Paleontologists have unearthed the exquisitely preserved remains of a Cretaceous enantiornithine bird in São Paulo state in southeastern Brazil. The skull’s extraordinary three-dimensional preservation allowed researchers to digitally reconstruct the bird’s brain.
The newly identified Enantiornithine species They lived in what is now Brazil about 80 million years ago (late Cretaceous period).
with scientific name Nabaornis Hestiathe ancient bird was about the same size as a starling.
This species had a larger cerebrum Archeopteryxsuggesting that they had more advanced cognitive abilities than early bird-like dinosaurs.
However, most regions of the brain, such as the cerebellum, are underdeveloped, suggesting that the complex flight control mechanisms of modern birds have not yet evolved.
“The structure of the brain is Nabaornis Hestia almost exactly in between Archeopteryx Dr Guillermo Navarone, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, says:
Fossilized remains are Nabaornis Hestia It was recovered in 2016 from the local Williams Quarry in Presidente Prudente, part of Brazil’s Adamantina Formation.
Tens of millions of years ago, the site was probably an arid region with slow-flowing streams, allowing for the impressive preservation of fossils.
The extraordinary three-dimensional preservation has allowed paleontologists to use advanced micro-CT scanning techniques to reconstruct the toothless, large-eyed bird’s skull and brain in stunning detail.
“This fossil is truly one of a kind and I was in awe from the moment I first saw it to the moment I finished assembling the skull and brain. “You can fully understand the scientific structure,” Dr. Navarone said.
Professor Daniel Field from the University of Cambridge added: “Modern birds have some of the most sophisticated cognitive abilities in the animal kingdom, rivaled only by mammals.”
“However, scientists have struggled to understand when and how birds’ unique brains and remarkable intelligence evolved. The field is looking forward to discovering fossils just like this one. I’ve been waiting for it.”
On the other hand, the skull Nabaornis Hestia At first glance, it resembles a small pigeon, but upon closer inspection, it turns out that it is not a modern bird at all, but a member of the “opposite birds”, or “opposite birds”.
Birds of the order Enantiornithiformes, which diverged from modern birds more than 130 million years ago, have complex feathers and are thought to have been able to fly as competently as modern birds. .
However, the anatomical structure of the brain Nabaornis Hestia This raises new questions: How does enantiornithine behave without a range of brain features observed in living birds, including an enlarged cerebellum, which is a spatial control center in living birds? Did they control the flight?
“This fossil represents a species at an intermediate point in the evolutionary process of bird cognition,” Professor Field said.
“The cognitive ability is Nabaornis Hestia They may have had an advantage in finding food and shelter, and were capable of elaborate mating displays and other complex social behaviors. ”
“This discovery shows that some of the birds that flew above the dinosaurs already had fully modern skull shapes more than 80 million years ago,” Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County said. said researcher Dr. Luis Chiappe.
This finding is reported in the following article: paper in a diary nature.
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LM Chiappe others. 2024. Cretaceous birds from Brazil tell the story of the evolution of bird skulls and brains. nature 635, 376-381; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08114-4
A pebble with holes excavated from the ruins of Nahal Ein Geb II. Could be an ancient spindle whorl
Laurent Davin
A 12,000-year-old set of perforated pebbles unearthed in northern Israel may be the oldest known hand-spun whorls. This weaving technique may have ultimately helped inspire the invention of the wheel.
The whorl at the bottom of the spindle, which acted as a flywheel, allowed people to efficiently spin natural fibers into yarn and yarn to make clothing and other textiles. Newly discovered stone tools represent early axle-based turning technology, thousands of years before the first carts appeared, researchers say. Talia Yashuv at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“If you look back at the discovery of the first car wheel 6,000 years ago, it didn't just come out of nowhere,” she says. “It's important to look at the functional evolution of how transportation and wheels have evolved.”
Yashuv and her colleagues leoa grossmanAlso at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, researchers studied 113 partially or fully perforated stones at the site of Nahal Ein Geb II, an ancient village just east of the Sea of Galilee. Archaeologists have been discovering these chalky, primarily limestone artifacts since 1972. It was probably made from raw pebbles found along the nearby shore.
The 3D scan revealed that the hole had been drilled part way from both sides using a flint hand drill, but unlike modern drills, it remained in the shape of a narrow, twisted cone, Yashuf said. says. A hole 3 to 4 centimeters in diameter usually passes through the center of gravity of the pebble.
Drilling holes from both sides would have balanced the stone and made it more stable to rotate, Yaszhu said. Some of the partially perforated stones had off-center holes, suggesting they may have been discarded by mistake.
Yashov said the team suspected that the stones, which weigh an average of 9 grams, would be too heavy and “ugly” to be beads, and too light and fragile to be used as fishing weights. Their size, shape, and balance around the hole led researchers to believe that these artifacts were spindle-like whorls.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers created a replica whorl using nearby pebbles and a flint drill. then they asked yonit crystalWhy not try your hand at flax spinning with a traditional craftsman?
“She was really surprised at how well they worked, because they weren't perfectly circular,” Yaszhu says. “But in reality, all you have to do is place the hole in the center of the mass, and it's balanced and works.”
If the stone is indeed a spiral, it could be the oldest known rotating spiral, she says. 1991 study of bone and antler artifacts She found what are likely 20,000-year-old whorls, but added that the researchers who examined them suggested the fragments were probably decorative accents on clothing. Still, people may have been using whorls even earlier, using wood and other biological materials that would have degraded.
The discovery suggests that people were experimenting with spinning techniques thousands of years before they invented potter's wheels and cart wheels about 5,500 years ago, and perhaps the whirlpool helped lead to those inventions. Yaszhu says it's possible.
carol cheval But a professor at the University of the Cote d'Azur in Nice, France, isn't so sure. She explains that the whorl works more like a spinning top than a wheel.
And while the artifact is very likely a whorl, the study lacks microscopic data that would reveal any traces of use, as the threads may have made their mark on the stone over time. , says Cheval.
Trace analysis is “beyond the scope” of the current study, Yashuv said.
Ideally, researchers studying ancient whorls would be skilled at spinning themselves, but the study authors said this was not the case. “It really changes the way you think about archaeological discoveries,” she says.
Scientists from the Leibniz Center for Archaeology and Durham University conducted a study on a collection of 406 carved schist tablets discovered at the Magdalenian site in Gennersdorf, Germany. These ancient carvings depict fishing techniques and tools used by Paleolithic people, showcasing nets with interlaced diamond and square mesh. This provides valuable insight into the transformation of their culture.
Placket 341 from the Magdalenian ruins of Gennersdorf, Germany. Image credit: Robitaille others., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311302.
“Prehistoric fisheries introduced a variety of techniques and strategies for capturing fish. It can be summarized as active fishing, which requires active fishing, passive fishing with trapping methods, or a combination of both,” said Dr. Jérôme Robitaille of the Leibniz Center for Archaeology and colleagues.
“Some methods have been developed for individual fishing, such as fishing, while others have been improved to maximize yields using collective nets and traps.”
“The choice of a particular method was influenced not only by the fish species targeted, but also by the distinct habitats and topography in which particular aquatic resources thrive.”
“Evidence for fishing in the Upper Paleolithic (20,000 to 14,500 years ago) is not abundant, but there is direct and indirect evidence of several fishing methods, including barbed tips and harpoons, bows and arrows, traps, and fishing nets. exists sporadically.”
In their study, the authors analyzed carvings carved into 406 schist plaquettes from the Magdalena site in Gennersdorf, on the north bank of the Rhine River in central-western Germany.
These plaquettes feature a unique artistic style and iconographic theme depicting both terrestrial and aquatic animals and humans.
The new imaging technique allowed researchers to see intricate carvings on the fish, with grid patterns interpreted as depictions of fishing nets or traps.
This discovery suggests that fishing may have had symbolic meaning in the Upper Paleolithic.
These expand the known repertoire of Ice Age art and provide surprising insights into the symbolic and social practices of early hunter-gatherer societies.
