One of the most immense singular formations observed in the cosmos, these expansive hydrogen gas clouds, have been found surprisingly close to Earth.
Naming it EOS, after the Greek goddess of dawn, the cloud was discovered through the faint ultraviolet light emitted by hydrogen molecules.
Referred to as molecular clouds, these colossal structures of gas and dust serve as nurseries for new stars.
Historically, astronomers have depended on radio and infrared telescopes to locate these clouds, detecting the carbon monoxide signature. However, scientists took a distinct approach to uncover EOS.
“This marks the first molecular cloud identified through the direct search for distant ultraviolet emissions of molecular hydrogen,” stated Professor Blakesley Burkhart, the leading researcher on the project.
“The data revealed glowing hydrogen molecules detected through fluorescence in distant ultraviolet rays. This cloud truly shines in the dark.”
https://c02.purpledshub.com/uploads/sites/41/2025/04/eos.mp4Scientists have identified potential star-forming clouds, designated EO. It ranks among the largest single structures in the sky and is one of the nearest formations to the sun and earth ever observed.
Situated just 300 light years from Earth at the confines of a gas-rich area known as the local bubble, EOS spans a region of sky comparable to a full moon width of 40 and possesses approximately 3,400 times the sun’s mass.
Despite its size and proximity, it remained concealed due to being “co-dark,” which indicates a deficiency of carbon monoxide that traditional detection methods rely on.
“The discovery of EOS is thrilling because it allows us to directly observe the formation and dissociation of molecular clouds and how galaxies transform interstellar gases and dust into stars and planets,” Burkhart commented.
Dr. Thavisha Dharmawardena noted, “During my graduate studies, I was informed that observing molecular hydrogen wasn’t straightforward.”
The data was acquired using a Faltraviolet spectrometer installed on the Korean satellite STSAT-1. Published in 2023, Burkhart quickly unearthed a concealed structure.
“The story of the cosmos is one of billions of years of atomic transformation,” Burkhart explained.
“The hydrogen found in the EOS cloud dates back to the Big Bang and eventually fell into our galaxy, merging near the sun. Thus, these hydrogen atoms have traveled a remarkable 13.6 billion-year journey.”
As it emerged, it was yet another journey into the abyss, cloaked in darkness: mid-water, a delicate, ethereal shape transitioning into another realm.
A remotely operated vehicle, Subathian, recorded the first footage of a giant squid stable in its natural habitat in the southern ocean near Antarctica. The giant squid can grow up to 10 meters (33 feet) in length, making it the heaviest invertebrate on the planet, yet until now, it remained elusive.
This remarkable discovery occurred during a 35-day expedition to the Southern Sandwich Islands, a secluded volcanic arc in the Southern Ocean, aboard the Folcole (too).
The expedition aimed to expedite the discovery of deep-sea species, but nobody anticipated encountering one of the ocean’s most elusive giants.
“We were operating Subathian at a depth of about 2,000 meters that day for trench work,” stated Dr. Michelle Taylor, Chief Scientist of the Expedition and Senior Lecturer at Essex University, as reported by BBC Science Focus.
While Subathian navigated through the cerulean waters, we remained in the control room, surrounded by high-resolution cameras and screens displaying sensor data from the vehicle. A group of scientists observed intently as we monitored the water column.
On March 9th, at a depth of approximately 600 meters (nearly 2,000 feet), the pilot spotted something and began to hover.
“None of us aboard were squid specialists, but we quickly recognized it as a stunning glass squid,” Taylor recounted. “We documented it for about three minutes before resuming our mission to explore the ocean floor.”
The giant squid is among the planet’s most enigmatic creatures. Until now, they had only been seen as dead specimens—either accidentally caught by fishing boats or found in a whale’s stomach. Documenting a living specimen is akin to discovering a unicorn in marine biology.
Furthermore, the squid was not yet fully grown. “It was a juvenile,” Taylor explained. “It lacked some physical features of adult squid, but it was definitely not fully developed. Its size was quite modest for a giant squid.”
Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Subathian is recovered by research vessel Folcole after another successful mission to explore the depths of the ocean – Alex Ingle/Schmidt Ocean Institute
The footage streamed live on YouTube during the dive was initially flagged by audience members.
Taylor consulted with Dr. Kat Bolstad, a cephalopod expert at Auckland Institute of Technology, along with other colleagues, who confirmed their identification with the aid of the 4K video footage captured during the dive.
Telltale clues included a distinctive hook along the squid’s arm.
“[Knowing it’s a colossal squid], I find it both beautiful and extraordinary,” Taylor remarked.
While the giant squid garnered headlines, it was not the singular highlight of the Folcole (too) expedition. About a month ago, researchers also captured the first in situ footage of a glacial glass squid.
Both sightings resulted from lengthy, meticulous dives conducted by Subathian, which can descend up to 4,500 meters (3 miles), enhancing the role of “telepresence” in scientific exploration.
This is the first confirmed footage of a glacier glass squid captured in January – Rov Subathian/Schmidt Ocean Institute
“It’s a new milestone, bringing the world into the deep sea in ways that were once impossible,” Taylor states. “Science enthusiasts and the general public can engage directly with our findings, often possessing extensive knowledge about what we observe.”
Taylor emphasizes that the mission’s deeper purpose transcends mere discovery; it aims to enhance the understanding and protection of deep-sea life.
“This is the last frontier,” she emphasizes. “It’s perplexing why we pursue other planets when we barely comprehend our own oceans.”
The Ocean Census seeks to expedite the discovery of new species, yet this process remains painstakingly slow. Often, it takes over a decade from specimen collection to formal recognition.
In its initial years, the project has already documented more than 800 new species, focusing on uncharted areas and fostering collaboration with a global network of taxonomists.
The sighting of the giant squid may have been serendipitous, but for Taylor, it marks merely the beginning.
“There is still much left to discover,” she asserts.
About our experts
Michelle Taylor is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Essex. Her research focuses on the deep sea and its diverse habitats. As the lead investigator of the Ocean Census, she headed the Japan Foundation-Necton Marine Census team on the South Sandwich Islands expedition.
Extinct Kangaroos from the genus Protemnodon A recent study by paleontologists from the University of Adelaide, Queensland Museum, and Monash University discovered that these creatures were not adventurous wanderers traversing the plains, but rather homebodies that remained close to their habitats throughout their lives. This finding aligns with behaviors observed in modern kangaroo species, yet it was surprising to the researchers.
Protemnodon. Image credits: Andrey Atuchin / Rochelle Lawrence / Scott Hocknull.
Among large herbivorous mammals, greater body sizes are often associated with broader foraging ranges; however, it remains uncertain if this trend applies to extinct Australian megafauna.
In this study, paleontologist Christopher Laurikainen Gaete and colleagues investigated protemnodon fossils found in the Etna Cave, located north of Rockhampton in Central Queensland, Australia.
They examined strontium isotopes from kangaroo teeth, revealing matches only with local limestone rather than distant rock formations.
“The strontium isotopes in the fossilized teeth indicate the geology of the region where food was sourced,” they noted.
The findings suggest that Protemnodon had a significantly smaller foraging range than anticipated for its size, which is estimated at up to 170 kilograms.
Prior research indicates that Protemnodon likely lacked the capacity for long-distance travel due to its large size, thereby restricting its movement.
Additionally, this new study suggests that the stable, lush rainforest habitat provided sufficient food sources, negating the need for Protemnodon to wander far.
When climate change and increasing aridity disrupted this rainforest ecosystem about 280,000 years ago, the reduced foraging area may have left Protemnodon unable to find sufficient food, ultimately leading to the local extinction of these giant kangaroos.
Further investigations are needed to ascertain whether the limited range of Australia’s gigantic marsupials is a widespread pattern attributable to habitat rather than body size.
“We utilized data from contemporary kangaroos to predict a much broader foraging range for these giant extinct kangaroos,” explained Laurikainen Gaete.
“We were astonished to find they didn’t roam at all.”
“These innovative isotopic techniques have significantly advanced our field,” remarked Dr. Scott Hocknall, a senior scientist and curator at the Queensland Museum and paleontologist at Monash University.
“Think of it as an ancient GPS tracker. Fossils allow us to monitor individual movement, dietary habits, social interactions, and causes of death.”
“The ongoing debate regarding the extinction of Australia’s megafauna has persisted for decades, and now we can analyze it from an individual and species-specific standpoint,” stated Professor Anthony Doset, a paleontologist at the University of Wollongong.
“These precise methodologies enable us to examine each site and individual, facilitating more accurate extinction models.”
Researchers are currently planning to apply these methods to reconstruct the past behaviors and diets of MT ETNA and other extinct kangaroo species in the Capricorn Cave region.
“Many of the kangaroo species on Kangaroo Island, such as those found in Capricorn Caves, include tree kangaroos, pademelons, and rock wallabies, with descendants inhabiting the wet tropics and Papua New Guinea,” noted Professor Doset.
“We will employ these same techniques to explore how these surviving kangaroo species adapted to the environmental changes that contributed to the massive extinctions.”
The study will be published in the journal PLOS 1.
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C. Laurikainen Gaete et al. 2025. Megafauna Mobility: An assessment of the foraging range of extinct macropodids from central Queensland, Australia. PLOS 1 20(4): E0319712; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319712
The fossil record of freshwater crayfish is surprisingly sparse, mainly containing trace fossils, some body fossils, and rarely gastroscopy. Paleontologists from Flinders University, the University of New South Wales, the Canterbury Museum and the University of Canterbury have discovered that the small molars (jaws) of the lower jaw of Gondwannan freshwater crayfish have a stiff, robust apatite layer. They discovered eight jaw fragments of a fossil freshwater crayfish that lived in New Zealand during the early Miocene period.
Prehistoric freshwater crayfish grew to about 25 cm long compared to about 8 cm of today’s New Zealand species.
“Crayfish were important creatures in ancient settings,” says Dr. Paul Scofield, senior curator at the Canterbury Museum.
“The crayfish’s body does not fossil because it is made from the wrong chemical elements. However, the molars in the jaw are made of different materials, like mammalian teeth, so they do fossil because they are made from different materials.”
“This means that we can clearly say where freshwater crayfish lived in prehistoric times. It will speak more about prehistoric ecosystems and how they worked.”
Dr. Scofield and his colleagues sifted through hundreds of thousands of small fossil fragments found near St. Batan in central Otago and used microscopes to identify prehistoric crayfish to identify each piece.
Crayfish were identified from eight jaw fragments each, about 4 mm in length.
An exciting observation was to show that the three lower jaws showed that the three types lived together.
There are currently only two species in New Zealand and live in different parts of the country.
Fragments are very rare. One distance of the 100 kg fossil fragments recovered from St. Batan produced only one fragment.
“We also identified the first fossilized Yabby buttons, which are calcium deposits that form in the stomachs of crayfish,” said Dr. Trevor Worthy, a paleontologist at Flinders University.
“Historically, paleontologists have often misidentified Yabby buttons as fossilized fish teeth.”
“Several fragments like these are sitting in boxes of museum collections around the world and are marked with question marks. Now we can say what they are.”
“Small fossils can reveal a lot about prehistoric life,” said Dr Vanessa de Petri, a paleontologist at the University of Canterbury.
“It’s not just about big sexy bones, it’s about the little things. Every piece has a story to tell.”
Team’s result It was published in Alcheringa, Australian Journal of Palaeontology.
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Trevor H. Worthy et al. Decapoda, Parastacidae, of the fossil mandible from the early Miocene of New Zealand. AlcheringaPublished online on April 13th, 2025. doi:10.1080/03115518.2025.2488056
“It’s incredible that we can leverage the power of taxonomic communities. R/V Falkor (Too) “The University of Essex researcher, Dr. Michelle Taylor, and the expedition chief scientist, said:
Galiteuthis glacialis is another glass squid species that has never been seen lively in natural environments before.
“One of the most distinctive features of the giant squid is the presence of a hook in the center of the eight arms. Galiteuthis glacialis said Dr. Aaron Evans, an independent expert in the glass squid family.
“If not, then the boy’s giant squid and Galiteuthis glacialis It is similar, with a transparent body and sharp hook at the end of two long tentacles. ”
Dr. Jyoticavilmani, executive director of Schmidt Ocean Institute, said:
“Fortunately, we caught a high-resolution image of these creatures so that world experts who weren’t on board could identify both species.”
The giant squid, the world’s heaviest invertebrate, was captured in a video of itself swimming in the deep sea for the first time since it was identified a century ago.
The video was recorded on March 9th The Schmidt Ocean Institute said in a news release by an international team of scientists and crew on an expedition near the Southern Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic.
