The steppe runner, formerly also known as bustard fighting quail, can only fly badly and looks rather clumsy. But that’s not his main problem. The speckled-necked bird, native to the semi-arid grasslands of south-eastern Australia, is in danger of becoming extinct. It is estimated that there are only 500 to 1000 left in the wild. It is not yet known where the animals disappear to under certain weather conditions. Now 15 of the birds have been equipped with a kind of mini backpack with solar panels, again Guardians reported. This will enable researchers in New South Wales to track where the birds are by satellite for two years – and ultimately find out how they can be better protected.
When it comes to solar panels, however, one thinks more of the energy crisis. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck recently tried to calm things down: “If everything goes well with saving gas and we’re lucky with the weather, then we have a chance of getting through the winter in good shape.” That was an if too much for many citizens. The solution is very simple: as an international team of researchers now for the first time on the basis of more than 450 studies appreciated, around 20 quadrillion ants live on earth. If you put a rucksack with solar panels on each of these little animals and put a small pouch with the corresponding battery on it, so that the ants could feed the energy from their burrow into the local power grid, the energy crisis would be solved. Provided they are “lucky with the weather”.
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