“A comparative analysis including other sites from the same period, such as Altamira and Lascaux, highlights Gennersdorf’s contribution to the understanding of Paleolithic art and survival strategies,” the scientists concluded.
“Unlike famous locations known for their vivid depictions of fish, Gennersdorf’s abstract, minimalist style offers a fresh perspective on the sociocultural dynamics of the Magdalene community.”
“Net fishing, which originates from a wide range of economies, reveals the diversity, adaptability, and creativity of prehistoric communities, and their proficiency in utilizing a variety of fishing methods to sustainably exploit aquatic resources.”
“This research not only increases our understanding of the diverse survival strategies of Paleolithic societies, but also contributes to a broader discussion about the complexity and richness of their cultural practices.”
“By highlighting often overlooked aspects of fishing practices and the representation of those practices in art, our research adds to a more comprehensive and dynamic picture of Upper Paleolithic subsistence and contributes to the field. opens new avenues for future research in the field. “
“Clearly fishing plays a more important role in shaping social and cultural practices than hitherto recognized, as evidenced by population patterns around rich fishing grounds, and is therefore a subject worthy of further investigation.” It is.”
of study Published in an online journal PLoS ONE.
J. Robitaille others. 2024. Upper Paleolithic fishing techniques: Insights from carved plates from the Magdalenian site of Gennersdorf, Germany. PLoS ONE 19 (11): e0311302;doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311302
Elwood Edwards, the iconic voice behind AOL’s famous “You’ve got mail” greeting, passed away at the age of 74.
Edwards died at his residence in New Bern, North Carolina, on Tuesday, following complications from a stroke last year, as confirmed by his daughter Heather.
In 1989, Edwards recorded the greetings for AOL in his living room. The phrase “You’ve got mail” became widely recognized in the late 1990s, even inspiring a movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in 1998.
Elwood Edwards. Photo: Social Media
“He always blushed when people mentioned it,” shared his daughter. “He enjoyed the attention but never quite got used to it.”
Apart from “You’ve got mail,” Edwards also lent his voice to AOL’s “Welcome,” “Goodbye,” and “File Completed” messages, earning $200 for the recordings.
He landed the gig while his wife Karen, who worked at AOL as a customer service rep, heard about the voiceover opportunity and recommended him for the job.
Despite being unseen by most, Edwards’ voice resonated with millions daily. “For a while, America Online [AOL] kept me a secret, turning me into a bit of a mystery figure. But it’s out now, that’s that,” Edwards stated in 1999.
He made a memorable appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015, delighting the audience by delivering his famous phrase, and even made a guest voice appearance on The Simpsons in 2000.
Before his AOL fame, Edwards worked in radio and later transitioned to television. His daughter fondly recalled his self-deprecating humor and cheerful demeanor.
Transitioning to TV, Edwards worked as a “graphics guru, camera operator, and all-around talent” at WKYC-TV in Cleveland, where he also did voice-over work for commercials in addition to freelancing for radio.
He is survived by his daughter Sally, granddaughter Abby, and brother Bill. The family plans to hold a memorial service in New Bern on Monday.
Elon Musk will board a private jet in Beijing in 2023
Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images
Researchers say private jet flights should be subject to a carbon tax to curb runaway carbon emissions from the sector.
Emissions from civil aviation increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023, according to an analysis of 18.7 million flights by nearly 26,000 aircraft.
Flights were mainly for leisure purposes, with 1,846 commercial flights alone leading up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Other popular destinations included the Cannes Film Festival, the Super Bowl, the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Travel to the south of France, Ibiza and other Spanish destinations peaked during the summer months as people jetted in for long weekends in the sun.
“A fairly small group of very wealthy individuals are driving up emissions pretty quickly because of their lifestyles and investments,” he says. stephen gosling At Linnaeus University, Sweden.
Together with his colleagues, Goessling used flight tracking data from millions of flights to build a picture of civil aviation usage around the world.
The analysis found that most private jet flights are short, with nearly half of all flights flying less than 500 kilometers. Most were within the United States and Europe.
Total emissions from private jets in 2023 will be 15.6 megatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions of Tanzania. This is up from 10.7 million tonnes in 2019.
Growth rates were distorted by the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike civil aviation, which had significant restrictions in 2020 and 2021, civil aviation saw only a small drop in flight numbers and emissions in 2020, before returning to growth the following year.
According to the data, many of the most widely used private jets are owned by billionaires such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, pop star Jay-Z and TV personality Kim Kardashian. It is said to be owned by a celebrity. Compiled by the website “Celebrity Jet”.
“This is about inequality in greenhouse gas production,” he says. mark maslin At University College London. “It's not even the 1 percent. It's the richest 0.1 percent of people in the world who snap their fingers and take private jets.”
Goessling says the high personal emissions of the ultra-wealthy run the risk of undermining the public's desire to reduce personal emissions. “If the very rich don't need to reduce their emissions, there's no reason for anyone else to reduce their emissions, because everyone else is reducing their emissions,” he says.
Mr Goessling would like to see a carbon tax applied to the use of private jets. “We can put a price tag on every ton [of carbon] “It's being emitted, and I think everyone agrees that it's fair for the wealthy to pay for the damage they're causing,” he says.
Some hope the government goes further. Sean Curry Campaign group Stay Grounded is calling for a total ban on the use of private jets. “About half of these flights are short-haul flights,” he says. “If we ban private jets and invest in real infrastructure, they could easily be replaced by trains.”
IIt’s one of the biggest injustices in video game history that the Sega Saturn is widely considered to be a failure. The console was released in Japan on November 22, 1994, almost two weeks earlier than the PlayStation, but has always been compared disparagingly to its rival. We hear that while Sony built high-end machine lasers intended to produce high-speed 3D graphics, Sega engineers had to add extra graphics chips to the Saturn at the last minute. I read that Sony’s Ken Kutaragi has provided creators with an even easier to use development system. We know that Sony used its power as a consumer electronics giant to take a financial hit and drive down the prices of Sega’s machines. That’s all true, but what’s always left unmentioned is the huge success of Japan’s Saturn launch and the extraordinary legacy left by Sega’s 32-bit machines.
What I remember is this. The Edge magazine reported from Akihabara, Tokyo, that its Japanese correspondent joined a line outside a major Laox computer game center to pick up one of the thousands of machines that fans had not yet reserved. I was trying to get it. Two and a half hours later, the author showed up with my purchase. Among them was a copy of Virtua Fighter, the best arcade fighting game of the year. It was a lucky purchase. Shelves around town were quickly emptying. Sega shipped an unprecedented 200,000 units that day.
The Saturn brought the feel of arcade titles like Daytona USA into your home. Photo: Justin Layton/Alamy
The following September, I joined Edge as a writer and stayed there for two years, coinciding with the creative peak of Saturn’s short life. What was clear to me at the time, and what still rings true today, is that Sega’s first-party output on this machine was one of the best of the decade. Arcade megahits “Sega Rally” and “Daytona USA” set the challenge for a new era of stylish 3D racers, while “Virtua Fighter 2,” “Fighting Vipers,” and “The Last Bronx” challenge the 1-on-1 brings complexity and depth to fighting games. Sega’s platform-exclusive titles were similarly vibrant and groundbreaking. Panzer Dragoon, Night Into Dreams, and Burning Ranger reinvented stalwart genres for a new generation with imaginative and rich visuals. But I also loved wacky experiments. There’s the toy-like platformer Clockwork Knight, the weird and frenetic puzzler Bakubaku Animal, and the self-consciously stupid Virtua Fighter Kids.
It’s often said that what Saturn lacked was support from third-party developers, but that wasn’t the case in Japan. Veteran shooter creator Treasure developed two of their best titles for this machine, Radiant Silvergun and Guardian Heroes. If you still want to play classic 2D shooter games, the Saturn is the way to go. Batsugan, Battle Garegga, and Darius Gaiden are all considered staples of the genre.