Scientifically named Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni, the squid was a long-time boy nearly a foot long, the release said. It was 1,968 feet deep when scientists and crew members of the Institute’s Forcole research vessel filmed the video on a remotely operated vehicle called Subastein.
The remotely operated vehicle Subastaian will be retrieved on the research vessel Forcol. Alex Ingle/Schmidt Ocean Institute
“It’s exciting to see first in situ”We’ve been working hard to get the better of our customers,” said Kat Bolstad of Auckland Institute of Technology.
Bolstad was one of the scientific experts who helped verify the video.
“For 100 years, we mostly encountered them as harvested teeth predators, as prey remains mainly in the stomachs of whales and seabirds,” she said.
The squid was officially identified and named in 1925, but up until now, no one could have seen it lively on camera.
The squid is estimated to grow up to 23 feet long and weigh as much as 1,100 pounds, the institute said. Little is known about the life cycle, but as adults, they lose their transparent body.
A giant squid should not be confused with a giant squid. Natural History Museums in London. Both are giant cephalopods but belong to various families of squid. Giant squids have much longer tentacles, while giant squids have much larger bodies with shorter tentacles.
Bolstad and Aaron Evans, independent experts in the glass squid who helped validate the video, said the giant squid has distinctive properties, including a hook in the middle of its eight arms.
So far, ROV Subastein from the Institute has filmed the first confirmed video of at least four squid species in the wild, including last year’s Promachoteuthis and Ram’s Horn Squid in 2020.
In March, Kat Bolstad returned from an Antarctic expedition, which used a new camera system specifically built to search for elusive giant squid.
No one had filmed footage of one of these animals swimming in the deep sea. She also found none of this voyage.
But the day she left the ship, Dr. Bolstad, a deep-sea cephalopod biologist, learned about a recent video taken from the South Sandwich Islands on March 9th. A team searching for new marine life and using Schmidt Ocean Institute’s submarines remotely was happening to young cephalopods.
The boy was about 30 centimeters (less than a foot) and had a clear body, delicate arms and brown spots. It was a huge squid.
“I knew as soon as I saw the footage there was a good opportunity,” said Dr. Bolstad, a cephalopod biologist at Auckland Institute of Technology in New Zealand. She discusses Schmidt’s Antarctica work remotely.
It has been 100 years since the giant squid was officially described in a scientific paper. In its adult form, the animal can grow to a massive squid or other invertebrates on Earth, growing to 6 or 7 meters long or up to 23 feet.
The first common sight of the species scientist in 1925 was incomplete. It’s just a fragment of the arm from the two squid on the belly of a sperm whale. It is believed that adults spend most of their time in the deep sea.
Dr. Bolstad said that huge, fully grown squids sometimes appear at sea level and are pulled up to the fishing boat while they are being pulled up. Young specimens appear in the trawl net.
However, up until now, humans had not witnessed any giant squid in their homes, swimming in the deep Antarctic ocean.
One of the reasons they are so elusive is the size of the house. Furthermore, squid is probably eschewing us, Dr. Bolstad said. “They know their surroundings very well, because the obstacles to the surrounding water column might mean predators.”
The sperm whales, the main squid predator, can dive up to 2 kilometers (1.25 miles). Perhaps to help them avoid whales, the giant squid has evolved its biggest eye in the world, much more than basketball.
They also have a unique combination of suckers and hooks in their arms and tentacles,” Dr. Bolstad said.
The footage was filmed by a remotely operated submarine called Subastein, which the Schmidt Ocean Institute uses to explore the deep seas. This particular dive was a partnership with the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Oceansus, an initiative to discover unknown species. The submarine stopped for several minutes during the descent, photographing small, transparent cephalopods.
“I think it’s very exciting,” said Christine Haffard, a biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Institute in California, who is not involved in the expedition.
Dr. Hafard uses other remotely operated submerges in her research. She said these exploratory missions have “incredible value.” For example, her observation of an octopus Walking two sides At the seabed, you can walk two arms and use the other six to camouflage yourself as a mass of algae or coconut. The findings are useful for soft robotics researchers, she said.
Capturing footage of rarely seen marine animals, such as giant squid, can also communicate decisions about human activities, such as deep sea mining, according to Dr. Huffard.
She said it will help you know where these animals spend their time, where they are, where they mate and spawn, and how long they have lived.
The young giant squid in the video was swimming about 600 metres below, Dr. Bolstad said it was not a deep water body that adults are likely to live in. Other deep-sea squids spend their early life in shallow waters, she said. Having a transparent body may help predators swim the baby before the baby descends from the dark ocean as an opaque, reddish adult.
Submersible’s camera detects squid and can instantly send images. Unlike scientists a century ago, they had to dig into a massacre partially digested in whale belly, so everyone was part of the moment when Schmidt saw a “dive stream” from their home and found a giant squid, Dr. Bolstad said. “It’s incredibly amazing that humans can do, in real-time, from anywhere on Earth, to help them participate in these explorations and discoveries.”
She continues to search for grown animals. “I can’t wait to see what a giant living adult squid looks like, in the deep sea house it belongs to,” she said.
However, she also said she was pleased that the first sightings of the wild species were not an adult version. Rather than a leviathan swinging a giant hook, it’s “this beautiful early life stage that looks like a small glass sculpture.”
“In fact, I love seeing the first glimpse of what this will become a true giant,” Dr. Bolstad said.
Last week, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, a cryptocurrency company, traveled through Switzerland contemplating regulatory changes. Tether, once at odds with the establishment, now operates smoothly.
Since Tether is the world’s most traded cryptocurrency, its journey has been unconventional, facing regulatory hurdles and investigations. Despite challenges from regulators, Tether continues to maintain its value pegged to the dollar.
Aldoino, the CEO of Tether, believes that his leadership needs to adapt to global dynamics to sustain the company’s operations.
Tether, holding significant amounts of US government debt, plays a crucial role in the cryptocurrency market, supporting users in unstable economies and providing a secure asset for traders.
Despite past struggles with regulators, Tether now embraces transparency and aims to collaborate with law enforcement agencies to improve its standing in the industry.
Regarding criticisms and regulatory challenges, Aldoino admits past naivety and stresses the importance of communication to build trust and transparency.
The relationship between Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald, a custodian, plays a vital role in the company’s operations, despite challenges posed by regulatory scrutiny.
Lutnick, confirmed as the Secretary of Commerce under the Trump administration, holds a significant impact on Tether’s future collaborations with the US government.
Issues around auditing and compliance continue to surface within the cryptocurrency industry, with Tether facing questions about the stability of its stablecoin and regulatory compliance.
Aldoino warns of potential threats from regulatory challenges in the US and Europe, emphasizing the importance of regulatory clarity moving forward.
In conclusion, Aldoino sees the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency regulation as a critical factor in shaping Tether’s future, pushing for a more supportive regulatory environment starting in September.
Giant panda (Ailuropoda Melanoleuca) It belongs to the Carnivora order, but they eat mostly bamboo and their unique dietary adaptability has always been the focus of their research. Recent studies have shown that plant-derived microRNAs (miRNAs) can release nanosized vesicles (40-100 nm) released by various cell types into the extracellular space and deliver to animal organisms via exosomes that exert cross-regulatory effects on gene expression. Chinese scientists collected blood samples from three groups of pandas (boy, adult female, and adult male) to investigate the role of plant-derived miRNAs in dietary adaptation of giant pandas and extracted them from blood for small RNA analysis. Their results show that plant-derived miRNAs enter the bloodstream of giant pandas, exert cross-kingdom regulatory effects, and may play an important role in the dietary adaptation process.
Giant Panda Cube Shaoriuu and his mother Baiyun at the San Diego Zoo.
“We have shown that plant-derived miRNAs are present in the blood of giant pandas,” says Dr. Feng Li, a researcher at West Normal University of China.
“Our research has proven that bamboo, which is used as food for giant pandas, affects changes in the feeding habits of giant pandas.”
In this study, the researchers took blood samples from seven giant pandas, including three adult women, three adult men and one boy woman.
In these samples, we found 57 miRNAs that are likely to be derived from bamboo.
“Bamboo miRNAs can enter the body of giant pandas through diet, absorbed by the intestines, enter the blood circulation, and regulate the RNAs of giant pandas as they transfer information and play a role in regulating gene expression in giant pandas,” Dr. Lee said.
These plant-derived miRNAs can regulate a variety of physiological processes, including growth and development, biological rhythms, behavior, and immune responses.
“Bamboo miRNAs are also involved in regulating the smell, taste and dopamine pathways of giant pandas, and all of these are related to feeding habits,” Dr. Lee said.
“When pandas eat more bamboo as they grow, certain miRNAs accumulate, regulating gene expression and aiding in their adaptation to bamboo’s flavor.”
“These miRNAs also affect the sense of the smell of giant pandas, and may allow you to choose the freshest and most nutritious bamboo plants.”
“Therefore, bamboo miRNAs may promote the adaptation of giant pandas from carnivorous to plant-based diets.”
The authors also found that pandas of different ages and genders have different miRNA compositions in their blood.
“Only miRNAs that can play a particular role in regulating gene expression can remain in the body, and those that do not play a role are expelled,” Dr. Lee said.
“For example, some miRNAs regulate reproductive processes and can only be found in the blood of pandas of a particular gender or age.”
“The fact that miRNAs can send signals from plants to animals could open the door to researching the treatment and prevention of diseases in animals.”
“Plant miRNAs also participate in regulating the animal’s immune system, increasing the disease resistance of animals.”
Similarly, studying miRNA-induced changes in plants can also help assess and improve the safety of plant-based foods in animals and humans.
However, more research is needed to draw decisive conclusions about the potential of common miRNAs and their impact on giant pandas.
“The giant pandas are an invaluable national treasure in our country, and blood samples are not easily obtained,” concluded Dr. Lee.
“If possible, we hope to collect blood samples of young pandas who have not yet eaten bamboo for research and perhaps get more surprising results.”
result Published in the journal Veterinary Science Frontier.
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Herrington et al. 2025. Cross-Kingdom Regulation of Gene Expression in Giant Pandas via Plant-derived MiRNAs. front. Veterinarian. SCI 12; doi:10.3389/fvets.2025.1509698
By chemically analyzing ancient rock crystals, scientists at Curtin University, Portsmouth University and St. Francis Xavier University discovered that glaciers were carved to mark the landscape after the events of the neoplasm of the Snowman Earth, releasing the main minerals that transformed the sea shells. This process has had a major impact on the composition of the planet, creating conditions that allow complex life to evolve.
Impressions of the artist “Snowman Earth.” Image credit: NASA.
“Our research provides valuable insight into how the natural systems of the Earth are deeply interconnected,” says Chris Kirkland, professor of Curtin University, the study's lead author.
“When these huge ice sheets melted, they caused a huge flood that washed out mineral and uranium-containing chemicals into the ocean.”
“This influx of elements changed marine chemistry as more complex lives began to evolve.”
“This study highlights how Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere and climate are closely connected. Even ancient glacial activity triggers the chemical chain reaction that formed the planet.”
This study also offers a new perspective on modern climate change.
It shows how past changes in the global climate have caused large-scale environmental transformations.
“This research is a clear reminder that while the Earth itself can withstand, the conditions that make it habitable can change dramatically,” Professor Kirkland said.
“These ancient climate changes demonstrate the profound and lasting impact of changes in the natural and human-driven environment.
“Understanding these past events will help us to better predict how today's climate change will reconstruct our world.”
Paleontologists have discovered 4.9 million (Early Pliocene) fossilized ruins of an extinct flying squirrel Myopetaulista Webbi Tennessee, USA. Generation of the genus Myopetaulista Eastern North America is bewildered because it is separated from the known geographical range of the genus and the extent of organisms of its sister species. Petaurista. Researchers assume that Myopetaulista which is linked to a warm forest environment and was dispersed across North America through the Beringland Bridge during the warm phase of the early Pliocene.
The lifespan of a flying fossil squirrel Miopetaurista neogrivensis It indicates that the animal is ready to land on a tree branch. Image credit: Oscasani Sidro / ICP.
Myopetaulista Webbi It jumps over the sky in what is now southern Appalachia, sliding over rhinoceros, mastodons and red pandas.
New materials of this kind have been discovered in Grey Fossil Site In Tennessee.
“discovery Myopetaulista In North America, this genus was very unexpected because it is known only from Eurasia,” said Dr. Isaac Casanovas Bilar, paleontologist at Mikel Crusafont of paleontology at the University of Barcelona. .
