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From today's featured article

Life restoration of A. fontoynontii

Archaeoindris fontoynontii is a gorilla-sized extinct giant lemur, the largest primate known from Madagascar. This sloth lemur was related to the extinct Palaeopropithecus and became extinct around 350 BCE. It was first described by Herbert F. Standing in 1909 based on subfossil jaw fragments, although a complete skull was later found. Only six bones from the lower skeleton have been located. The skeleton was massive and the arms were longer than the legs, but no hand or foot bones are known. Size estimates range as high as 244.1 kilograms (538.1 pounds), but regression analyses predict a mass of 160 kg (350 lb). Misattributions and limited remains have resulted in differing opinions about how this lemur moved. Its skeleton suggests it was a climber that also travelled on the ground. Its diet was mostly leaves, and its former habitat, a mix of woodlands and savanna, is now mainly grassland. When humans arrived on Madagascar, it was still extant but vulnerable to hunting and habitat loss. (Full article...)

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In the news

Hunga Tonga eruption

Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford becomes the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
Microsoft announces its forthcoming acquisition, pending regulatory approvals, of video game company Activision Blizzard.
A 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, kills at least 28 people.
The Hunga Tonga volcano erupts (satellite animation shown), causing damage in Tonga and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean.

On this day

January 23

Elizabeth Blackwell

1556 – One of the deadliest earthquakes in history struck Shaanxi, China, resulting in at least 100,000 direct deaths.
1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell (pictured) graduated from Geneva Medical College in New York, making her the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.
1909 – Two men committed an armed robbery in Tottenham, London, and led police on a two-hour chase, partially by tram, that ended in the perpetrators' suicides.
1942 – World War II: Japan began an invasion of the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea.
2002 – American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan.

Hai Rui (b. 1514)
Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama (b. 1880)
Salvador Dalí (d. 1989)

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Today's featured picture

Édouard Manet (23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His early masterworks, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia, both painted in 1863, caused great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the start of modern art. This portrait of Manet was taken by the French photographer Nadar.

Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden

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