X-Men vs Street Fighter: Sega Saturn was the beginning of Capcom and Marvel’s relationship. Photo: ArcadeImages/Alamy
Atlus adapted the arcade hit Donpachi and created the underrated role-playing adventures Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner and Princess Crown. For horror fans, there’s Warp’s survival thriller Enemy Zero, and Capcom created a Saturn port of Resident Evil that included exclusive mini-games and new enemies and costumes. Capcom also produced many of the best fighting games of the time, including X-Men: Children of the Atom (originally a home exclusive), X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and Darkstalkers 3. I put it into Saturn.
Sega also had decent developer support in Europe, with programmers who grew up on home computers having experience programming in the assembly language supported by the Saturn (the PlayStation had a much rarer development environment based on C). Core Design originally targeted Tomb Raider for machines (and also made the unfairly forgotten action-adventure Swagman for consoles). WipeOut brought Psygnosis. Gremlins loaded top-down brawler for both consoles. And Knutsford-based Traveler’s Tales, who would go on to create the Lego series, co-created the underrated racer Sonic R with Sonic Team. This was a great technology showcase for Saturn, with smooth frame rates and gorgeous transparency effects.
The Saturn was innovative in other ways as well. Saturn Bomberman remains arguably the best title in Hudson’s explosive series, especially considering its support for chaotic 10-player matches with two multi-taps. The Saturn was the first major console to offer online gaming via a Net Link modem, and in 1997 it allowed players to participate in direct sessions of Sega Rally Championship and Virtual-On over the Internet. A party title that supported this technology was Shadows of the Tusk, a deck-building strategy role-playing game (years before the genre became mainstream) that came with its own physical card pack. Additionally, Sega’s 3D Control Pad, an analog controller designed specifically for Nights Into Dreams, outperformed the Nintendo 64’s pad by several weeks by market launch.
There was a period, perhaps for a year or two, when Saturn’s disappearance was inevitable. It held its own and rivaled everything that Sony and its lead development partner Namco could offer. Daytona vs. Ridge Racer, Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken, Virtua Cop vs. Time Crisis. And this rivalry has been an absolute boon for gamers, driving 3D game design and creating the technical expertise needed for the next generation of open-world 3D console titles. There’s a reason why refurbished and modified Saturns are still being sold on eBay and retro gaming sites 30 years after its release. They are often region-free and come with a switch to toggle between European 50Hz or NTSC 60Hz TV options. And that’s because the games I’ve mentioned here are still worth playing in their original form, their original home. Although the Saturn never really caught on as a mass market device, it was successful in many ways. When we think about the history of video games, we need to talk more about it.
Paleontologists have discovered the well-preserved fossilized remains of an early anuran tadpole. Notobatrachus degiustoi At Estancia La Matilde in Patagonia, Argentina.
Reproducing the lives of tadpoles and adults Notobatrachus degiustoi. Image credit: Gabriel Rio.
Frogs and toads belong to a group of tailless amphibians called anurans.
They are characterized by a biphasic life cycle, with an aquatic larval (tadpole) stage followed by an adult (frog) stage.
Adult anurans remain in the fossil record until the late Triassic period (approximately 217 to 213 million years ago), but tadpoles have not been recorded before the Cretaceous period (approximately 145 million years ago). Not yet.
“Tadpoles are free-living, non-reproductive anuran aquatic larvae that undergo morphological and ecological changes over a short period of time before reaching the adult reproductive stage. “We need to go through a metamorphosis stage that involves profound changes in our lives.” And her colleagues.
“This rapid metamorphosis in anurans is the most extreme among extant tetrapods, with tadpoles representing a highly derived larval stage.”
The authors examined well-preserved tadpole fossils. Notobatrachus degiustoi from Formation of La Matilde In Patagonia.
This giant anuran lived during the Middle Jurassic Period, 168 to 161 million years ago.
This species is also represented by a large number of excellently preserved adult specimens from the same locality.
According to the team, the tadpoles Notobatrachus degiustoi It was almost 16 centimeters (6.3 inches) long.
The head, most of the body, and part of the tail were visible, as were the eyes, nerves, and forelimbs, suggesting that the tadpole was in a later stage of metamorphosis.
Together, they show that key traits of today’s tadpoles, such as filter-feeding systems, had already evolved in early anurans about 161 million years ago.
“The exquisite preservation of the tadpole, including its soft tissues, shows features related to the filter-feeding mechanism characteristic of living tadpoles,” the researchers said.
“What is noteworthy is that both Notobatrachus degiustoi Tadpoles and adults reached large sizes, proving that tadpole gigantism occurred among stalked anurans. “
“This new discovery suggests that a biphasic life cycle in which filter-feeding tadpoles live in aquatic, ephemeral environments was already present in the early evolutionary history of sessile anurans, and that at least 161 million It has been shown to remain stable over the years.”
of findings Published in this week’s magazine nature.
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M. Chubar others. The oldest tadpoles reveal the evolutionary stability of anuran life cycles. naturepublished online October 30, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08055-y
Scientists discovered fossils in Argentina’s Santa Cruz province
Mariana Chubar et al., Journal (2024)
The beautifully preserved fossilized tadpoles are the oldest discovered by science, dating back 161 million years, and their anatomy is strikingly similar to some of today’s species. I am.
Paleontologists discovered the fossil in January 2020 while searching for feathered dinosaurs in Argentina’s Santa Cruz province.
“They missed the mark,” says Mariana Churivar of Universidad Maimonides in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “But after many days of digging, one of our team members discovered a stone with a special signature: a fossilized tadpole.”
Chubar and her colleagues have now identified this tadpole as belonging to an extinct frog species. Notobatrachus degiustoiwas deciphered from hundreds of adult specimens discovered in the same fossil deposit since 1957.
Until now, scientists had never unearthed tadpole fossils from before the Cretaceous period, which began about 145 million years ago. This specimen is also the first fossil tadpole from an early frog lineage known as stalk anurans, which is older than modern species known as crown anurans.
This fossil is very well preserved, with eyes and nerves visible in the head, forelimbs, and part of the tail. The researchers estimate that it was about 16 centimeters long, comparable to the largest tadpole in existence today.
The part of the skeleton that supports the gills suggests that the specialized filter-feeding anatomy of modern tadpoles had already evolved in this fossilized tadpole, Chubar said.
The similarities between ancient and modern tadpoles are so great that the researchers were even able to determine the developmental stage in the fossils, concluding that they were just about to undergo metamorphosis into frogs.
Illustration of tadpoles and adults of the species Notabatrachus degiustoi
Gabriel Rio
Earth’s warm, humid climate in the past, combined with the lack of competition and predation from other frog species and fish, may have made it easier for tadpoles to grow large, Chubar said.
Jody Lowry The Australian Museum in Sydney said the discovery of the oldest known tadpole “confirms how successful and stable the ‘typical’ frog life cycle we all learn about in school is.”
The size of the tadpoles tells us a lot about the habitat in which frogs evolved more than 160 million years ago, a water-rich environment with few predators or competitors, she says. “This is something modern frog species can only dream of.”
Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of Jurassic cockroach. alderblattina simsibased on an isolated wing discovered in Gloucestershire, England.
alderblattina simsi:(A) Dried specimen. (B) Specimen moistened with ethanol. Note the two subspherical spots (spots) on the wing tips and the prominent distal coloration. Scale bar – 1 mm. Image credit: Swaby others., doi: 10.1002/spp2.1598.
Open University palaeontologist Emily Swaby and colleagues from the Open University and National Museums of Scotland said: “Insects are the most diverse group of terrestrial organisms in the history of life, and have been fundamental to terrestrial ecosystems since the early Devonian period. It has become a major component.”
“Primarily detritivores (decomposers), cockroaches play an important role in nutrient cycling in ecosystems through the decomposition of organic matter and are an important food source for many predators, including birds, lizards, and other mammals. ”
“cockroach(Brat Dare) They are part of the superorder Diptera, beginning in the Bashkirian period (Carboniferous) and diversifying rapidly during the second half of the Moscow period and the penultimate Kasimov period of the Carboniferous period. ”
“Further diversification occurred during the Early and Middle Permian.”
“After the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, cockroach numbers declined sharply, but they flourished again during the Triassic period.”
