I usually buy Wired and science magazines when flying. It's been one of those months again, so picked up an issue of New Scientist from the airport. (Wired ran glossy pics of how nature has taken over Chernobyl, a story that I've seen in numerous papers and mags since Fukujima. Frankly I was disappointed that Wired would be late and copy a story from others so left it on the shelf this time).

New Science had a really fascinating article on "superposition, a multiverse of parallel worlds" which is too complex to cover on this Sunday morning when I'm not fully woken up yet. However, another nice piece caught my attention.

Reindeer are of course close to my heart, being almost from the arctic myself.

Since migrating to the arctic 10,000 years ago, reindeer have developed a skill to see ultraviolet light. "the frozen wastes of the Arctic reflect around 90 % if the UV light that hits them". Urine, which is a sign of a predator, or lichens, only source of food in winter, absorb UV making them appear black in contrast to the UV reflecting snow.

The researcher Glenn Jeffrey of University College in London says this is the first time we have a real handle on why a mammal uses UV light.

Go Reindeer!