Summer Meteor Showers, Short Summer Days and Ancient Arthropods

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• 00:01

  Summer is here and vacation is calling.

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  So at the end of July,

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  we're bringing you a special series with our favorite tips for living a greener life.

• 00:10

  From what to look out for in your sunscreen to how to reduce your dog's environmental paw print,

• 00:14

  we'll get insights and advice from the experts and have a look at our own habits.

• 00:19

  Find our greener living series from Living Planet wherever you get podcasts.

• 00:32

  Happy Monday, listeners!

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  For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

• 00:38

  It's been a while, but we're finally back with our usual science news roundup.

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  Let's catch up on some of the science news you might have missed in the last week or so.

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  If last Tuesday seemed to just fly right by,

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  that's probably because it was a little shorter than usual.

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  The International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service says that July 22nd was around 0.8 milliseconds short of the standard 24 hours.

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  That's slightly less dramatic than the almost 1.4 milliseconds that we're missing from July 10th,

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  and scientists anticipate another ever so slightly truncated day on August 5th.

• 01:19

  Now, while there were plenty of headlines about these missing fractions of milliseconds,

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  it's not actually news that the Earth's rotation varies in speed.

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  The length of a single rotation also known as a day,

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  is impacted by factors like the movements of our planet's liquid core,

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  variations in the jet stream, and the gravitational pull of the moon.

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