List of All Articles with Tag 'c'

Scientist have discovered a fly that... can't fly. In December 2021, the John Midgley and Burgert Muller from the Diversity of Pollinating Diptera in South African Biodiversity Hotspots project went to Lesotho, the only country in the world that has its entire territory located at an altitude of 1,000 metres and higher to see what they could find. At the Afriski mountain resort, they found 51 male specimens of Atherimorpha latipennis (a species discovered in 1956 but whose female had never been described) and a for the first time a female belonging to the same species which couldn't get off the ground. “It’s not unheard of for only the female of a species to be flightless,” says Midgley. “But there were no examples in this fly’s family, let alone its genus.” Martin Hauser, a senior dipterologist at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, who was not involved in the research, told the Guardian: “Active flight has only originated four times in the last three billion years, so it’s always interesting when a species loses the ability to fly. It isn’t super surprising to find flightless species. But it is remarkable when the first case of flightlessness is reported in a family.” Scientists could only make educated guesses about why the female had lost the ability to fly. Despite it being much faster than walking, allowing flies to escape predators. “flight is also costly,” said Midgley. “You have to grow wings, and it uses a lot more energy than walking.” “For the males it is worth flying around and being able to search a larger area for females,” said Hauser. “Even if, while flying, they are exposed to birds and other predators, and risk being blown off the mountain and ending up in a hot valley with no females.” Meanwhile, there are other species that can't fly like ostriches, kiwi and emus. It is thought they evolved to lose flight after the dinosaurs became extinct because there were no predators big enough to hunt them. Fly - you had one job... Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Elon Musk’s X has agreed to attempt to settle a lawsuit by former employees who say the company cheated them of severance pay following mass layoffs. After taking over Twitter, which he rebranded X recently, Mr Musk cut nearly two-thirds of the social media company’s workforce from about 8000 to 2,000, claiming he had “no choice” as the company was losing $4m per day. “Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50 per cent more than legally required,” Mr Musk said. Many laid-off employees, however, publicly announced they never got the severance they were due to get. In the months that followed, the company was hit by several lawsuits, including one alleging the layoffs disproportionately targeted women. Now, months after urging Twitter, the company has agreed to try and settle, according to a memo sent by Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents the laid-off workers. The labour and civil rights attorney, representing nearly 2,000 ex-employees, said X would attempt to settle with the laid-off staff. “After 10 months of pressing them in every direction we have succeeded in getting Twitter to the table,” she wrote in the memo cited by Bloomberg. Further schedule for the mediation remains unclear, but reports suggest negotiations could happen on 1 and 2 December. X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment. Some ex-employees have alleged Twitter did not pay them promised severance either. One employee said earlier this year that he had “never even seen a severance letter let alone been offered severance”. While some former staff attempted to resolve the issue by first filing a class-action lawsuit against X, their contracts with Twitter, however, required that disputes be resolved via arbitration. “We are very proud to be representing nearly 2,000 former Twitter employees, in individual arbitrations as well as more than a dozen class action lawsuits in court,” Ms Liss-Riordan had earlier said in a statement, adding that lawyers and former staff were working to recover “what they are owed”. Read More Musk the messiah (or a very naughty boy?) Elon Musk ignores reporter after claims he stopped Ukrainian attack on Russia Elon Musk was on brink of death after catching malaria on South African safari, book claims Musk the messiah (or a very naughty boy?) Elon Musk warns of ‘civilisational risk’ posed by AI at historic gathering Musk was on brink of death after catching malaria on safari, book claims

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