“There have been some uncertain reports from Florida, but new specimens from the grey fossil site provide new information, with these giant flying squirrels coming together alongside other mammals around five million years ago. It helped me to make sure I crossed the bridge.”
According to paleontologists, Myopetaulista Webbi Probably closely related Myopetaulista Tarelionly known Pliocene Eurasian species.
“The Appalachians today may try to think of these ancient creatures as closely related to the squirrels that regularly see them,” the researchers said.
“However, their closest relatives are giant flying squirrels from Japan, China, and Indonesia.”
“These giant flying squirrels have a lightweight build, weighing around three pounds, and were pretty agile on the treetop.”
“When they arrived in Tennessee now, the world was much warmer than it is now.”
“Its warm climate allows squirrel ancestors to travel across North America and could slip through dense, damp forests like those preserved in the fossil records of grey sites millions of years ago.”
The new specimen is Myopetaulista A genus of North America.
“As the climate cooled over time, Pleistocene ice age led to the isolation of these giant flying squirrels in warm shelters like Florida, and ultimately contributed to their extinction.” Miquel Crusafont from the University of Barcelona.
“The Last American Myopetaulista It has lived for millions of years since the species of Eurasian of this genus disappeared.
Team's work It was published in Journal of Mammalian Evolution.
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M. Grau-Camats et al. 2025. Intercontinental Sliding: A Review of the North American Records of Giant Flying Squirrels Myopetaulista (Rodentia, Sciuridae) Description of new materials for the grey fossil site (Tennessee). J Mammal Evol 32, 8; doi:10.1007/s10914-025-09751-w
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. ELON MUSK NEWS has already been a few days. Look forward to our news. In my personal news, I deleted Instagram from my mobile phone and tried a month there. Instead of scrolling, I’m listening Shoe girl and Lady Gaga’s new music。
The advantage of American AI?
Last week, DeepSeek has developed a US stock market by suggesting that AI should not be so expensive. The proposal was very wonderful and wiped off about $ 600 million from NVIDIA’s market capitalization in one day. According to DeepSeek, I trained a flagship AI model. This is the top US app store, almost $ 5.6 million, almost equal to the performance of the US top model. (It has been discussed how accurate the numbers are.) For some time, there were no co-announcements of Stargate, a $ 500 million-dollar AI infrastructure project in the United States joining Oracle, Softbank, and Open. It seemed to be a huge overpire. I know what they are talking about. Same as META and Microsoft’s huge ear mark. Hey, large-scale spender: Investors want to see this cash flow in reverse.
In MANIA, META, and Microsoft, two high-tech gifts who bet on artificial intelligence have reported a quarterly revenue. Next year, we promise to build hundreds of billions of dollars and build artificial intelligence infrastructure. META promised $ 600 billion and Microsoft $ 800 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg, who was asked about DeepSeek on a phone call with an analyst, refused to suspect.
Satya nadella states: Microsoft has accepted DeepSeek so that Azure customers can be used.
The whole property will live or die with the advantage of American AI: Sam Altman. He responded to Deepseek Mania by announcing that Openai will release a new version of Chatgpt for free for free. Previously, chatbot paid users (some of them pay $ 200 a month) first access to the most advanced features. What Altman did not say was as much as much attention. He did not announce that Openai would reduce a huge amount of spending, and did not say that Stargate needed less cash. He is committed to a large gold game, like Zuckerberg and Nadera.
I will see Google’s profits tonight for Sundar Pichai’s opinion about what DeepSeek means for his company and its huge spending.
AI philosophy and corporate governance are on the stage
Photo: Guardian
I attended my premiere last Thursday Domer A new play set in an open-rit office office on the weekend when Sam Altman was fired as CEO. If I was incomplete and frustrated, it seemed motivated and interesting. We recommend that you look at it if possible.
The play occurs in two acts. First, Altman Analogue’s set is sitting on a long table with executives of other companies. As they talk about, Alina, the company’s safety and consistency…
WASP-132 is a unique multiplanet system in that both the inner rocky planet and the newly discovered outer giant planet are in a system that includes a hot Jupiter planet. This suggests that hot Jupiter migrated via a rare dynamically cooled mechanism and helps further our understanding of how hot Jupiter systems form and evolve. .
The WASP-132 system includes hot Jupiter (in the foreground), an inner super-Earth (passing in front of the orange host star), and the cold planet WASP-132d. Image credit: Thibaut Roger, University of Geneva.
A hot Jupiter is a planet with a mass similar to Jupiter, but it orbits closer to its star than Mercury, which orbits the Sun.
Because there is not enough gas or dust for these giant planets to form where they are observed, the established theory is that they originate far from their stars and are not planets. They move inward as the system evolves.
Until now, it was thought that hot Jupiter was orbiting the star alone, as other planets in the system were ejected as it moved toward the star.
Two extra planets in the WASP-132 planetary system now cast doubt on this theory.
“The WASP-132 system is an excellent laboratory for studying the formation and evolution of multiplanetary systems,” said Dr. François Bouchy, an astronomer at the Geneva Observatory.
“The discovery of hot Jupiters alongside inner super-Earths and distant giants challenges our understanding of the formation and evolution of these systems.”
“This is the first time I have observed such a configuration.”
Hot Jupiter WASP-132b orbits its parent star every 7.1 days. Super Earth WASP-132c orbits the star in just 24 hours and 17 minutes.
The newly discovered ice giant, named WASP-132d, will orbit its host star for five years.
Dr David Armstrong from the University of Warwick said: “Finding planets inside the hot interior of Jupiter is particularly rare, so the detection of an inner super-Earth was exciting.”
“We conducted an intensive campaign using state-of-the-art instruments to characterize its mass, density and composition, revealing a planet with a similar density to Earth.”
“The discovery of this planet adds further complexity to the WASP-132 system, as the movement of hot Jupiter towards the host star due to dynamic perturbations destabilizes the orbits of the other two planets.”
“This suggests a more stable, ‘cooler’ migration path for hot Jupiter in the protoplanetary disk that surrounds young stars and is the site of planet formation.”
Regarding this discovery, paper Published in today’s magazine astronomy and astrophysics.
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nolan greaves others. 2025. Discovery of a cold giant planet and measurement of the mass of a hot super-Earth in the multiplanetary system WASP-132. A&A 693, A144; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202348177
Who holds the record for the world’s tallest snowman? Surprisingly, it’s a snow woman. Back in 2008, the residents of Bethel, Maine, USA built Olympia the Snow Woman, standing at an impressive height of 37.21 meters (just over 122 feet).
Science played a crucial role in creating this monumental snowman. The right type of snow is essential for such a feat. Snow that accumulates in temperatures between 0 to 2 °C (32 to 35 °F) is ideal. This temperature range allows free water to act as glue between the ice crystals, helping maintain the snowman’s shape. Snow with a moisture content of 3-8% is perfect, while anything over 15% leads to slushiness.
But why bother building a snowman if it’s just going to melt? The first known depiction of a snowman dates back to a Dutch prayer book from 1380. Unlike the cheery snowmen we’re familiar with like Frosty and Olaf, this medieval illustration shows a snowman being melted by fire, conveying a different message.
A snowman from the medieval book The Book of Hours – Photo courtesy of Wikicommons
Historian Robert Eckstein notes that snow was a form of artistic expression for people. Building snowmen was a source of entertainment and a way to creatively express oneself, much like selfies are today. People could create their own snow sculptures for fun or display. Even the renowned Michelangelo was once asked to construct a giant snowman for a clown in 1494.
Building snowmen also served as a unique method for people to express their opinions on political matters. In 1511, residents of Brussels crafted over 200 snowy scenes, many of which were satirical representations of politicians and public figures. Snow became a medium for sharing messages.
This article answers a question from Teresa Thomas: “What is the largest snowman ever built?”
To submit your queries, email questions@sciencefocus.com or message us on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram Page (don’t forget to include your name and location).
For more fascinating scientific facts, visit our Ultimate Fun Facts page.
This relatively small solar flare that occurred in October (a bright flash at the center discovered by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory) would be dwarfed by a superflare.
NASA/SDO
The sun can produce extremely powerful bursts of radiation more often than we think. According to research on stars similar to the Sun, such “superflares” appear to occur about once every 100 years, and are particle storms that can have a devastating effect on electronic equipment on Earth. may be accompanied by The last major solar storm to hit Earth was 165 years ago, so we may be hit by another solar storm soon, but how similar is our Sun to these other stars? is unknown.
Direct measurements of solar activity did not begin until the mid-20th century. In 1859, our star produced a very powerful solar flare, or emission of light. These are often associated with subsequent coronal mass ejections (CMEs), bubbles of magnetized plasma particles that shoot into space.
In fact, this flare was followed by a CME that crashed into the Earth, causing a violent geomagnetic storm. This was recorded by astronomers at the time and is now known as the Carrington phenomenon. If this were to happen today, communications systems and power grids could be disrupted.
There is also evidence that there were even more powerful storms on Earth long before the Carrington incident. Assessment of radiocarbon content in tree rings and ice cores suggests that extremely high-energy particles occasionally rained down on Earth over several days, but this could be attributed to a one-time, massive solar outburst. It is unclear whether this is the case or whether it is due to several solar explosions. something small. It’s also unclear whether the Sun can produce such large flares and particle storms in a single explosion.
The frequency of these signs on Earth, and the frequency of superflares that astronomers have recorded on other stars, suggests that these giant bursts tend to occur hundreds to thousands of years apart. .
now, Ilya Usoskin Researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland studied 56,450 stars and found that stars similar to the Sun appear to emit superflares much more frequently.
“Superflares in stars like the Sun occur much more frequently than previously thought, about once every century or two,” Usoskin said. “If we believe this prediction for the Sun is correct, we would expect the Sun to have a superflare about every 100 to 200 years, and the only extreme solar storms we know of occur about once every 1500 or 2000 years. There will be a mismatch.”
Using the Kepler Space Telescope to measure the brightness of stars, Usoskin and colleagues detected a total of 2,889 superflares in 2,527 stars. The energies of these flares were 100 to 10,000 times the size of the Carrington event, the largest flare measured from the Sun.
Usoskin said it remains to be seen whether such large flares also cause large-particle phenomena, such as there is evidence for on Earth, but current solar theory cannot explain such large flares. That’s what it means. “This raises questions about what we’re actually seeing,” he says.
“It’s very impressive for a stellar flare survey,” he says. Matthew Owens At the University of Reading, UK. “They’ve clearly developed a new way to detect flares with increased sensitivity.”
Owens says it’s even harder to determine how much this tells us about the Sun’s flaring activity, in part because it’s difficult to accurately measure the rotation rates of other stars. It is said that it is for the sake of “The devil is in the details,” he says.
“The rotation rate is important because it is related to how the star generates its magnetic field, and magnetic fields are related to flare activity,” Owens said.
According to a team of astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics at the University of Potsdam, the XX triangular star, a bright K0 giant star in a binary star system located in the constellation Triangulum, exhibits chaotic, aperiodic star point behavior. That’s what it means. and Konkoli Observatory.
XX A star spot on the surface of the constellation Triangulum. Image credits: HUN-REN RCAES / Zs. Kushvari, MOME / Á. Radovani, AIP / K. Strassmeyer.
“Among the things that can be observed from a spatially resolved solar disk are the number, size and morphology of sunspots, their growth and decay, and their movement in latitude and longitude,” said lead author and director of the Leibniz Institute for Astronomy. said Professor Klaus Strassmeyer. Potsdam Astrophysics and Potsdam University, and their colleagues.
“Such spots are also seen on other stars and are called star spots.”
“We use indirect surface imaging techniques to invert the spectral line profile into an image of the stellar surface.”
“Typically we only get occasional snapshots of spots on a star’s surface, but the spots change systematically over time, and like the Sun, only then can we learn about the internal dynamos and structure of the target in question. Well known.”
“We chose the XX triangular star, one of the most speckled stars in the sky, for a more sustained application of Doppler imaging.”
XX triangle It is located about 640 light years away in the constellation Triangulum.
The star, also known as XX Tri or HD 12545, has a mass only 10% more than the Sun, a radius 10 times the Sun’s radius, and an effective temperature of 4630 K.
It has a rotation period of 24 days, which is synchronized with the orbital period of the binary star system.
XX Trigonum has previously been shown to contain a gigantic star spot with physical dimensions equivalent to 10,000 times the area of the largest group of spots ever seen on the Sun, and 10 times the size of the projected solar disk. It had been discovered in
Professor Strassmeier and his co-authors took 99 separate images of the star using an indirect surface imaging technique called Doppler imaging.