The newly described cockroach species lived during the Toarcian period of the Early Jurassic period, about 180 million years ago.
named alderblattina simsihad a relatively small size and distinct wing coloration.
“Color patterns in insects, including their wings, are interpreted to be primarily physiological adaptations, thought to be used to protect against predation and sexual signaling,” the paleontologists say. said.
“Today, cockroach species display a wide variety of color patterns, and their functions include communication, protection from predation, sexual signaling, and hardening of the epidermis.”
“alderblattina simsi It is the second cockroach species to have a distinct Toarcian wing coloration pattern. ”
assigned author alderblattina simsi It belongs to the cockroach family Rhipidoblattinidae.
“Alderblattina Shimshi “The presence of two distinct spherical spots on the forewings and the coloration of the wing tips are very different from all other Jurassic cockroaches,” the researchers said.
of Alderblattina Shimshi The fossil was collected by geologists in January 1984 Mike J. Sims.
“We hypothesize that extreme environmental conditions are associated with this problem. Toarcian ocean anoxic phenomenon “Competition for resources and evolutionary changes in predators were promoted, resulting in the development of apothematic coloration in two insect orders at this time,” the researchers said.
“Alderblattina Shimshi This is the seventh valid member of the European Toalchian cockroach family and adds to our knowledge of the European Toalkian cockroach fauna. ”
“This unique specimen adds significance to the record of Mesozoic cockroach wing color patterns and provides important evidence to further understand the evolution of terminal color patterns in the suborder Cockroaches. ”
a paper The survey results were published in a magazine paleontology papers.
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Emily J. Swaby others. 2024. A new species of cockroach (Rhipidoblattinidae) that lived in the Toarcian (Late Jurassic period) of Alderton Hill, Gloucestershire, England. It is likely that aposematic coloration was the earliest to occur in cockroaches. paleontology papers 10 (5): e1598;doi: 10.1002/spp2.1598
The El Niño Southern Oscillation, characterized by irregular shifts between unusually warm (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) conditions, has existed for at least 250 million years and is often of increasing magnitude, according to a new report. It is said that it has grown bigger. Studying modeling.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation, which occurs in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, is a characteristic mode of interannual climate change and has significant impacts on the Earth's climate and ecosystems. Image credit: Li others., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2404758121.
Climate scientists are studying the El Niño phenomenon. That's because El Niño, a huge patch of unusually warm water on either side of the equator in the eastern Pacific Ocean, alters the jet stream and can dry out the northwest United States and soak the southwest with extreme rain.
The corresponding cold mass, La Niña, could push the jet stream northward, drying out the southwestern United States while also causing drought in East Africa and making South Asia's monsoon season more intense.
“Each experiment confirms an active El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), most of which are stronger than the current one, some of which are somewhat stronger, and some of which are slightly stronger,” said Dr. Shinen Hu of Duke University.
Hu and his colleagues used the same climate modeling tools used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to project climate change into the future, except they looked back in time.
This simulation is so computationally intensive that researchers were unable to model it continuously every year for 250 million years. Instead, they made 10 million year “slices” – 26 of them.
“The model experiments were affected by various boundary conditions, including differences in land-sea distribution (on different continents), differences in solar radiation, and differences in carbon dioxide,” Dr. Hu said.
Each simulation was run over thousands of model years for robust results and took several months to complete.
“At times in the past, the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth was about 2% lower than it is today, but global warming carbon dioxide was much more abundant, and the atmosphere and oceans were much more dense than they are today. It was very warm,” Dr. Hu said.
During the Mesozoic Era, 250 million years ago, South America was located in the middle of the supercontinent Pangea, and an oscillation occurred in the Panthalas Ocean to its west.
Current research shows that historically the two most important variables in ENSO magnitude appear to be the ocean's thermal structure and the “atmospheric noise” of ocean surface winds.
“Previous studies have mainly focused on ocean temperatures, but this study has paid less attention to surface winds, which appear to be very important,” Dr. Hu said.
“So part of the point of our research is that in addition to the thermal structure of the ocean, we also need to pay attention to atmospheric noise and understand how those winds change. .”
“Atmospheric noise, or wind, can act to give this pendulum a random kick.”
“We find that both factors are important in understanding why El Niño was much stronger than it is now.”
“If we want to make more reliable predictions of the future, we first need to understand the past climate.”
of study Published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Shan Li others. 2024. El Niño Southern Oscillation has been active continuously since the Mesozoic era. PNAS 121 (45): e2404758121;doi: 10.1073/pnas.2404758121
Armenian archaeologists have discovered the remains of an early Christian church in the ruins of the ancient city of Artaxata.
Preliminary reconstruction of the early Christian church of Artaxata. Image credit: Armenian-German Arttaxata project.
ArtaxataThe main city of ancient Armenia, also known as Artashat, served as the capital of the Kingdom of Armenia from its founding in 176 BC to 120 AD.
Founded during the reign of Artaxias I (Artashes), the city is located on the left bank of the Arax River, in modern-day Ararat province of Armenia.
Artaxata was destroyed and rebuilt several times between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, but was eventually abandoned.
“According to legend, Gregory the Enlightener converted the Armenian king Tiridates III to Christianity at Artaxata in 301 AD, making Armenia the first Christian state in the world,” said Professor Achim Lichtenberger, an archaeologist at the University of Münster. said the colleague.
“The medieval monastery of Khor Villap, located very close to the newly discovered church, is a reminder of this tradition.”
“Artaxata served as the capital of the Armenian kingdom ruled by the Artaxiads and Arsacusids.”
“The city developed into an important metropolis during the Hellenistic period and was the capital of the Kingdom of Armenia for almost six centuries.”
Early Christian churches were built on stately columns. Image credit: Armenian-German Arttaxata project.
The newly discovered Christian church is an octagonal building with a cross-shaped extension.
The building was approximately 30 meters in diameter and was simply constructed with mortar floors and terracotta tiles.
Marble imported from the Mediterranean was also used lavishly.
Professor Lichtenberger and his colleagues from the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and the University of Münster discovered the remains of a wooden platform in an extension approximately 30 meters in diameter, which they radiocarbonly date to the mid-4th century AD. .
“The fourth-century building is the oldest archaeologically recorded church in the country and is sensational evidence of early Christianity in Armenia,” Professor Lichtenberger said.
Dr. Mukrtich Zardarian, an archaeologist at the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, said: “Octagonal churches were previously unknown here, but we are well-known in the Eastern Mediterranean region, where they first appeared in the 4th century AD. I did,” he added.
“Typologically, this find corresponds to an early Christian monument.”
The researchers said, “We plan to continue the excavation and hope to make new discoveries, including the question of who this church was dedicated to.''
named Arasemenia triaa new specimen from the Wutong Formation in China's Anhui Province, dates to the Famennian period of the Late Devonian, making it the second oldest known winged seed.
fertile branches and seeds Arasemenia tria. Image credit: Wang others., doi: 10.7554/eLife.92962.3.
Many plants require seeds to reproduce. Seeds come in all shapes and sizes and often have additional features that help them disperse throughout the environment.
For example, some seeds develop wings from the seed coat as the outer layer. This is similar to the fruit of the plane tree, which has two wings that help it glide on the wind.
The first seeds are thought to have evolved during the Famennian period, between 372 and 359 million years ago.
According to the fossil record, almost all of these seeds were surrounded by additional protective structures known as couples and were wingless.
To date, only two groups of Famennia seeds have been reported to have wings or wing-like structures, and one group lacked couples.
“The oldest known plant seeds date back to the late Devonian period,” said Professor Deming Wang of Peking University.
“This period marks an important evolutionary milestone in plant history, as it transitioned from spore-based reproduction like ferns and mosses to seed-based reproduction.”
“However, little is known about wind dispersal of seeds during this period, as most fossils lack wings and are usually surrounded by a protective copple.”
Professor Wang and colleagues examined fossils of Famennian seed plants collected in China's Anhui province.
assigned to a new genus and species; Arasemenia triathe seeds are about 2.5-3.3 cm long and, unlike most other seeds of this era, clearly lack a cupple.
