Nonpolitical news of Dec 2018

Adventuring
Two guys racing to cross Antarctica on foot (I’m rooting for the Brit):
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/18/sports/antarctica-race-tracker-map.html.  I also stumbled across this solar-powered tractor in Antarctica (short; I just liked the looks of the tractor) http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46614102.

Saturns rings are falling
Saturn’s rings are falling out of the sky at a rate of a ton and a half per second—and they’re mostly made of big chunks of water ice.
https://nyti.ms/2QXNEuR

Smart octopus
A truly wonderful short video of an octopus being smart (carrying a hiding place with it, which suggests that it understands it will be useful in the future) and also walking the strangest way I’ve ever seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk

And last but not least:

A gigantic new salamander
A new species of siren (basically a 2-foot-long salamander) was discovered living in the muck of ponds in Forida.  It’s the largest vertebrate discovered in the US in decades, and the first new salamander since 1944.  And what a beauty!  If you look closely, it has a tiny little front foot just behind those gorgeous branching gills, but it has no hind feet.  Some days I feel just like that.