“A dark spot on the star’s surface caused its optical center (a point that essentially represents the star’s ‘center of light’) to shift by up to 24 microarcseconds, which is less than the radius of the star’s visible disk. This corresponds to approximately 10%,” they said. Said.
“These changes occur because the dark spots reduce the brightness of certain areas of the star, shifting the perceived center of light slightly.”
“However, unlike the sun’s predictable activity cycles, the displacements of these photocenters did not follow a periodic pattern. This is a largely chaotic and probably aperiodic pattern, very different from the solar dynamo. This suggests that it is a dynamo.”
“This phenomenon also highlights challenges in detecting exoplanets, as spot-induced fluctuations in the optical center can mimic or mask small movements caused by orbiting planets, which could impose substantial limitations on the detection of such exoplanets by astronomical observations.”
of findings appear in the diary nature communications.
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KG Strassmeyer others. 2024. XX Long-term Doppler images of triangular stars show chaotic aperiodic dynamos. Nat Commune 15, 9986; doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54329-4
A gigantic underwater structure off the coast of the tropical Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean has been confirmed to be the world's largest known coral.
A team of scientists and filmmakers visited a remote location in mid-October national geographic The object was so large that I thought it must be the remains of a shipwreck.
However, for underwater cinematographers, Manu Saint Felix Jumping into the water to get a better look, he was surprised by what he saw.
“I completely remember jumping up and looking down, but I was surprised,” he told reporters during a briefing. Instead of a shipwreck, San Felix encountered the largest coral ever discovered. “It's huge,” he said. “It's almost the same size as a cathedral.”
A coral species located a few hundred meters off the east coast of Marauralo Island was identified as this species. Pavona Kraus. At 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, it is larger than a blue whale and is thought to be 300 years old.
He says the discovery was a “happy coincidence”. enric sala of national geographic's Pristine Seas project aims to encourage governments to protect marine ecosystems through exploration and research. This is by far the largest single coral colony ever discovered, easily surpassing this one. previous record holder – giant porphyry A colony with a diameter of 22.4 meters and a height of 8 meters discovered in American Samoa in 2019.
Over the past two years, record sea temperatures have led to a series of coral bleaching events around the world. But Sala says the giant reef is showing signs of bleaching, while other reefs around the Solomon Islands are showing signs of bleaching. P. Cravath The coral looks healthy. It is an important habitat for marine life, providing shelter and food for fish, shrimp, insects and crabs, he says. “It’s like a big patch of old-growth forest.”
However, corals are not immune from ecological threats, including local pollution, overfishing, and global climate change. Sala said he would like to see more marine protected areas (MPAs) established to protect marine life from localized pollution, in parallel with global efforts to combat climate change. . “Protecting coral reefs won't lower water temperatures, and it won't stop oceans from warming,” he says. “We need to fix it, and we need to reduce carbon emissions. But MPAs can help buy us time by making reefs more resilient.”
There’s a saying: “Never stay more than 6 feet away from a mouse.” Although I’m here BBC Science Focus, we concluded that this measurement is inaccurate, but may soon become more accurate for those involved in illegal wildlife trade (IWT).
The research team used the anatomical structures of endangered animals such as pangolin scales, elephant ivory, and rhinoceros horns on African giant pouch rats to provide a low-cost detection system to prevent illegal smuggling. I trained myself to be able to distinguish scents.
– Hmmmm – Swarms of rats have been shown to be able to identify these items even when hidden inside other materials, and to remember their smells even after months of no exposure.
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Why rats?
this is not the first timeApopo The Tanzania-based nonprofit organization tasked with conducting this study recognizes the potential of a super rat workforce.
The organization aims to provide low-tech, cost-effective solutions to pressing humanitarian challenges across Africa and has previously developed the HeroRATS technology to detect landmines and the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. I trained the pack.
Dr. IsabelZottofirst co-author of new research Published in frontiers of conservation science, It helped to identify the potential for IWT detection in rats.
“There is an urgent need to strengthen cargo inspection, as existing inspection tools are expensive and time-consuming,” Schott explained.
“The APOPO rat is a cost-effective odor detection tool that can easily access tight spaces, such as cargo inside packed shipping containers, and can also be lifted high to block ventilation systems in closed containers.”
rat boot camp
The new research rats, Kirsty, Marty, Attenborough, Irwin, Betty, Teddy, Ivory, Ebony, Desmond, Thoreau, and Fosse, have undergone several rigorous training stages.
They first learned to “nose” a target’s scent for a few seconds to acquire a flavored pellet. Next, we discussed common scents used to hide wild animals in real-life human trafficking, such as electrical wires, coffee beans, and detergent.
The final step was retention training, where I re-experienced scents I had not been exposed to for 5 and 8 months respectively. Despite several months of no exposure, the rats showed perfect memory retention scores, suggesting that their cognitive retention performance is similar to that of dogs.
By the end of the training, eight of the rats were able to identify four commonly smuggled wild animals among 146 non-target substances.
Why now?
Statistics on IWT (defined as the illegal capture, killing, or harvesting of animals or plants) have become increasingly bleak in recent years. of wild animals of the world fund (WWF) estimates that it is currently the fourth largest illicit trade in the world, with a value of more than £15 billion a year.
They also estimate that around 55 African elephants are killed for their tusks every day, amounting to more than 20,000 a year. It also found that rhino poaching increased by 9,000 percent in South Africa between 2007 and 2014.
While this clearly has a negative impact on wildlife populations, a 2019 study found that world bank It also estimates that long-term global losses to ecosystems affected by IWT are approximately $1-2 trillion (£700-1.5 trillion) per year.
Evaluation of crime
Scientists involved in the new detection study have already identified the next steps for the HEROrat project. The idea is to develop methods that allow rats to operate within ports, which are likely to be hotspots for smuggled wildlife.
To this end, the rats are outfitted with custom-made vests (possibly inspired by Virgin Atlantic’s iconic red flight attendant uniforms). When they pull a small ball attached to the chest of their vest with their paws, it makes a beeping sound. In this way, the rat can alert the handler when it detects a target.
“The vest is a great example of hardware development that can be useful across a variety of settings and tasks, including shipping ports to detect smuggled wildlife,” the co-authors said. Dr. Kate Webb.
‘I
I think AI is going to change everything,” San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo told me earlier this year. “We just don’t know how.” Artificial intelligence’s influence on the creative industries can already be seen everywhere in film, television and music, but dance relies heavily on live bodies performing in front of an audience. As a format, it appears to be somewhat isolated. However, this week, choreographers Ao Nakamura and Esteban Lecoq, collectively known as AΦEis launching Lilith.Aeon, what is billed as the world’s first AI-driven dance production. The performer, Lilith, is an AI co-created with Mr. Nakamura and Mr. Lecoq. “She” appears in an LED cube, which the audience moves around, and their movements trigger Lilith’s dance.
Nakamura and Lecoq argue that they are interested in enhancing storytelling, rather than pursuing cutting-edge technology for its own sake. Working as dancers with the theater company Punchdrunk opened their eyes to the idea of immersive experiences, which led to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and now AI. Their question is always, “How can we make this technology happen?” But it’s not like robots are going to take over the world.
Lilith.Aeon’s story is inspired by transhumanism (using technology to evolve beyond human limitations) and began as a script written by an AI bot. Nakamura and Lecoq provided all of their research to AI, including images, audiobooks, and discussions. “And we were able to interact with the AI, collaborate with it, and co-create the work together.” The two created a “dictionary-like” step that Lilith was trained on; The AI continued to generate new “words” of its own. They were excited when Lilith did something they never expected, but the choreography is still tailored to their aesthetic. “It’s not random,” Lecoq says. “I’m not interested in looking at things like screensavers.”
“It’s not random. I’m not interested in looking at things like screensavers.” … Lilith.Aeon. Photo: Shaneobenson @Shaneobenson
You can’t talk about AI in dance without talking about Wayne McGregor. Always at the forefront when it comes to technology, I first started researching AI 20 years ago. McGregor developed it in collaboration with Google. Somais a choreographic tool trained on his 25-year archive of work that can analyze thousands of hours of video and derive real-time suggestions, just as dancers improvise in the studio. He used AISOMA to generate a new version of his 2017 work autobiography It varies from performance to performance. His latest project, which opens next year, is on another earthdeveloped with Professor Geoffrey Shaw in Hong Kong, uses a 360-degree screen with sensing technology to allow viewers to build their own experiences.
choreographer alexander whitley We are also developing ways to use AI to integrate audiences into our work. The VR version of The Rite of Spring works on using audience movements as triggers for avatars trained on Whitley’s database of choreography. This technology allows amateur spectators to make their movements more artistic, and even allows them to arrange their movements to the music, like a dance version of Autotune.
Technology is developing rapidly. A type of motion capture that was once the province of Hollywood studios is now accessible through an app on your phone (try it) Move.ai), much of the progress is being driven by the gaming industry. However, there are some pitfalls that are worth looking into. Video game performers, including motion capture actors, impressive In the US, due to concerns about being replaced by AI (similar to the actors’ strike in 2023). Dancers are already being recorded by companies that build motion banks (“We’ve done about a million projects that require motion capture, like someone spinning on their head,” McGregor says). And the issue of rights and royalties when using dancers’ movements (and expertise) to train AI is a big one. McGregor said outright acquisitions were common in motion capture deals in the past. “We didn’t understand how the technology would be applied in the future.” He is currently working with Arts Council England on intellectual property (IP), motion data and “ethical AI”. I would like to take action. If done well, this could become a new source of income for dancers. “Coding choreo makes coin,” quotes Jonzi D from a hip-hop show. frayedfeaturing AI-generated dancing avatars.
But what if you want to create coins for others? Dancing is an ever-changing art form, passed down through dance floors, studios, and now social media, and where ideas originate. It can be difficult to know or prove what happened. You can copyright a dance piece, but you can’t copyright a step, as dancers who tried to sue the makers of the video game Fortnite discovered. Files can be copyrighted. Nigerian choreographer Kudus Onyikeku uses AI to recognize and classify movements to build a dance databank and protect intellectual property, especially of black artists, which has often been exploited in the past. We are conducting research.
Artists who are serious about AI are partnering with big companies like Nvidia, Amazon, and Dell. They get technology, and in return companies get ideas, accolades, and importantly, data. Are they selling their souls or just pragmatism? Potentially, it affects both directions. “We don’t want to be an adopter of technology,” McGregor says. “You want to be part of the conversation from the beginning and be the voice. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, otherwise you’ll just be servicing the technology.” Often developing tools Commercial funding is the only way to do so, and some tools have the potential to democratize dance and demystify it. Whitley is working on software that can be used in education, allowing students with no dance knowledge to create their own choreography on screen.
A scene from Wayne McGregor & Co.’s Autobiography (v95 and v96) held at Sadler’s Wells, London, earlier this year. Photo: Tristram Kenton/Guardian
“I think humans and AI can do great things together,” says Jonzi D. But he also notices that most of the AI-generated content he sees has a certain similar look. “It comes down to how creatively you can use it.” Lecoq agrees that if everything is trained on the same content, everything will look the same. Art will undermine itself. “It would be lazy not to push the boundaries further,” he says. AI is not a shortcut when developing technology as we go along, as AΦE does. “It’s a long cut. It’s a very difficult and lonely process.”
Rojo thinks of several useful applications for AI in dance. For example, algorithms that can solve the headache of recasting a ballet when someone is injured can calculate who is available, who knows the role, etc. in seconds. Less useful, she says, “is if the composers were changed, the set and lighting designers were changed,” and the choreography patterns were created by artificial intelligence. “And it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
However, computer intrusion into creativity is nothing new. “Computers are the future of dance,’’ said the choreographer. Merce Cunningham Back in 1995, he had already been working on the LifeForms program for six years, manipulating avatars on screen and transmitting the results to dancers. The intention was to shed the dancers’ natural habit of one movement instinctively leading to another and find something new, which choreographers have always tried.
So is that good or bad for the industry? “I try to avoid the binary of technology as either a savior or a destroyer,” Whitley says. There will inevitably be disruptive effects on the industry, “but there are also some really exciting possibilities that come with it.” Not all dancers will lose their jobs. “I’m not worried about turnover at all,” McGregor says. For him, it’s about using technology to better understand the complexities of the human body. “And we are far from building a version that somehow replicates the brilliance of the human body. Human virtuosity and ingenuity are what we are most often associated with.”