“In fact, this is one of the oldest known records of coppleless seeds, 40 million years earlier than previously thought,” the paleontologists said.
“Each seed is covered by a layer of integument, or seed coat, which radiates outward to form three wing-like leaves.”
“These wings tapered toward the tip and curved outward, creating a wide, flat structure that helped the seeds catch the wind.”
The researchers then compared Arasemenia tria Other known winged seeds from the Late Devonian: Warstenia and guasia.
Both of these seeds have four wings — guasiais wide and flat; WarsteniaIt's short and straight.
Scientists performed quantitative mathematical analysis to determine which seeds are most effective for wind dispersal.
This reveals that it has an odd number of wings, as follows: Arasemenia triaa more stable and high rotation speed is obtained when the seeds descend from the branches, and the seeds can catch the wind more effectively and disperse further from the parent plant.
“Our findings are Arasemenia tria This further deepens our knowledge about the origins of wind-driven dispersal strategies in early land plants,” said Dr. Pu Fan, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“When combined with previous knowledge, guasia and WarsteiniaWe conclude that winged seeds as a result of integument elongation emerged as the first form of wind dispersal strategy in the Late Devonian, prior to other methods such as parachutes and plumes. ”
“The three-winged seed found in” Arasemenia tria “During the late Devonian period, double-winged seeds would have appeared in the Carboniferous period, and single-winged seeds would have appeared in the Permian period,” Professor Wang added.
Will you live to be 100 years old? For the average person, the answer is probably no, as life expectancy growth has slowed in wealthy countries despite advances in medicine and living conditions. This suggests there may be a biological limit to our age, but some researchers believe further progress is possible.
The current slowdown is in sharp contrast to 20 years.th Over the past century, life expectancy at birth in wealthy areas has increased by three years per decade in what researchers call radical life extension. People born in the mid-1800s had a life expectancy of 20 to 50 years, but by the 1990s they had reached 50 to 70 years.
Extrapolating from this trend, some people at the time began predicting that newborns in the 21st century would typically live to be over 100 years old, but that point has now been reached and this may have been too optimistic. It seems so.
S. Jay Olshansky Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago analyzed mortality data from the 1990s to 2019 in nine wealthy countries, including the United States, Australia, South Korea, and Hong Kong. The 2019 cutoff was aimed at avoiding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found that life expectancy at birth increased by an average of 6.5 years over the study period. In the United States, reached 78.8 While in Hong Kong in 2019 It was 85.
However, from 2010 to 2019, the growth rate slowed in most countries compared to the past 20 years. The U.S. is in the worst position, perhaps because of the ongoing opioid crisis, Olshansky said. By contrast, only Hong Kong has seen an increase in life expectancy growth since 2010, but it is unclear what is causing this, he said. That may be because people have easier access to health care than in other regions, he says.
Based on historical trends, researchers predict that life expectancy at birth will never exceed 84 years for men and 90 years for women. They also calculate that only a small number of today's newborns will live to be 100 years old.
The recent slowdown may be because the greatest advances in environmental and medical improvements were already achieved in the 1900s, and human aging is reaching its biological limits, Olshansky said. Jan Vig A professor at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine thinks similarly. “There are certain biological limits that keep us from getting older,” he says.
but jerry mccartney Researchers from the University of Glasgow in the UK say that the slowdown in growth over the past decade is mainly due to policies in many of the countries analyzed, which have led to cuts in social security and health services and increased poverty. states that it is possible. Without these, life expectancy growth might not have slowed down, so with the right policies, life expectancy could continue to rise, he says.
in fact, michael rose A professor at the University of California, Irvine, believes there is no limit to the human lifespan. With the right investments in anti-aging research, he says, we could see another radical increase in life expectancy this century, at least in wealthy countries.
Olshansky said he was positive that life expectancy is still increasing despite the recent economic slowdown. “Of course we should celebrate the fact that we can live this long,” he says.
Nestled within the fiery petals of the Rosette Nebula is NGC 2244, a young star cluster that the Rosette Nebula nurtured. Image credits: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA / TA University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor and NSF's NOIRLab / D. de Martin and M. Zamani, NSF's NOIRLab.
of rosette nebula It exists in the constellation Monoceros, about 5,000 light-years from Earth.
Also known as Caldwell 49, CTB 21, SH 2-275, or W 16, the object spans 1.3 degrees in the sky, about the width of your index finger at arm's length.
The diameter of the rosette nebula is 130 light years — More than five times the size of the Orion Nebula.
The former are four times as far apart, so their apparent sizes are similar.
“As striking as the nebula's 'petals' is the striking absence of gas at its center,” NOIRLab astronomers said in a statement.
“The culprits who drilled this hollow core are the most massive stars. NGC2244 -An open star cluster nurtured by a nebula. ”
“This cluster was formed about 2 million years ago after the nebula's gases coalesced into clumps due to their mutual gravity.”
“Eventually, some of the clumps grew into giant stars, producing stellar winds powerful enough to punch a hole in the center of the nebula.”
“NGC 2244's massive star also emits ultraviolet light, which ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas and illuminates the nebula with vibrant colors,” the astronomers said.
“The undulating red cloud is a region of H-alpha radiation originating from high-energy hydrogen atoms that emit red light.”
“Along the walls of the central cavity and closer to the central giant star, the radiation has enough energy to ionize heavy atoms like oxygen, causing it to glow in shades of gold or yellow.”
“Finally, along the edges of the petals, thin tendrils of deep pink glow with light emitted from the ionized silicon.”
The bright, glowing features of the Rosette Nebula are certainly impressive. But its dark and shadowy features also attract attention.
“Surrounding the excavated core of this nebula is a series of dark clouds called 'elephant trunks', so named because of their trunk-like pillars,” the researchers said. .
“These structures are opaque because they contain invisible dust and form a boundary between the hot shell of ionized hydrogen and the cold hydrogen surrounding environment.”
“As the shell expands outward, it encounters a cold, clumpy gas that resists its push.”
“This forms an elongated trunk, the length of which extends like fingers towards the central cluster.”
“One of these dark features is the wrench trunk: its claw-like head visible in the upper right corner of the central cluster.”
“Unlike the typical Pillar of Creation trunk, which stands like a straight column, the wrench's 'handle' has an unusual spiral shape that traces the nebula's magnetic field.”
“Less obvious, but equally interesting, is the dark globlet.”
“These tiny dust clumps, sometimes round and sometimes teardrop-shaped, are smaller than the familiar globules and have a mass just a few times that of Jupiter.”
“We see a series of them near Wrench Trunk, but hundreds more are scattered throughout the Rosette Nebula.”
“These spherules could contain brown dwarfs or planets.”
“In about 10 million years, radiation from the hot, young stars in the NGC 2244 cluster will obliterate the nebula.”
“By then, the rosette will be gone and the giant stars will be left without their parent clouds.”
Artist’s impression of Barnard’s b, a planet orbiting around Barnard’s star
ESO/M.Kornmesser
Barnard’s star, one of the Sun’s closest neighbors, appears to have at least one planet orbiting around it, and possibly three more that require further confirmation.
Astronomers have been searching for planets around Barnard’s star, 5.96 light-years away, since the 1960s. Barnard’s star is the next closest star to us after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri star system.
In 2018, researchers claimed to have discovered a planet at least three times the size of Earth called Barnard Star B, but subsequent analysis revealed that the apparent planet’s signal was actually a larger-than-expected star. Turns out it was caused by activity. .
now, Jonay González Hernández Researchers at the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics have announced the discovery of a new Barnard star b, which has about 40 percent the mass of Earth.
The planet is much closer to its star than any other planet in our solar system, completing an orbit in just over three Earth days. This also means that its surface temperature is around 125°C (257°F), too hot for liquid water or life to exist.
Using an instrument called Espresso on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, González Hernández and his team observed tiny wobbles in Barnard’s star’s position caused by the orbiting planet’s gravity. I discovered this star.
They also found evidence of three more planets orbiting the star. However, the signal wasn’t strong enough to be certain, so more observations will be needed to confirm that.
