Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 January 17

Apororhynchus hemignathi

Apororhynchus is a genus of small, parasitic spiny-headed (or thorny-headed) worms, the only genus in the order Apororhynchida. A lack of features commonly found in Acanthocephala suggests an evolutionary branching from the other three orders of class Archiacanthocephala. The distinguishing features of this order are a highly enlarged proboscis containing small hooks, and differently structured musculature around this proboscis in its receptacle and receptacle protrusor. The genus contains six species that are distributed globally, being collected sporadically in Hawaii, Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. These worms exclusively parasitize birds by attaching themselves around the cloaca using their hooks and adhesives secreted from cement glands. The bird hosts are of different orders, including owls, waders, and passerines. Infection by an Apororhynchus species may cause enteritis and anemia. (Full article...)

Reema Juffali in her Formula 4 car at Thruxton Circuit, 2019

• ... that Reema Juffali (pictured in race car) is the first Saudi Arabian woman to obtain a racing license and compete in an international racing event in the country?
• ... that the oldest rock in the Eastern Block of the North China Craton is a 3.8- to 3.6-billion-year-old trondhjemitic piece of gneiss?
• ... that although Michael Buie practiced Fox News anchor Bret Baier's speaking style for his role in the film Bombshell, they had never talked to each other until after filming had finished?
• ... that the corporate history of Xinuos begins with repeated attempts to acquire a troubled software company in bankruptcy?
• ... that engraver Julius Bien sided with liberals in the 1848 revolutions like many other Jews, and fled Germany to the U.S., where he became a lithographer and the president of B'nai B'rith?
• ... that the palm scale was first found on an endemic species of palm on the island of Réunion, but now infests plants in at least 78 families around the world?
• ... that New York City's Governors Island has been the site of a Statue of Liberty celebration, a U.S.–Soviet summit, and the signing of a peace treaty between Haitian political leaders?
• ... that despite being nearly illiterate, Chinese soldier Gao Yubao wrote an autobiographical novel that has had more than six million copies in print?

Murchison meteorite fragment

• Scientists announce that presolar stardust grains in the Murchison meteorite (fragment pictured) formed five to seven billion years ago, and are the oldest solid material found on Earth to date.
• In American football, the LSU Tigers defeat the Clemson Tigers to win the College Football National Championship.
• protests over the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia
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