Watching dance is also about getting to know the limits of the human body and seeing it reach its limits. There’s no point in having an avatar that can do anything. Mr McGregor said: “There is no danger in the digital world.” But even if there is AI intervention in the choreography, “when performed by living, breathing humans, it becomes meaningful and tangible.” says Whitley. “Certainly, live performance cannot replace digital experiences,” Nakamura says. She’s not interested in seeing real people replicated on screen (“What do you mean?”), but with Lilith.Aeon, she wants to create something that couldn’t exist otherwise. I’m thinking. But despite the fact that AΦE is pioneering the latest in artificial intelligence, Lecoq claims that they are not very interested in technology. “The best technology that I like is the washing machine and the microwave.”
The Galapagos Islands are equatorial islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean, approximately 900 kilometers (500 miles) west of northern South America. Scientists have identified more than 1,500 native species of birds, reptiles, and other animals that live only on these islands, which are known for their biodiversity. One famous example is the Galapagos tortoise. This giant tortoise can weigh up to 400 kilograms (nearly 1,000 pounds), making it the largest cold-blooded land animal.
Scientists have speculated about the evolution of Galapagos tortoises. Charles Darwin visited this island for the first time aboard the HMS. Beagle 1835. Researchers agree These turtles originate from the South American continent, but it is still unknown how they migrated to the island and when they reached their impressive size.
Some scientists believe that Galapagos giant tortoises became large after immigrating to the islands, while others argue that the tortoises grew large before leaving the mainland. Proponents of the “then” hypothesis cite several examples in which island birds and snakes similarly grew larger than continental birds and snakes. Proponents of the “before” hypothesis argue that gigantism may have helped turtles cross oceans. They suggest that larger turtles have slower metabolisms, so they lose less body heat in the water, and have larger, more buoyant shells.
Researchers from the United States and Ecuador recently reconsidered the Galapagos tortoise debate based on new fossils collected off the coast of Ecuador. Paleontologists have previously discovered fossilized large turtles in southern South America, which they claim are ancestors of Galapagos giant tortoises. However, these fossils are located far south of the equatorial islands, and scientists have found no direct evidence that they are related to the Galapagos species. These researchers therefore wanted to test giant tortoise fossils found near the island.
The new turtle fossil was composed of shell material collected from sandstone of the Tablazo Formation on mainland Ecuador. The researchers explained that these fossils were only briefly described by researchers studying mammal fossils in the 1950s, so they may have been missed by earlier scientists. Researchers estimated that the fossil belonged to a turtle that was more than 1 meter (or 3 feet) long, and about the size of a Galapagos giant tortoise.Past researchers Researchers narrowed down the age of the Tabrazo Formation to between 780,000 and 12,000 years, making it the oldest giant tortoise fossil discovered by scientists in northern South America.
The researchers compared the new Ecuadorian giant tortoise fossils with fossils from other South American and Caribbean giant tortoises, as well as with extant Galapagos tortoises. They use features such as shape, structure, size, and age of fossilized and modern turtle shells to create a picture of how these turtles and their potential ancestors are related. Created. Phylogenetic tree. They called these trees: Tip dateThat’s because they placed different types of turtles at the ends, or “tips,” of trees and assigned each species an estimated age, or “dated.”
They used a statistical method called . Bayesian analysis Evaluate the probability that each tree is correct based on known relationships between several species and new data from Ecuadorian fossils. The research team found that Galápagos tortoises are more closely related to Ecuadorian tortoise fossils than any other species included, based on the most likely tree shape, and that the two groups have a common Confirmed that they share a common ancestry.
The researchers interpreted the phylogenetic analysis as supporting previous researchers’ claims that a population of giant tortoises lived on the coast of Ecuador more than 2 million years ago. The researchers explained that this was around the same time and place that scientists believe Galapagos tortoises hitchhiked to the islands on the Humboldt Current, which flows north along the west coast of South America. Therefore, they suggested that their findings support the “previous” hypothesis proposed by some scientists.
Researchers concluded that Galapagos tortoises were gigantic before they left mainland South America. However, researchers cautioned that South America’s fossil record is incomplete and poorly preserved, and dating the evolution of Galapagos tortoises remains difficult. They will collect more giant tortoise fossils from South America, possibly incorporating ancient DNA, to help future scientists further examine when and where the Galapagos giant tortoise species originated. Recommended to describe and analyze.
Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is home to an ancient impact structure called the Groove System, the largest impact structure in the outer Solar System, whose impact would have had a major impact on Ganymede’s early history.
The distribution of grooves and the location of the center of the groove system are always shown on the hemisphere away from Jupiter (top) and on a cylindrical projection of Ganymede (bottom). Grey areas represent geologically new terrains that are devoid of grooves. Gutters (green lines) are only present in geologically older terrains (black areas). Image courtesy of Naoyuki Hirata, doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69914-2.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and has many unique features, including tectonic valleys known as grooves.
The grooves are the oldest surface features identified on Ganymede, as they are crossed by impact craters over 10 km in diameter. The grooves provide clues to the moon’s early history.
The trench is thought to be a fragment of a multi-ring impact basin structure similar to the Valhalla basin on Callisto and the Asgard basin.
The largest trench system lies across the Galileo-Marius region, the so-called Galileo-Marius trench system, which is the remnant of an ancient giant impact that radiates in concentric circles from a single point on Ganymede.
“Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto each have interesting features, but what caught my attention were the grooves on Ganymede,” said planetary scientist from Kobe University. paper Published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“We know that this feature was created by an asteroid impact about 4 billion years ago, but we didn’t know how large that impact was or how it affected the Moon.”
First, Dr. Hirata noticed that the estimated location of the impact was almost exactly on the meridian farthest from Jupiter.
“Similarities with the Pluto impact that shifted the dwarf planet’s rotation axis, as seen through NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, suggest that Ganymede underwent a similar reorientation,” he said.
The asteroid that struck Ganymede was probably about 300 kilometers (180 miles) in diameter, roughly 20 times larger than the Chicxulub asteroid that smashed into Earth 65 million years ago, ending the age of the dinosaurs, leaving a temporary crater 800 to 1,000 miles (1,400 to 1,600 kilometers) across, according to the study.
Only an impact of this magnitude would be likely to shift the Moon’s rotation axis to its current position due to the change in mass distribution, regardless of where on the surface the impact occurred.
“We want to understand the origin and evolution of Ganymede and other Jupiter moons,” Dr. Hirata said.
“The giant impact must have had a major impact on Ganymede’s early evolution, but the thermal and structural effects of the impact on Ganymede’s interior remain largely unexplored.”
“We think that further research into the application of the internal evolution of icy moons could be done next.”
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N. Hirata. 2024. Giant impact on early Ganymede and subsequent reorientation. Scientific Reports 14, 19982. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69914-2
A replica of the “Welcome Stranger,” a 100 kg gold nugget discovered in Australia in 1869.
Ian Dagnall/Alamy
Earthquakes can create electric fields that attract gold dissolved in liquids pushed up from deep within the earth, causing gold nuggets to form in the quartz.
Giant gold nuggets are often associated with quartz, a ubiquitous but chemically inert mineral. The world's largest gold nuggets can weigh nearly 100 kilograms, but until now no one has been able to explain how such masses of precious metal formed.
“The mystery was how someone could create such a large nugget of gold in one place without any obvious chemical or physical traps,” he said. Chris Voysey At Monash University, Melbourne.
Voysey and his colleagues discovered a possible mechanism: applying pressure to the quartz creates a voltage that attracts gold dissolved in water.
The secret lies in the structure of quartz, Voysey explains. Quartz is the only abundant mineral whose crystals have no center of symmetry. This means that when these crystals are strained or stressed by seismic activity, their internal electromagnetic makeup changes, generating electricity. Electricity generated in response to mechanical stress is known as piezoelectricity.
Gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids rise up through fissures during seismic activity from the mid-to-lower crust, 15-20 km below the surface, but gold is so dilute that it would take the equivalent of five Olympic swimming pools of hydrothermal fluid to produce 10 kg of gold.
Voysey and his colleagues hypothesized that the piezoelectric properties of quartz would cause the gold to concentrate in nodules within the veins during repeated earthquakes. To test this idea, the team performed experiments in which they placed quartz crystals in a gold-containing solution and applied moderate pressure from an actuator.
Quartz samples that were not subjected to pressure did not attract gold, but samples subjected to force generated a voltage and attracted the metal. Some of the samples were coated with iridium to accentuate the piezoelectric response of the quartz and artificially mimic the expansion of seismic activity. In these samples, large gold flakes grew, over 6000 nanometers, compared to 200-300 nanometers in uncoated quartz.
Once gold starts to deposit on the quartz, it quickly attracts other gold, Voysey says. “Gold is a conductor, so gold in solution tends to deposit on top of existing gold,” he says. “It becomes like a lightning rod that attracts more gold.”
Paleontologists unearthed three large seeds (up to 7.2 centimeters long) and 43 fossil leaves of the ancient legume at the Wahana Baratama coal mine near Satui in South Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.
The newly identified legume lived in Southeast Asia between 40 and 34 million years ago (the Eocene Epoch).
Named Juntungspermum gunneriIt is very similar to the Australian black bean plant. Cassis.
“The tree currently occurs only in the coastal rainforests of northern Australia and nearby islands,” said Professor Peter Wilf of Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues.
Paleontologists found three fossil seeds, 43 leaves and pollen samples. Juntungspermum gunneri of Tanjun Formation South Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.
Also found were fossil tracks of a variety of birds, burrowing evidence of marine invertebrates, and the fossil remains of turtles.
“The seeds Juntungspermum gunneri “Apart from coconuts and other palm trees, it is one of the largest in the fossil record,” the researchers said.
“They probably grew up to a metre (3 feet) in length – about the length of a baseball bat – and in pods that could hold up to five seeds.”
“This fossil is the oldest legume fossil ever found in the Malay Archipelago and the first fossil record of a plant related to the black bean plant anywhere in the world.”
The researchers suggest that ancestors of the black bean plant migrated from Asia to Australia during a plate collision that brought the continents closer together, allowing for the exchange of plants and animals between the continents.
“The collision of the Southeast Asian and Australian plates, which began approximately 20 million years ago and is ongoing today, has led to a large-scale exchange of plant and animal species between the two continents,” the researchers said.
“This discovery provides the first macrofossil evidence of a migration of plant lineages from Asia to Australia following the Asia-Australia tectonic collision.”
“These fossil seeds are Cassis “They migrated from Southeast Asia to Australia during a tectonic collision and then became extinct in Asia,” said Edward Spagnolo, a doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University.
“This proposal runs counter to most of the existing direct macrofossil evidence of plant migration, which shows lineages migrating from Australia into Asia.”
of result Appears in International Journal of Plant Science.
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Edward J. Spagnuolo others2024. Giant seeds of extant Australian legumes are discovered in Eocene Borneo (South Kalimantan, Indonesia). International Journal of Plant Sciencein press; doi: 10.1086/730538
Extinct giant aquatic arthropods called sea scorpions (Eurypterids) were apex predators. A new study suggests that early species of carcinosomatoids, with their scorpion-like spiny limbs, fed on trilobites, while later species preferred armored fish. Carcinosomatoids evolved into scorpions, but not the giant scorpion-like creatures that lived 400 million years ago. Preactorus and Brontoscorpio which is published in Walking with monsters (TV series) was probably a crustacean.
Reconstruction Pentecopterus (170 cm long), the oldest known sea scorpion (Eurypteridae), from the Ordovician Period (467 million years ago) of Iowa, USA. Image by John Alexander.
Sea scorpions (family: Ophiocephalidae) are ancient aquatic creepies (arthropods, meaning they have segmented bodies, exoskeletons, and jointed legs) that lived from 467 million years ago until about 253 million years ago.
Some pterygian Eurypterids can grow to lengths of nearly 2.6 metres, making them the largest insects ever to have lived. Eurypterids also include the predatory carcinosomatoids, namely the megalograpts, carcinosomatoids and mixopterids, which have long spiny limbs and can grow to lengths of up to 2 metres.
Carcinosomatoids used their long, spiny limbs to catch prey and burrow into the mud, and computer models suggest that they were slow swimmers who preferred to live close to the sea floor as ambush predators.
New research on fossils found alongside megalograptids suggests that they were primarily associated with trilobites, a diverse group of extinct marine arthropods.
Carcinosomatids tend to live in symbiosis with lightly armoured phyllocallid crustaceans and lingulid brachiopods (lamp shells).
Mixopterid fishes tend to coexist with more heavily armoured fishes such as therodonts, osteostracans and pteraspids.