“These detections are very tricky and always difficult because there is stellar activity, the magnetic field of the star that rotates with the star,” he says. Rodrigo Fernando Diaz at the National University of San Martin, Argentina. González Hernández and his team have thoroughly checked whether the observations are from a planet, but there could always be “unknown unknowns,” Fernando Díaz said. says. To really confirm this, he says, data from other telescopes is needed, which could take years of observations.
In 2015, archaeologists discovered Neanderthal fossils. Grotte Mandolin is located on the Mediterranean coast of France, in the shadow of a rock overhanging directly into the Rhône River valley. Nicknamed Thorin, the fossil is one of the most similar Neanderthal remains found in France since its discovery in Saint-Césaire in 1979. Globe Institute researcher Martin Sikora and his colleagues combined archaeological, chronostratigraphic, isotopic, and genomic analyses to reveal that Thorin belonged to a Neanderthal population that remained genetically isolated for 50,000 years. Apart from Thorin’s lineage, they found evidence of gene flow in the genome of the Les Côtés Neanderthal from another lineage that diverged from the ancestral lineage of European Neanderthals more than 80,000 years ago. The findings suggest the existence of multiple isolated Neanderthal communities in Europe close to the time of extinction and shed light on their social organization. Despite the close geographical proximity of these populations, there was limited, if any, interaction between the different Neanderthal populations during the last millennium.
Neanderthal. Image courtesy of Abel Grau, CSIC Communication.
“When we look at the Neanderthal genome, we see that they were quite inbred and didn’t have a lot of genetic diversity,” Dr Sikora said.
“They’ve lived in small groups for generations.”
“Inbreeding is known to reduce the genetic diversity of populations, which if continued over long periods of time can have negative effects on the viability of the population.”
“The newly discovered Neanderthal genome is from a different lineage to other late Neanderthals studied so far.”
“This supports the idea that Neanderthal social organization was different from that of early modern humans, who appear to have been more connected.”
“In other words, compared to Neanderthals, early modern humans were more likely to connect with other groups, which was advantageous for their survival.”
“This is purely speculation, but the concept of being able to communicate more and exchange knowledge is something humans can do that Neanderthals, who were organized in small groups and lived isolated lives, may not have been able to do to some extent.”
“And that’s an important skill,” noted Dr Tarshika Vimala, a population geneticist at the University of Copenhagen.
“We see evidence that early modern humans in Siberia, living in small communities, formed so-called mating networks to avoid problems with inbreeding, something that wasn’t seen in Neanderthals.”
Thorin’s fossils were first discovered in Mandolin Cave in 2015. Mandolin Cave is a cave that is thought to have been the site of an early Homo sapiens But not at the same time, and he is still being slowly unearthed.
Based on Thorin’s location in the cave deposits, archaeologists have speculated that he may have lived approximately 45,000 to 40,000 years ago.
To determine his age and relationships to other Neanderthals, the team extracted DNA from his teeth and jaw and compared his entire genome sequence to previously sequenced Neanderthal genomes.
Surprisingly, initial genome analysis suggested that Thorin’s genome was very different from other late Neanderthals and very similar to the genomes of Neanderthals who lived more than 100,000 years ago, suggesting that Thorin is much older than archaeological estimates.
To solve the mystery, the researchers analyzed isotopes from Thorin’s bones and teeth to gain insight into the type of climate he lived in. Late Neanderthals lived during the Ice Age, while early Neanderthals enjoyed a much warmer climate.
Isotopic analysis showed that Thorin lived in a very cold climate and was identified as a late Neanderthal.
Compared to previously sequenced Neanderthal genomes, Thorin’s genome is most similar to the individual from Gibraltar, leading the authors to speculate that Thorin’s population may have migrated from Gibraltar to France.
“This means that a previously unknown Neanderthal population was present in the Mediterranean, stretching from the westernmost tip of Europe to the Rhône Valley in France,” said Dr Ludovic Slimac, researcher at Toulouse-Paul Sabatier University and CNRS.
Knowing that Neanderthal communities were small and isolated may hold the key to understanding their extinction, because isolation is generally thought to be detrimental to a population’s fitness.
“It’s always a good thing for one group to have contact with another,” Dr Vimala said.
“Prolonged isolation limits genetic diversity and reduces the ability to adapt to changes in climate and pathogens. It’s also socially limiting, as they don’t share knowledge or evolve as a group.”
But to truly understand how Neanderthal populations were structured and why they became extinct, researchers say many more Neanderthal genomes need to be sequenced.
“If we had had more genomes from other regions over the same time period, we probably would have found other deeply structured populations,” Dr Sikora said.
Ludovic Slimak others2024. The long genetic and social isolation of Neanderthals before their extinction. Cell Genomics 4(9):100593;doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2024.100593
The newly discovered theropod and ornithopod dinosaur footprints date back to the Early Cretaceous period, more than 120 million years ago, when Australia was still connected to Antarctica.
Melissa Lawley and Anthony Martin examine dinosaur footprints. Image by Ruth Showalter.
Dinosaur footprints from the Early Cretaceous period have been discovered in the Wonthaggi Formation south of Melbourne, Australia.
These include 18 footprints of medium to large theropods (0.8-1.9 metres waist height) and four footprints of small ornithopod dinosaurs (40-48 centimetres waist height).
“These numerous footprints provide the best evidence yet that polar environments once supported large carnivores,” said Professor Anthony Martin of Emory University.
“Large theropods probably fed on prey such as smaller dinosaurs, fish and turtles.”
“The hip height of this theropod would have been roughly the same as the height of a tall modern human.”
“Rocky coastal strata in Victoria, Australia, mark the spot where the ancient supercontinent Gondwana began to break up about 100 million years ago, separating Australia from Antarctica.”
“The polar environment at that time was a rift valley with a network of rivers running through it.”
“Although the average annual temperature during the Cretaceous period was higher than today, ecosystems experienced freezing temperatures and months of darkness during polar winters.”
“The Wonthaggi Formation has produced one of the best assemblages of polar dinosaur fossils in the Southern Hemisphere, but most of these fossils are small fragments of bone and teeth.”
“These pieces may have been carried to the buried site by heavy spring rains.”
“However, the discovery of so many theropod footprints confirms that a wide variety of dinosaurs did in fact live and walk on the surface where the bones were found.”
“Dinosaur footprints are actually more common here than we previously thought.”
Theropod footprints in the Wonthaggi Formation range in length from 18 to 47 cm (7 to 18.5 in).
They have relatively thin toes and sharp claw tips.
Ornithopod tracks vary in size from 10 to 18 cm (4 to 7 in).
The range of footprint sizes suggests that they may represent a mixture of juvenile and adult ornithopods and theropods.
“This suggests that these dinosaurs may have been nesting and raising their young in polar environments,” Prof Martin said.
This discovery paper of Archealinga, Australian Journal of Palaeontology.
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Anthony J. Martin othersPolar dinosaur footprints from the Wonthaggi Formation (Lower Cretaceous), Victoria, Australia, and their palaeontological significance. Archealinga, Australian Journal of PalaeontologyPublished online September 8, 2024; doi: 10.1080/03115518.2024.2392498
At least 140 million Sun-like stars in our Milky Way galaxy may have experienced similar stellar flybys, according to a new study by astrophysicists from the Jülich Research Centre and Leiden University.
Snapshot of a flyby of an ancient star. Blue-green particles indicate TNOs injected into the planetary region by the flyby. The perturbation star passed through the disk at perihelion distance 110 AU, on the right side of the picture. Image courtesy of Pfalzner others., doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02349-x.
The planets in our solar system accumulated from a disk of dust and gas orbiting the young Sun.
Thus, the planets move in circular orbits close to a common plane.
About 3,000 small bodies have been observed orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. Surprisingly, most of them move in eccentric or inclined orbits.
Therefore, some force must have lifted these trans-solar objects (TNOs) out of the disk in which they formed and significantly altered their orbits.
“When we think about the solar system, we usually think of it ending with Neptune, the outermost known planet,” said Dr Susanne Pfalzner, astrophysicist at the Jülich Research Centre and lead author of the paper.
