journal Seismological Research Letters. But along with other historical accounts found in annals written after the Spanish conquest, they extend the region’s seismic history back into the 15th century.Aside from the frequency of earthquakes in the region, Suárez also states another reason these pictograms reported such events — Mesoamerican civilizations saw earthquakes as significant events in their cosmological view.Mesoamerican civilizations viewed the universe as cyclical, with successive eras or “suns” destroyed by floods, wind, fire and other phenomena before the appearance of a new sun. The current and fifth “sun, “according to this view, will be destroyed by earthquakes.The researchers state that this new finding "adds additional evidence that great earthquakes have occurred in this segment of the subduction zone before," and that the absence of these great earthquakes "should not be considered as though this region is aseismic." In other words, the said place still has seismic potential. The current inhabitants should remain vigilant.Learn more about this study over at the Seismological Society of America website.(All Images Credit: Gerardo Suárez and Virginia García-Acosta)#Pictogram #CodexTellerianoRemensis #Earthquakes #Seismology #SocialAnthropology #Mesoamerica #Mexico

'Eye of Fire': The Ocean is on Fire After a Pipeline Leak in the Gulf of MexicoThere's an 'eye of fire' in the ocean when an underwater pipe valve off the Ku Charly platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The platform, operated by Petróleos Mexicano (Pemex), is located off the coast of Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche, Mexico.The fire was said to have started when fuel was leaked from a control valve of a gas pipeline 260 feet (80 m) underwater.Three firefighting boats battled the fire, which was reported to be under control.#fire #GulfofMexico #gaspipeline #ocean #MexicoVideo: Manual Lopez San Martin