Fossilized feces (coprolites) prove that they ate trilobites, armored fish, and even their own kind (cannibals).
The idea that nudibranchs influenced the evolution of armored fishes in the predator-prey arms race is often dismissed.
The study suggests that mixopterids and pterygians had some influence on their evolution (and on our very ancient ancestors).
Megalograptus is interpreted as being more primitive than previously thought, which means that early (Ordovician) crinoid diversity has been overestimated.
Scorpions are thought to have evolved from a Mixopteridae-like ancestor, evolving claws (palps), stingers, and comb-like sensory pecten on their undersides.
Giant scorpions may be the creatures of your nightmares, but they actually existed in Scotland's Carboniferous period. Pulmonoscorpiusand Gigantoscorpio.
Reconstruction PulmonoscorpiusA giant scorpion (70 cm long) from the Carboniferous period of Scotland (330 million years ago). Image by Junnn11 / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Even longer (1 meter) scorpions PreactorusThis dinosaur, which lived in Herefordshire, England, is also thought to have lived 412 million years ago.
However, the grooves on its shell, the pustular ornamentation, and the recurved first segment suggest that it is in fact a crustacean.
Bennett TaltraThey come from the same layer and region and may be related (or slightly smaller) Preactorus.
BrontoscorpioIt is an estimated 86cm long (400 million years old) scorpion featured in a BBC television series. Walking with monstersOnly a small portion of the claws are known, and it is probably a crustacean. Image courtesy of Impossible Pictures.
Brontoscorpio(86cm long), discovered in Worcestershire, England (400 million years ago) and featured in an award-winning BBC television series. Walking with monsters Possibly a crustacean too.
So giant scorpions, along with giant millipedes measuring two metres in length and giant dragonflies with wingspans of 75 centimetres, didn't come into existence until the Carboniferous period 70 million years later.
Modern scorpions gradually acquired their modern characteristics: early scorpions had more primitive legs and eyes, and lacked an anterior mouth cavity for feeding on land, so were probably aquatic or amphibious.
The oldest known scorpion Palioscorpio It was discovered in Wisconsin from the Early Silurian (437 million years ago) but has been reinterpreted as a trilobite-like arthropod.
The oldest scorpion is now Dolichophonus (433-438 Ma) Originating from Scotland.
this the study Published in New Jarlbuch in Geology and Palaeontology.
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Braddy, S.J. 2024. Palaeoecology and phylogeny of carcinosomatid eurypterids: ichnolog- y and palaeoassemblages. New Jarlbuch in Geology and Palaeontology; doi: 10.1127/njgpa/2024/1206
Amoebidium appalachenseViruses in protists closely related to animals weave remnants of ancient giant viruses into their genetic code, according to a new study led by Queen Mary, University of London. The discovery sheds light on how complex organisms acquire parts of their genes and highlights the dynamic interplay between viruses and their hosts.
Amoebidium appalachense A unique model for understanding the hybrid origin of eukaryotic DNA. Image courtesy of Alex de Mendoza.
In this study, Dr. Alex de Mendoza Soler and his colleagues Amoebidium appalachense A unicellular parasite first isolated from the epidermis of a freshwater arthropod.
They found a surprising amount of genetic material from giant viruses, some of the largest known to science.
The sequences of these viruses are highly methylated, a chemical tag that often silences genes.
“It's like a hidden Trojan horse. Amoebidium appalachense It’s the DNA of,” says Dr. de Mendoza Soler.
“These viral insertions are potentially harmful, but Amoebidium appalachense It seems like we are suppressing them by chemically silencing them.”
The researchers then investigated how widespread this phenomenon may be.
They are some Amoebidium appalachense Examination of the isolates revealed wide variation in viral content.
This suggests that the processes of viral integration and silencing are continuous and dynamic.
“These findings call into question our understanding of viruses and the relationship between them and their hosts,” said Dr de Mendoza Soler.
“Traditionally, viruses are thought of as invaders, but this study suggests a more complex story.”
“Viral insertions may have played a role in the evolution of complex organisms by contributing new genes.”
“And this can be done by chemically controlling the invader's DNA.”
moreover, Amoebidium appalachense It shows intriguing parallels to how our own genomes interact with viruses.
It's similar to Amoebidium appalachense Humans and other mammals carry remnants of ancient viruses called endogenous retroviruses built into their DNA.
These remnants were previously thought to be inactive junk DNA, but now it appears some may be beneficial.
but, Amoebidium appalachense Endogenous retroviruses are much smaller, while the human genome is significantly larger.
Future studies can explore these similarities and differences to understand the intricate interactions between viruses and complex life forms.
Luke A. Saleh others 2024. DNA methylation enables recurrent internalization of giant viruses in animal relatives. Scientific advances 10(28); Source: 10.1126/sciadv.ado6406
This article has been edited from an original release from Queen Mary, University of London.
280 million years ago, the cold swamps of what is now the Namib Desert were home to giant salamander-like predators that sucked prey into their mouths and captured them with their enormous fangs.
The fossil creature was first discovered in Namibia in 2015. Researchers found a total of four incomplete specimens, which they estimate to have measured 2.5 metres in body length and a skull length of 60 centimetres, making it the largest of its kind yet found.
Claudia Marsicano Researchers from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina have now described the fossils in detail and given them species names. Gaiacia geniae Paleontologist Jennifer Kluck with later strata of the Gaius Formation in Namibia.
nevertheless G. geniae It may have resembled a dangerous, extremely over-scaled salamander, like the giant axolotl, but it wasn't a true amphibian. Rather, the animal belonged to an ancient group of tetrapods that eventually gave rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
A specimen of Gaiasia geniae found in the wild
Roger M. H. Smith
Marsicano said the animal probably hunted by lying in wait, much like a crocodile, for prey to pass by.Gaiacia “It was an aquatic animal with a very elongated body that probably swam like an eel, but had very short limbs that would have made it very difficult for it to move around on land,” she says.
The discovery reshapes our understanding of the distribution of early tetrapods, most of whose fossils have been found in the Northern Hemisphere, which had a tropical climate centered on the equator 280 million years ago.
But at the time, Marsicano said, what is now Namibia would have been at a much higher latitude, around 55 degrees south. Gaiacia The fossils were discovered during the Ice Age. [at the time] Severe cold climatic conditions prevailed.”
Despite the cold, Gaiacia This suggests the area was relatively populated, with “a rich vertebrate community thriving,” Marsicano says.
An astrophysicist and a surgeon walk into a bar. No, this is not the start of a bad joke. A few years ago, an astrophysicist Franco Vazza I met my childhood friend Alberto FerrettiAnd then he became a neurosurgeon. Vazza was modeling the structure of the universe, while Ferretti was delving into the brain. The two men reminisced and talked about their work. And then an idea occurred to them: What if they compared?
Vazza, based at the University of Bologna in Italy, has done just that. He used statistical techniques to compare neurons in a region of the brain called the cortex to the cosmic web, the pattern of matter distribution throughout the universe. Vazza looked at the number of nodes in each network and how densely connected each node is. The results surprised him.“It's a really interesting level of similarity,” he says. Ignoring the difference in the structures' sizes, which are about 27 orders of magnitude, “the two patterns kind of overlap,” Vazza says.
Some physicists cannot ignore this similarity, suggesting that the universe may “think” – that is, be conscious in some sense – an idea that has roots in the philosophy of panpsychism.
Traditionally, researchers have explained consciousness in one of two ways. Materialists argue that there is only matter, and consciousness somehow arises from that. Dualists argue that there are fundamentally two kinds of matter: matter and consciousness. There has been much discussion about the shortcomings of both views. For example, how can consciousness arise from pure matter?
The name “sunfish” is of Latin origin and means “milestone,” referring to the flat, circular body of this fish, which is known to drift along the ocean’s surface, a move some scientists lightly refer to as “sunbathing.”
But Nygard said the activity serves an important purpose: capturing jellyfish and other gelatinous creatures for prey.
When hunting, sunfish dive deep into cooler waters. Their bodies cannot regulate their body temperature efficiently, so they use the sun to warm themselves. While the fish lie on the surface, birds clean them by eating parasites from their skin.
Nyegaard said there are a few features that distinguish the giant sunfish from the giant sunfish: The giant sunfish’s skin becomes wrinkly as it grows, while the sunfish’s skin is always perfectly smooth.
Unlike normal fish, which have tails, sunfish have wings that are wavy and have a bony structure. The sunfish’s wings are divided into two parts, each of which can move independently.
“We don’t yet know why the two species need different rear structures,” Nygard says, adding that one theory is that the two-part flap could be for maneuvering or agility purposes.
Nygard said sunfish in general remain a mystery to scientists: There are five sunfish species in total, including the hoodwinker, and it’s unclear whether they can or will coexist in the same place.
It’s also unclear whether the hoodwinkers of Australia and New Zealand are related to those in the Pacific Northwest and have somehow migrated across the equator, Nygard said.
Since its discovery, people have been flocking to Gearhart Beach to see the lone hooded winker on the sand.
“This isn’t the first time this has been washed ashore, but it is the largest one to have been washed ashore,” said Tierney Thys, a marine biologist at the California Academy of Sciences.
“Strandings like this remind us that humans live on just 1 percent of the available habitable space on this vast ocean planet,” she said. “Encountering these amazing creatures is humbling and inspiring, and a powerful reminder that we still have much to learn.”
This giant pangolin was caught on camera on March 8, 2023 in Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal.
Panthera/DPN
A giant pangolin has been spotted in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park for the first time in 24 years, reviving hopes that the endangered animal still survives in the country.
“No one thought pangolins were still alive. [this park]” Muhammadu Modi Ndiaye At wildlife monitoring group Panthera.
Giant pangolin (Smutcha GiganteaThe pangolin, the only one of four African pangolin species found in Senegal, previously inhabited a wide area of forests and savannas from Senegal to western Kenya. But in recent decades, the scaly mammal's population has declined due to poaching for its meat and scales, as well as extensive deforestation. The report says: Over 8 million pangolins They were poached in West and Central Africa between 2014 and 2021, making them one of the most commonly trafficked animals in the world.
Giant pangolins are shy, solitary and nocturnal, so you probably won't see them outside their burrows. The last time a giant pangolin was captured and officially identified was in Senegal in April 1967. Thirty years later, two were found during an ecological survey. Since then, conservationists have not seen a single giant pangolin.
That was until he was photographed walking slowly across a dry riverbed at 1:37 a.m. on March 8, 2023. Snapshot was captured The image was captured by one of 217 research camera traps scattered across more than 4,000 square kilometres of Niokolo Koba National Park.
“I was so excited when I saw the baby pangolin,” Ndiaye said.
The sighting suggests that Niokolo-Koba National Park could become the last bastion for pangolin monitoring and conservation in Senegal, according to the report. Alan D.T. Muafo Researchers from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Pangolin Specialist Group have produced a report on surveying pangolin habitat and identifying its habitat, which he says is particularly important as there are many areas where “local extinction” is suspected, where pangolins are no longer active.
“This sighting is a ray of hope for pangolins' survival in West Africa and could help raise public awareness of their plight,” Muafo said, adding that he hopes it marks a “turning point for new conservation efforts.”
Palaeontologists from the Victoria Museum Research Institute and other institutions have discovered Cymostenurus occidentalis Fossils of a eastern grey kangaroo, a species of giant short-faced kangaroo that lived in Australia until about 42,000 years ago, have been discovered in Nightshade Cave in Gunaikurnai County, north of the town of Buchan in eastern Victoria, Australia.
“Short-faced kangaroo They appear in the Australian fossil record around 10 to 15 million years ago, when tropical rainforests began to give way to drier habitats.” Said Dr Tim Ziegler, Collections Manager at Museum Research Victoria;
“They especially diversified during the Late Pleistocene, about 500,000 years ago, during the transition to our present-day arid climate.”
“But in a wave of extinction around 45,000 years ago, they disappeared from the entire continent, along with up to 85% of Australia's large animals.”
49,400-year-old skeleton of a giant short-faced kangaroo Cymostenurus occidentalis It was discovered in Nightshade Cave in Victoria.
The animal's skull was discovered by a local cave group in 2011, and just 10 years later, the individual's skeleton below the skull was discovered by expert paleontologists.
“The skull had a deep snout, robust jaws and teeth, characteristic of a short-faced kangaroo,” Dr Ziegler explained.
“Behind it there were many more bones. It was amazing to see the vertebrae, shoulders, hips, limbs and thin rib cage. Many of the bones had not been moved at all and were still in their original position. This was one animal, not just bones scattered randomly. It felt like the Holy Grail of fossils.”