“However, thousands of objects are known to travel beyond the orbit of Neptune.”
“It is even suspected that there are tens of thousands of objects over 100 kilometers in diameter.”
“Surprisingly, many of these TNOs travel on eccentric orbits that are inclined with respect to the common orbital plane of the planets in our solar system.”
In this study, Dr. Falzner and her colleagues compared the properties of observed TNOs with thousands of flyby simulations to determine specific properties of stellar flybys that could potentially reproduce all of the different TNO populations, their locations, and relative abundances.
They Found A flyby of a 0.8 solar mass star at a distance of 110 AU could explain the inclined and highly eccentric orbits of known TNOs.
“We can even infer the orbits of very distant objects, such as Sedna, a dwarf planet discovered in the outermost solar system in 2003,” Dr Pfalzner said.
“There are also objects moving in orbits that are almost perpendicular to the planet's orbit.”
“Such flybys could even explain the orbits of two objects moving in the opposite direction to the planet: 2008 KV42 and 2011 KT19.”
“The best match we found in our simulations for the outer solar system today is a star that is slightly lighter than our Sun, about 0.8 times its mass,” said Dr Amis Govind, also of the Jülich research centre.
“It traveled about 16.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, which is about 110 times the distance between Earth and the Sun and just under four times the distance to the outermost planet, Neptune.”
Astrophysicists were surprised Found The irregular moons orbiting the giant planets in the solar system in distant, inclined, and eccentric orbits are actually TNOs that were launched into the inner solar system by close passes of their stars.
“Some of these objects could have been captured as moons by giant planets,” said Dr Simon Portegies Zwart, an astrophysicist at Leiden University.
“This would explain why the outer planets in our solar system have two different types of moons.”
“In contrast to regular moons, which orbit their planets in circular orbits close to the planet, irregular moons orbit their planets at greater distances in inclined, elongated orbits.”
“Until now, there has been no explanation for this phenomenon.”
“The beauty of this model is its simplicity. With just one source, it answers several outstanding questions about our solar system,” Dr Pfalzner said.
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Susanne Falzner othersOrbits of flybys of stars that formed the outer solar system. Nat AstronPublished online September 4, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02349-x
Susanne Falzner others2024. A close flyby of a star could inject an irregular moon from outside the solar system. Apu JL 972, L21;doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ad63a6
The alternative relationship dating app has experienced global expansion and nearly doubled its revenue last year, thanks to non-monogamous, queer, and kinky users.
Founded by an entrepreneurial couple in an open relationship, Feeld is “on a mission to elevate the human sexual and relationship experience” from its registered office in Carlisle, Cumbria.
Feeld has surged in popularity due to the increasing interest in non-traditional relationship structures like polyamory. Last year marked its first time filing full accounts with Companies House.
The company’s revenue increased from £20.7 million to £39.5 million, with profits rising from £2.4 million to £5.5 million in 2023.
Most revenue comes from outside the UK, with £33 million in sales from overseas. The app is free to download globally but charges users for full services.
Founded in 2014 by Dimo Trifonov and Ana Kirova, Feeld (formerly 3nder) arose from their openness about their relationship.
Ana Kirova is CEO of Feeld, a company founded by her partner Dimo Trifonov. Photo: Field
Kirova joined the company early on when it faced legal issues with Tinder. She became CEO in 2023 and led a rebranding and tech upgrade to resolve initial glitches.
Company filings show ownership shifts since Kirova’s appointment, with Trifonov transferring shares to her. Previously, Trifonov owned the majority of shares.
Feeld’s growth involves strategic decisions rather than aggressive expansion. The company values member feedback and aims to support their personal journeys.
The company’s innovative approach has set it apart in the dating app industry, reflecting changing trends and member response.
Feeld’s growth story includes overcoming challenges, like a lawsuit from Tinder, to expand its team from eight in 2016 to nearly 50 employees.
There is plenty of geological evidence that the Moon had ancient volcanic activity, but it is unclear how long that activity lasted. Magma eruptions create volcanic glass, which has been found in lunar samples before. Dr. Li Qiuli of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and colleagues analyzed about 3,000 glass beads taken from lunar soil samples collected by China's Chang'e-5 mission. They identified three glass beads as being of volcanic origin based on their texture, chemical composition, and sulfur isotopes. Uranium-lead dating of these volcanic beads determined that they formed about 123 million years ago.
Volcanic eruptions that produced glass beads on the Moon. Image courtesy of T. Zhang & Y. Wang.
Samples collected by the Apollo, Luna and Chang'e-5 missions have so far shown that the Moon experienced widespread basaltic volcanic activity between about 4.4 billion and 2 billion years ago.
The findings suggest that, at least on small, localized scales, volcanic activity continued for much longer than previously thought.
“Dating of lunar volcanic basalt samples returned to Earth by the Apollo and Luna missions or delivered to Earth as lunar meteorites reveals that lunar basaltic volcanism continued at least 2.9 to 2.8 billion years ago,” the researchers said.
“However, analysis of lunar samples returned by the Chang'e-5 mission demonstrates that basaltic volcanism persisted at least 2 billion years ago.”
“Remote sensing observations suggest that there may have been more recent volcanic activity on the Moon during the Late Copernican epoch (less than 800 million years ago).”
“However, none of these remote sensing observations provide precise dates for possible volcanic activity.”
“Furthermore, the proposed Late Copernican Ocean basalt outbursts cover only a limited area, and no samples are available.”
“Eruptions of gas-rich magma can produce magma fountains that produce sub-millimeter glass beads.”
“These beads could be deposited over a wide area and then transported farther across the lunar surface by impacts.”
“Volcanic glass may be a trace component in existing samples.”
In their study, Dr Li and his co-authors sorted 3,000 tiny glass beads retrieved from lunar samples collected by Chang'e-5, examining the beads' chemical composition, physical texture, and sulfur isotopes to distinguish between volcanic glass and glass produced by meteorite impacts.
They identified three of the beads as being of volcanic origin and used radiometric dating to determine that the beads were formed 123 million years ago.
Volcanic beads are rich in potassium, phosphorus, and rare earth elements, known as KREEP elements, which can produce radioactive heat.
Localized heating by KREEP elements could melt rocks in the Moon's mantle, causing small amounts of magma to erupt to the surface.
“The volcanic glass beads contained large amounts of rare earth elements and thorium, which may indicate that recent volcanic activity is associated with local enrichment of heat-producing elements in the mantle source of magma,” the researchers said.
Wang Biwen others2024. Samples brought back indicate volcanic activity on the moon 120 million years ago. Science 385 (6713); doi: 1077-1080; doi: 10.1126/science.adk6635
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
'I I remember visiting Ghostface Killah. [of the Wu-Tang Clan] “He was mad at us!” recalls Darryl Anselmo, a former EA employee and art director on 2004's groundbreaking hip-hop fusion fighting game Def Jam: Fight for NY. “Ghost Face was holding four pounds of solid gold. eagle bracelet And he claimed that his character's signature move would be for the bird to come to life and peck the other rappers out of their eyes. But the limitations of the PlayStation 2's technology and its violence restrictions meant that it couldn't happen. It wasn't possible.”
“When Ghost Face first asked about the eagle, Lauren… [Wirtzer Seawood, another one of the game’s producers] He told me to just nod and smile, and when I met him again at the studio for the sequel, I apologized. [for misleading him] He quickly moved on to recording extended insults for his character for the new game, one of which I remember: “Go home and cry to your mother. And tell her you're hungry!”
Whether or not Ghostface Killah transforms into a giant killer eagle, the resulting game, Def Jam: Fight for NY, celebrates its 20th anniversary this month and remains one of the fighting game genre's most vibrant spins. It's the rare '00s game that's still dominating social media conversation despite never being remade or re-released. The 67 characters include rap legends like Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Ice-T, Scarface, Ludacris, Flavor Flav, Slick Rick, Warren G, and Mobb Deep, and it's an improvement over the slower-paced gameplay of its predecessor, Def Jam: Vendetta, in every respect.
