Glacier Mice (en.wikipedia.org)
276 points by ostacke 5 days ago
jameshart 14 hours ago
Huh
> they have been observed in Alaska, Chile, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Uganda and Venezuela
Well, today I learned, Venezuela has glaciers.
Then I googled that, and…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/...
And so today I learned, Venezuela used to have glaciers.
hammock 13 hours ago
Interestingly, the US has ADDED a glacier in the last 30 years, that of Mount St Helens, which was able to form after the explosion in 1980. It is the youngest glacier on earth
nsilvestri 12 hours ago
It had 13 glaciers pre-eruption, so perhaps "added" is doing a lot of heavy lifting :)
BenFranklin100 14 hours ago
We need to go nuclear with the newer type of plants. Built at scale, they are cost effective. Otherwise we are cooked, perhaps quite literally.
pineaux 12 hours ago
Venus scenario? I wonder if that could happen. Time to explore that rabbit hole
pmlnr 6 hours ago
noncovalence 13 hours ago
Always love seeing a link to wikipedia.org on the front page. Pretty much guaranteed to make me go "oh, neat" :)
vismit2000 3 hours ago
Related: https://www.orangecrumbs.com (nice weekly summary of top wikipedia posts on HN)
hrldcpr 13 hours ago
Agreed. I would follow a bluesky/mastodon/rss thing that shares every time a Wikipedia article hits the front page.
yorwba 9 hours ago
lostlogin 11 hours ago
When I used Kagi, my favourite feature was pinning Wikipedia to the top of all results.
yard2010 9 hours ago
Why don't you use it anymore?
lostlogin 4 hours ago
ta93754829 10 minutes ago
huh funny name that. When I hiked a glacier in Norway, dead mice (and other things) were everywhere under the ice. I assumed that's what the title was referring to.
enjrolas 16 hours ago
I did a bit of searching, and couldn't find a single timelapse of glacier mice movement. Time for a trip to the mountains with some cameras!
mettamage 14 hours ago
Volunteering as a potential random travel buddy here. I’m not sure if I have the time but let’s see if we can figure something out if you are potentially up for it. My email is in profile
enjrolas an hour ago
Heck yeah
networked 11 hours ago
I have found a video (under a minute long) of a backpacking group walking through a herd of glacier mice in Alaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4fHfDrfoJw. I'd love to see a timelapse of glacier mice moving.
Aboutplants 10 hours ago
I’m actually surprised there isn’t Timelapse of it already. Seems like a simple enough setup to gather basically all of the information needed for finalizing how they move.
andrewflnr 9 hours ago
If you put me on that surface I don't think I would have any idea it was a glacier.
comrade1234 17 hours ago
Here in Switzerland when children order shrimp at a restaurant I tell them that they come from the shrimp mines in the glaciers.
soupspaces 15 hours ago
If they don't know about tapioca pearls, please keep in mind they resemble fish eggs.
Aardwolf 9 hours ago
I clicked the picture first without reading any of the article and was wondering "where are the mice? they must be well camouflaged!"
jtd_wakeseed 8 hours ago
same!
asmodeuslucifer 3 hours ago
Slightly related, ice worms
kaffekaka 12 hours ago
jökla-mýs is a wonderful name, you gotta love icelandic. A swede might also associate it too "jäkla mys" - god damn cozy!
glimshe 18 hours ago
TIL. Life never ceases to amaze.
davidjade 15 hours ago
Wait until you hear about Ice Worms
dekhn 10 hours ago
And sailing stones, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones and toneballs https://luthierblogmartinahawe.wordpress.com/toneballs/
accrual 6 hours ago
grvbck 14 hours ago
Thanks to your comment TIL that snow algae is a thing
Aboutplants 10 hours ago
alexpotato 16 hours ago
Also a reminder that a lot of life is basic physics and a simple state machine.
e.g. even the development of eyeballs started with a slightly photoreceptive skin cell and then evolution hill climbing took care of the rest.
glimshe 16 hours ago
But that's fine too. If the complexity of the natural world is just emergent behaviors, then emergence itself never ceases to amaze. Because one wouldn't normally expect that our "cold" physical laws could lead to the variety of life.
chrisweekly 15 hours ago
ck2 15 hours ago
reminds me vaguely of "Sailing Stones"
dualarte 15 hours ago
> This suggests that this water buoyantly lifts the ice floes with embedded rocks until friction with the playa bed is reduced sufficiently for wind to move them and cause the observed tracks.
Wow, that's nuts!
eleventen 14 hours ago
My first thought as well!
sooperT 13 hours ago
Dunno about you, but I was really hoping to see mice not moss :/
dburkland 13 hours ago
Remember seeing these in Iceland
joe-esquibel 10 hours ago
...Poppa was a rolling stone...
trindell4469 11 hours ago
Am I the only one who immediately thought of tribbles?
jb1991 11 hours ago
Yes