According to the team, the discovery was made at a young age. Cymostenurus occidentalis.
“This is a further distinction from other species of this animal as it is a juvenile rather than an adult kangaroo,” Dr Ziegler said.
“The teeth had barely worn down, the skull had not yet fused, and the ends of the limbs had not yet joined together.”
“Based on the size of its limbs, we estimate its weight to be around 80 kilograms, which is roughly the weight of an average human. However, as an adult, it may have been half that size.”
The specimen consists of 150 preserved bones and is the most complete fossil skeleton ever found in a Victorian cave.
This fossil, along with others from Nightshade Cave, are now permanently housed and cared for at the Melbourne Museum.
“The skeleton we found has a perfectly intact spinal column, providing new insights that aren't possible from isolated bones,” Dr Ziegler said.
“Thanks to the detailed 3D model, this nearly complete skeleton can be studied from anywhere in the world.”
“A key idea under investigation is whether the Stenulin kangaroo was striding rather than hopping.”
Large theropods were as intelligent as reptiles, but not as smart as apes, according to a new study led by paleontologists at the University of Bristol.
tyrannosaurus rex Holotype specimen at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, USA. Image credit: Scott Robert Anselmo / CC BY-SA 3.0.
in study Vanderbilt University paleontologist Suzana Herculano-Hausel announced last year that dinosaurs tyrannosaurus It had a huge number of neurons and was much more intelligent than expected.
She argued that these high numbers of neurons could directly inform intelligence, metabolism, and life history. tyrannosaurus In some habits they were more like monkeys.
Theropod dinosaurs of North America from the Late Cretaceous tyrannosaurus “It is an apex predator, one of the largest, heaviest, and most powerful (in terms of bite force) terrestrial carnivores ever known,” said Dr. Heidi George from the University of Bristol.
“Recently, Dr. Herculano Hausel proposed that we should add primate-level intelligence to great apes. tyrannosaurusAlready an impressive predation history, based on high estimates of the number of neurons in the forebrain. ”
“This conclusion arose from the paradigm that neurological variables inferred from endocasts can be used to infer metabolic parameters, behavior, and lifespan of fossil species.”
In the new study, Dr. George and his co-authors took a closer look at the techniques used to predict both brain size and number of neurons in dinosaur brains.
They found that previous assumptions about the size of dinosaur brains and the number of neurons they contained were unreliable.
This new study follows decades of analysis in which paleontologists and biologists studied the size and anatomy of dinosaur brains and used these data to infer behavior and lifestyle.
Information about dinosaur brains comes not only from the shape of the brain cavity itself, but also from its mineral fillings, called endocasts.
The authors found that their brain size, particularly the size of the forebrain, was overestimated, and thus the number of neurons was also overestimated.
Furthermore, we show that estimates of neuron number are not a reliable guide to intelligence.
“To reliably reconstruct the biology of a long-extinct species, researchers need to examine multiple lines of evidence, including skeletal anatomy, bone histology, the behavior of living relatives, and trace fossils.” the researchers said.
“To determine the intelligence of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, it's best to use a wealth of evidence, from gross anatomy to fossilized footprints, rather than relying solely on estimates of neuron counts,” Dr. Heidi said. added.
“We argue that it is not a good idea to predict the intelligence of extinct species when only the number of neurons reconstructed from endocasts is sufficient,” said Dr. Kai Kasper, a paleontologist at Heinrich Heine University. Ta.
“Neuron number is not a good predictor of cognitive ability, and using neuron number to predict intelligence in long-extinct species can lead to very misleading interpretations,” Mikel Crusafont Catalan Paleontologist said Dr. Ornella Bertrand, a paleontologist at the Institute.
“The possibility is that tyrannosaurus The possibility that they were as intelligent as baboons is both fascinating and frightening, and has the potential to transform the way we view our past,” said Dr Darren Naish, a palaeontologist at the University of Southampton. .
“But our study shows how all the data we have contradicts this idea. They were more like smart giant crocodiles, which was just as fascinating. ”
Kai R. Kasper other.How clever! tyrannosaurus• Examine claims about the extraordinary cognitive abilities of dinosaurs and the application of neuron number estimation in paleontological research. anatomical records, published online on April 26, 2024. doi: 10.1002/ar.25459
The Ryusho orbital trace contains 12 bipedal orbitals, which are classified into two forms, distinguished by both size and shape.
The small footprints, approximately 11 cm (4.3 inches) long, belong to the long-known genus Ichno. Velociraptoricnus.
Large footprints up to 36 cm (14.2 inches) long Fujianipus inryangi.
Based on body size, this tracker was over 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall at the waist, comparable in size to the largest known deinonychosaurids. Austraptor and Utahraptor.
“When you think of raptor dinosaurs, you probably think of the muscular, human-sized, aggressive hunters from the movie Jurassic Park,’ said Anthony Romilio, a paleontologist at the University of Queensland. .
“But these traces were left by a much leaner and smarter group in the family. TroodontidaeIt appeared in the late Jurassic period about 95 million years ago. ”
“This raptor was about 5 meters long and had legs of 1.8 meters, far exceeding the size of the raptors depicted in Jurassic Park. Imagine coming.”
“The footprints were compared to other known bipedal dinosaur footprints found throughout Asia, the Americas, and Europe.”
details of Fujianipus inryangi Railway tracks preserved at the site of the Longxiang track in China. Image credit: Xing other., doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109598.
“We found this type of truck to be unique in shape and very unique,” he said.
“The concept of large troodontids has only recently emerged in paleontology.”
“The bones found in Alaska suggest a trend towards giantism near the ancient Arctic Circle, an area where long winter darkness may have led to less competition for species.”
“But our findings suggest that these raptor giants roamed much farther south and were more widely dispersed.”
“Interestingly, some of our research teams are also working on the world’s smallest dinosaur footprint, a Korean raptor footprint that is just one centimeter long.”
“This shows the amazing size range of raptor dinosaurs and highlights their adaptability and ecological diversity.”
a paper A description of the discovery was published in a magazine iscience.
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Rida Singh other. Deinonychosaurid footprints in southeastern China record a possible giant troodontid. iscience, published online on April 24, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109598
Five giant dinosaur footprints discovered in southeastern China were made by the largest birds of prey ever recorded. The predator was probably 5 meters tall from nose to tail, about half the length of a school bus. It probably used its giant “killer claws”, one on each foot, to attack its prey.
Most raptors (technically known as deinonychosaurs) were small. Velociraptor For example, it was about the same size as a turkey. However, some of these dinosaurs were larger. Utahraptor and dakota raptor both reached approximately 5-6 meters in length.
scott parsons Now professors at the College of Charleston in South Carolina have added another giant raptor to the list. they named it fujianips is said to have lived in East Asia about 96 million years ago.
We still know little about fujianips. That’s because Parsons and his colleagues have yet to discover any parts of the skeleton. Instead, they found several footprints measuring 36 centimeters in length. “The preservation conditions were good for the footprints, but not so good for the bones,” he says. But they are confident that the footprints are from a bird of prey because each footprint has only two finger prints. This is consistent with the structure of a raptor’s foot, in that he has three toes, but one toe is off the ground to protect the large claw at the tip from abrasion.
People say fujianips. This study shows that raptors had the potential to grow even larger and compete with the largest carnivorous dinosaurs living here at the time, the allosaurids, some of which were over 10 meters long. He added that the Raptors may have had a key advantage over these rivals: “They were fast.”
But in the end, the raptor became slightly larger fujianips. Parsons says this may be because a third group of dinosaurs, the tyrannosaurids, was beginning to become dominant. “Many of the tyrannosaurids were fast, so it was much harder to compete with the tyrannosaurids,” he says.
Paleontologists have unearthed two fossilized phalanges of ancient carnivorous birds on Seymour Island in Antarctica.
Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of an early Eocene continental community on Seymour Island: large claw-shaped birds hunting and gazing at medium-sized ungulates. Nothiolophos regeloiseveral marsupials on the tree, Antarctoboenus carlinii It is flying in the sky, and behind it is a runner who cannot fly. Image credit: Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche & Washington Jones, doi: 10.26879/1340.
Ancient bird fossils were discovered in the La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island in West Antarctica.
“These phalanges belonged to a large predator, estimated to weigh around 100 kg,” said Dr. Carolina Acosta Hospitalrecce of the National University of La Plata and Dr. Washington Jones of the National Museum of History of Uruguay.
The specimen is approximately 50 million years old (early Eocene).
They belong to the following types Forsulacid (commonly known as the fear bird), an extinct family in the order Calliamyformes.
“Caryamiformes are a primarily terrestrial bird order that has shown significant diversification in the past, but only two species currently inhabit South America,” the paleontologists said.
“Despite the rich fossil record, phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships within this order remain poorly understood.”
“Within the Calliamydae, Phorsuracidae forms a crown group with the Caryamydae, and Idiornithidae and Basorhuntiidae have been reconfirmed as fossil families.”
Fossilized phalanx of an ancient Karyamiform bird from Seymour Island, Antarctica. Scale bar – 10 mm. Image credit: Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche & Washington Jones, doi: 10.26879/1340.
The Antarctic terror bird probably preyed on small marsupials and medium-sized ungulates.
“They are likely active hunters, clearly fulfilling the role of continental apex predators similar to the mammals of Paleogene Antarctic communities,” the researchers said.
“Large birds resembling Phorsulaceae represent a previously unknown guild in Antarctica.”
“These findings unequivocally reshape our understanding of the dynamics of the Antarctic ecosystem during the early Eocene.”
of result Published in an online magazine Old Trogia Electronica.
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Carolina Acosta Hospitalrecce & Washington Jones. 2024. Was the fearbird an apex predator in Antarctica? New discoveries from the early Eocene of Seymour Island. Old Trogia Electronica 27 (1):a13; doi: 10.26879/1340
Pertocephalus maturin Its shell length probably reaches about 1.8 meters (5.9 ft), making it one of the largest freshwater turtles ever discovered. The discovery marks the latest known occurrence of giant freshwater turtles and suggests coexistence with early humans in the Amazon.
rebuilding the life of Pertocephalus maturin. Image credit: Júlia d’Oliveira.
The newly discovered turtle species lived in what is now Brazil during the late Pleistocene, between 40,000 and 9,000 years ago.
named Pertocephalus maturinthe ancient animal may have reached a carapace length of about 1.8 meters.
Dr. Gabriel Ferreira, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Center, said: “Freshwater turtles, in contrast to their terrestrial and marine relatives, rarely have such gigantic morphologies and are the only known species to date. “This is very surprising since the youngest giant fossils come from Miocene deposits.” Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.
“In the past, only a few freshwater turtles with carapace lengths exceeding 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) were known,” he added.
“Such megafauna are most recently known, mainly from the Miocene period, about 23 million to 5 million years ago.”
huge partial lower jaw Pertocephalus maturin It comes from the Rio Madeira layer.
This specimen was collected by gold miners at a site known as the Taclas Quarry in Porto Velho in the Brazilian Amazon.
Morphological and phylogenetic analyzes of this fossil revealed close kinship with modern Amazonian species and suggested an omnivorous diet.
“Pertocephalus maturin “This is the youngest known giant freshwater turtle and suggests coexistence between this ancient species and early human residents of the Amazon region,” the paleontologists said.
“People settled in the Amazon region about 12,600 years ago. We also know that large turtles have been a food source for humans since the Paleolithic period.”
“Freshwater turtles are much more difficult to catch because of their agility, but we wonder if early humans also ate them.” Pertocephalus maturin It is not yet clear whether they fell victim to human expansion along with South American megafauna. ”
“Here we need further data from late Pleistocene and early Holocene deposits in the Amazon basin,” Dr. Ferreira said.
discovery of Pertocephalus maturin is reported in paper in a diary biology letters.
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GS Ferreira other. 2024.Latest freshwater giants: new Peltocephalus (Pleurodira: Podocnemididae) A late Pleistocene turtle of the Brazilian Amazon. Biol.Let 20(3):20240010; doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0010
The newly discovered volcano, tentatively designated Noctis Mons, is located in the eastern part of Mars, just south of the equator. noctis labyrinthwest of Valles Marineris, the planet's vast canyon system.
Noctis Mons. Image credit: NASA / USGS / Lee other.
Mount Noctis reaches an altitude of 9,022 m (29,600 ft) and is 450 km (280 miles) wide.
Its enormous size and complex modification history indicate that it has been active for a very long time.
To its southeast are thin recent volcanic deposits, beneath which glaciers may still exist.
The combined potential of this giant volcanic and glacial ice discovery is an exciting prospect for studying Mars' geological evolution over time, searching for life, and exploring it in the future using robots and humans. important because it marks a new location.
“While investigating the geology of the area where glacier debris was discovered last year, we found ourselves inside a huge, deeply eroded volcano,” said the SETI Institute and Mars Planetary Scientists. Dr. Pascal Lee said. Laboratory based at NASA Ames Research Center.
Taken together, several clues reveal the volcanic nature of this eastern portion of the Noctis Labyrinth, a jumble of layered mesas and canyons.
The central summit area is characterized by several raised mesas forming an arc, reaching the highest regional heights and descending away from the summit area.
The outer, gentle slopes extend 225 km (140 miles) away in various directions.
The remains of a caldera, a collapsed volcanic crater that once contained a lava lake, can be seen near the center of the structure.
Lava flows, pyroclastic flow deposits (consisting of volcanic particulate material such as ash, cinders, pumice, and tephra), and hydrated mineral deposits occur in several areas around the structure.
“This region of Mars is known to contain a wide variety of hydrated minerals spanning Mars' long history,” says Saurabh Shubham, a graduate student at the University of Maryland.
“These minerals have long been suspected of being in a volcanic environment. So finding a volcano here may not be all that surprising.”
“In a way, this big volcano is the clincher that has been long awaited.”
Topographic map of Noctis Mons. Image credit: Lee other.
In addition to the volcano, the authors found 5,000 km2 (1930 square miles) of volcanic deposits surrounding the volcano, including numerous low, round, elongated, blister-like hills.
This blistered landform is formed by an area of rootless cone, i.e., when a thin blanket of hot volcanic material comes to rest on a water- or ice-rich surface, caused by explosive steam ejection or steam expansion. It is interpreted as a generated hill.
Mount Noctis has a long and complex history of modification, likely through a combination of destruction, thermal erosion, and glacial erosion.
“In fact, it's the combination of factors that makes the Noctis volcanic site so exciting,” Dr. Lee said.
“This volcano is an ancient, long-lived volcano, and it's so deeply eroded that it's hard to hike, drive through, or fly to examine different parts of the volcano's interior, take samples, and date it. “We can study the evolution of Mars over time.”
“It also has a long history of heat interacting with water and ice, making it a prime location for astrobiology and the search for signs of life.”
“Finally, glaciers are likely still preserved near the surface in Mars' relatively warm equatorial regions, making this site a very attractive location for robotic and human exploration.”
Pascal Lee other. Massive eroded volcanic complex and buried glacial ice in the eastern Noctis Labyrinth: evidence of recent volcanic activity and glaciation near the Martian equator. LPSC 2024Abstract #2745
Giant sequoia trees are thriving in the UK, growing at a similar rate to the tree’s homeland of California.
Giant sequoias that can reach up to 90 meters in height (Sequoiadendron giganteum), also known as the Giant Sequoia, is one of the tallest trees in the world. This coniferous species is endemic to California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, but only 80,000 individuals remain there, largely due to frequent and destructive wildfires.
Approximately 500,000 giant sequoias have been planted in Britain since the 19th century. “Giant sequoias are widely cultivated in the UK” matthias disney At University College London. “They’re incredibly majestic and obviously very attractive to people.”
To understand how trees grow on this side of the pond, Disney and his colleagues analyzed 97 trees taken from groves in Scotland and southeastern England.
The team used a laser scanner to map each tree in 3D to precisely determine its height and width and estimate its weight.
The tallest tree was in Scotland and was just under 55 meters tall. Disney says this is not surprising as the earliest record of giant sequoias being planted in the UK is in Scotland.
The trees also appear to be growing as fast as California trees, absorbing an average of 85 kilograms of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
“It’s very fast,” Disney says. “Instead of oak trees having to wait 150 years to reach maturity, giant sequoias can grow in less than 50 years.”
He says the healthy growth rate may be due to Britain’s relatively stable climate. “We’re not threatened by a lack of rainfall or an increase in fires like California is.”
Giant sequoias grow quickly and absorb carbon, but Disney warns against planting them en masse to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
“Of course trees can help absorb a little bit of carbon dioxide, but that process takes time and requires a lot of wood,” he says. “It is better to protect what already exists and rapidly reduce fossil fuel consumption now.”
Disney and his colleagues want to study how the invasive redwoods are affecting local trees and other wildlife. “At the moment, all the sequoias here are planted, so we’re also very interested in seeing if they can propagate here.”
The brown and white giant panda is a mutant with a unique coat color found only in the world. Qinling Mountains Chinese.
Kizai is the only brown panda living in captivity. Image credit: Ailie HM / CC BY-SA 4.0 Certificate.
“Variation in fur color has considerable adaptive and cultural value in mammals,” said study lead author Dengfeng Guan, Ph.D., from the Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and colleagues.
“This property is directly determined by the ratio of eumelanin to pheomelanin and the density and distribution of melanosomes within the hair.”
“These factors are under complex control by hundreds of genes that influence different aspects of melanogenesis, including melanocyte proliferation and migration, melanin synthesis, and melanosome biogenesis and translocation.”
Giant panda (Airuropoda melanoruca) is one of the most charismatic flagship breeds, distinguished by its striking black and white coat.
However, the discovery brown panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis) This photograph, taken in the Qinling Mountains of China's Shaanxi province, challenges the conventional wisdom that color photographs of pandas are never possible.
Recognized as a subspecies of the giant panda, this brown panda is extremely rare and is definitely designated as a national treasure.
Since the first brown panda was discovered in 1985, 11 records have been reported by official news or private communications, seven of which have been confirmed by photographs or physical objects. Three cases were from Buping County, two from Yang County, one from Taibai County, and one from Taibai County. Zhou Zhi.
All brown pandas are found only in the Qinling Mountains, indicating that they are endemic to this region.
“The first recorded brown panda, a female named Dan Dan, was rescued from Foping Nature Reserve to Xi'an Zoo in 1985,” the biologists explained.
“She then mated with the black panda Wang Wang and gave birth to a male black panda named Qing Qing in captivity.”
“Dan Dan passed away in 2000 and Chin Chin also died in 2006, leaving no descendants.”
“In 2009, Qi Zhai, a male brown panda cub, was rescued from Fo Ping Nature Reserve and is currently the only brown panda living in captivity.”
Dr. Guan and co-authors established two family trios related to the brown panda Qi Zai and sequenced their genomes.
They analyzed ecological and genetic data obtained from a long-term study of wild giant pandas in Fo Ping Nature Reserve.
Additionally, we investigated the cellular mechanisms underlying brown fur color based on microscopy and transmission electron microscopy analyses.
They are candidate mutations, viz. base 2 The gene is thought to be the most likely genetic basis for brown pandas.
They verified this deletion through sequencing an additional cohort of 192 black pandas and CRISPR-Cas9 knockout mice.
Their findings will not only provide insight into the genetic basis of coat color variation in brown pandas and wild animals, but will also guide the scientific breeding of rare brown pandas.
“The extremely small number of brown pandas and the nature of the frameshift deletion mutation suggest that this mutation may be a neutral or weakly deleterious mutation,” the authors said.
“Remarkably, the two brown pandas (Qi Zai and Dan Dan) are showing normal growth and reproduction; base 2 The knockout mice were viable, fertile, and had no obvious physical abnormalities, indicating that this mutation had no apparent negative impact on the physical fitness of these mice. ”
“However, other physiological effects of this mutation on brown pandas remain unclear. base 2 It is known to be involved in the Alzheimer's disease pathway. ”
“Given the small population size of Qinling giant pandas, weak deleterious mutations may be corrected by genetic drift effects.”
“Further studies on brown pandas and knockout mouse models will therefore provide valuable insight into the functional consequences of this mutation.”
“For a rare coat color mutant of the giant panda that has great scientific and ornamental value, our findings will provide guidance for the scientific breeding of brown pandas.”
of study Published online this week Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Dengfeng Guan other. 2024. Color photography: homozygous 25 bp deletion base 2 Giant pandas can have brown and white coats. PNAS 121 (11): e2317430121; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2317430121
Also known as the giant southern crab, it lives on rocky and muddy bottoms off the coast of southern Australia.
“Alive 'Southern Giant Crab'” Pseudocalcinus gigas “It ranks among the largest crabs that have ever lived,” said Utrecht University paleontologist Barry van Bekel and colleague Alex Osso.
“This bird is now endemic to the cool-temperate South Australian continental margin, although there is one record of a female being caught off the coast of New Zealand's South Island.”
“Scientists recognized and described the unique set of morphological characters of this monotypic genus and constructed a corresponding new family and superfamily.”
“Unfortunately, the geological history of this remarkable group of crabs is largely unknown.”
named Pseudocarcinus karlaubenheimeria new member of this genus lived in New Zealand about 8.8 million years ago (Miocene epoch).
Six specimens of this species were collected from Waitoetoe Beach. Urenui formation The Taranaki Basin is home to a series of volcanoes. Mojakatino Volcano Center It erupted offshore, leading to the formation of a specific paleoenvironment.
“this is, false calcinus It lived in what is now New Zealand,” the researchers said.
According to the team: false calcinus Males have one normal-sized claw and one extra-large claw.
“In modern oceans, crabs have larger absolute claw sizes in temperate regions than in tropical regions, but in temperate oceans their claws are smaller relative to their body size.”
“The Miocene of New Zealand was home to two species of giant crabs with the largest known crushing claws. Thumidocarcinus giganteus and Pseudocarcinus karlaubenheimeri”
“Clearly, food sources, metabolic conditions and calcium carbonate availability were favorable to these species.”
“Thumidocalcinus Extinct by the end of the Miocene. false calcinus It is currently only known from Australian waters. ”
team's paper Published in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics.
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Barry W. M. van Bekel and Alex Osso. A new “Southern Giant Crab'' discovered in a Miocene continental slope paleoenvironment in Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, published online on February 27, 2024. doi: 10.1080/00288306.2024.2314472
The real megalodon may have been longer and slimmer than this illustration.
Kathmandu/Shutterstock
A new analysis of fossil evidence reveals that the megalodon, an ancient shark often depicted as a super-sized great white, was actually a very different beast. A team of shark scientists concluded that this fearsome predator was longer, thinner and hunted in a different way.
He is well known for his depiction of “. meg movie franchise, Otodus megalodon It became extinct about 3.5 million years ago. It was one of the largest marine predators of all time, but no complete skeleton has ever been found, so we don’t know exactly how big it was.
2022 survey by jack cooper Doctors from Swansea University, UK, et al. IRSNB P 9893, It is housed at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. They found it to be a stocky, powerful shark, similar to the great white shark, built to attack at breakneck speeds to attack its prey.carcharodon carcharius) current –?? but at 15.9 meters long, it is about three times longer.
charles underwood Researchers from Birkbeck, University of London, said the study made “tenuous assumptions” about megalodon’s size, mainly based on the fact that it has teeth similar to great white sharks, although it is much larger. ing. He is part of a group of 26 shark experts aiming to set the record straight with new research.
Underwood said Cooper’s team didn’t realize how incomplete the partial skeleton was. The vertebrae lack the typical size of a shark, tapering toward both the tail and the head, indicating that much of the vertebrae are missing, he said.
The researchers of the new study say that the strength of the spinal column suggests a slender body shape than the great white shark, which would make megalodon sharks very unwieldy.
“It almost certainly doesn’t feed like modern great white sharks,” Underwood said. “You wouldn’t just hover over the ocean floor, wait for the whale to move over it, and then hit the whale from below and basically tear it apart. It’s better than an ambush predator. , you’re going to need more straight-line tracking, longer tracking, because you don’t have top speed. You don’t have acceleration.”
Based on other partial fossils, the largest known specimen of Megalodon was estimated to be 20 meters long. Mr. Underwood believes that it was actually 20% longer than him, and that he was 24 meters long.
But Professor Cooper dismissed the new study as too simplistic, favoring a reconstruction of a shorter, stockier megalodon. “The bottom line is, no matter which theory you support about its body shape, it was a very large shark,” he says. “Of course, a complete skeleton would go a long way in helping us learn more. But I also don’t think we should think that this settles all debates about this very charismatic animal.”
However, the chances of finding a complete, well-preserved specimen may be low. eva stewart A professor at Britain’s Southampton University, who was not involved in the study, said he had recovered many megalodon teeth while searching for a new living species, but had seen no sign of a more complete specimen.
“I think the rest of the skeleton is just not well preserved,” she says. “For megalodon, there’s actually no fossil evidence at all.”
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