Vendetta was essentially publisher EA's best take on an engine made for a defunct WCW wrestling game that was mired in development hell and causing executives to lose their heads. At one stage, in their desperation, they even suggested that it could be salvaged and remade into an intergalactic wrestling game full of alien characters. But because Holmes and Anselmo had helmed the 2001 success NBA Street (which added a faster, cartoony, hip-hop aesthetic to basketball multiplayer and far outsold that year's bigger-budget (and much more boring) NBA Live 2002), they were deemed the perfect duo to turn what began as a vague boardroom idea (what if rappers wrestled each other?) into a fleshed-out, retail game.
“It was a controversial concept”…Def Jam battles in NYC. Photo: EA
This meant traveling back and forth to Japan to work with development company AKI Corporation, while also touring the US to meet with rappers signed or affiliated with legendary label Def Jam, and ultimately winning their trust. They shaped the character's mannerisms, from moves to taunts. “It's been a dream life, to be honest,” Holmes adds. “I grew up obsessed with hip-hop. As a teenager, I worked in a music store and sold a bass guitar to Flavor Flav when Public Enemy played in Vancouver. Flavor actually remembered me! It was an amazing time. Who would have thought I'd end up recording with my idols and going to Snoop Dogg's family home?”
But he acknowledges that the core concept behind Def Jam: Vendetta and its sequel, Def Jam: Fight for NY, wasn't easily embraced: “Execs had a hard time understanding the concept of a fighting game about rappers. It was a controversial concept,” says the producer, who went on to work on Halo 4 at Microsoft and 343 Industries.
“Once I explained to them that to be the best lyricist in hip-hop, it's all about arguing, dissing, and competing for the throne, they finally got it,” Anselmo reveals. “Hip-hop is full of vibrant, competitive personalities, so the character roster could have a Street Fighter II or Tekken 3 vibe.”
Def Jam: Fight for NY's concept of rappers punching each other was a huge success, and critics loved it, too, with a score of 83 on Metacritic. “We rushed to make Vendetta, but it still sold well,” says Holmes. “That success gave us the opportunity to expand on the gameplay with Fight for NY and take our time to get it right.” AKI Corporation took the ever-changing, momentum-based combat from the legendary WWF: No Mercy game, released on Nintendo 64 in 2000, and sped everything up with hyper-active Blazin' Moves (my personal favorite is Busta's backbreaker, which is more destructive than Batman's spine-crushing Bane).
The art design is somewhere between The Wire and a comic book, with an ambitious range of dynamic fighting styles (kickboxing, street fighting, martial arts, wrestling, submission). There's a storyline, with Snoop Dogg playing the cunning vampire villain The Crow, who'll hit you with a cane and cleverly taunt you with, “Do you have dental insurance?” You can wear Roc-A-Wear or Ecko tracksuits, getting increasingly better dressed as you rise through the ranks of your boss D-Mob's underground fighting syndicate, slowly earning you respect. It's as if Fight Club had been directed by glossy rap music vid…
Rappers Joe Budden vs. Sticky Fingaz compete in Def Jam's New York Battle. Photo: EA
The key mission was to choose either 128-bit's Lil' Kim or Carmen Electra as his new girlfriend, and the next day Method Man would call and ask if they'd slept together. The latter was one part of the game that Anselmo now regrets: “Lil' Kim could beat any of the male MCs, but… [reduced to that]”In 2004,” he admits, “all of the rap music videos were about objectifying women, which in retrospect is a real shame. The reality is that there was a push to make the game more sex appealing and more culturally relevant.”
As I recalled after recently replaying my dusty GameCube copy, Fight for NY is still exhilaratingly challenging. The boss fight featuring Fat Joe's crack Zangief-esque character had me hurling my WaveBird controller against the wall as a teenager. You can't beat your opponent unless you take the time to figure out how to counter their attacks, and while this process can be brutal at times, it makes it all that much more satisfying when you finally triumph.
“This game is designed in such a way that you have to sweat and really learn something new to win!” Anselmo says with a smile. “AKI's Hiro Abe (programmer) and Hiroya Tamura (artist) were geniuses. To get good at Def Jam: Fight for NY, you had to master the gameplay and get used to losing. In modern games, fighting games are just too easy. I think that's why so many people still play our game over and over.”
“Fighting games are too easy in today's gaming world”…Def Jam Fight for NY. Photo: EA
And there are still a lot of people playing Fight for NY. Not a week goes by without someone playing. Nostalgic post A gameplay video that went viral on TikTok has gone viral to the point where people can't believe it even exists. Even rappers (Including Ice TThe actor who played the character in the game(?) is still responding to tweets from fans begging for an updated version.
A$AP Rocky has labelled modern rap the “new wrestling” due to the commercialisation of petty infighting and mainstream MCs treating rap personas like WWE bad-mouthing tough guys. Holmes agrees with my theory that Def Jam: Fight for NY, with its constant depictions of MCs embroiled in diss tracks and gang politics, now feels like a documentary, especially considering how much more public conflict there has become in rap. “Rap is becoming more and more dramatic,” he agrees. “You see a lot of social media videos of rappers fighting each other, and it's interesting that the violence of the game doesn't seem so ridiculous today.”
Some will argue that a game that trivializes the conflict in hip-hop is wrong and deserves more criticism, especially with so many rappers losing their lives to violence every year. Anselmo counters: “I get that, and I don't think we could make the game right now because of drill, the environment is too tough. But Def Jam: Fight for NY was just meant to be a fantasy, escapist experience. It was like a gangsta rap version of The Warriors. It was just a little fun. We trusted that the audience would know that in real life, throwing someone through a window is not cool. We were really trying to res…tement is too tough. But Def Jam: Fight for NY was just meant to be a fantasy, escapist experience. It was like a gangsta rap version of The Warriors. It was just a little fun. We trusted that the audience would know that in real life, throwing someone through a window is not cool. We were really trying to respect the culture of hip-hop.”
The original Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube discs of Def Jam: Fight for NY are highly sought-after and command high prices on the second-hand market. But there hasn't been a Def Jam game released since 2007's disappointing Def Jam: Icon, and there hasn't been a remaster of Fight for NY. Why?
The sequel may be one of the most expensive games ever made…Def Jam Fight for NY. Photo: EA
Lauren Wurtzer Seawood, former vice president of marketing for the Def Jam label, played a pivotal role in the development of the first two games, serving as the liaison introducing the timid development team to the feisty MCs, and working hard to sort out complex licensing agreements ranging from image rights to music to in-game brand partnerships.
She says this complicated business mechanic is a big reason why it's highly unlikely the franchise will ever be revived. Def Jam: Fight for NY cost about $15 million to make, but with both hip-hop and video games now multi-billion dollar businesses worldwide, licensing fees would be astronomical. “If this game was re-released today, many
ohOn September 1, 1974, two men made the fastest trip ever between New York and London. Traveling three times the speed of sound and taking less than two hours, this incredible journey set a record that still stands 50 years later.
Even the mighty Concorde, which set the record for the fastest commercial transatlantic flight in 1996, was almost an hour late.
The US Air Force Lockheed Blackbird SR-71 jet, with a crew of two – pilot James Sullivan and reconnaissance systems operator Noel Widdifield – completed the flight between the two cities in one hour, 54 minutes and 56 seconds, before landing in triumph to a great welcome at the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire.
Widdifield, now 83, divides his time between Virginia and Florida in the US. “In some ways it was a normal flight for us,” he said, reflecting on that momentous day. “There was nothing unusual about the flight or the way we flew the plane, but in July 1974 we were told we were going to attempt the world record for flying from New York to London, which had previously been held by a Royal Navy pilot. There was a lot of media interest.”
It wasn’t just the Air Force’s prestige that was at stake. America was facing an international public relations crisis. Just three weeks earlier, disgraced President Richard Nixon had resigned after the Watergate scandal and Gerald Ford had taken over the White House. The country was still reeling from its disastrous involvement in the Vietnam War. The country needed something to cheer about.
There were other schemes as well. Widdifield observer“Although I didn’t know anything about it at the time, behind the scenes, negotiations were taking place between the US and the UK to deploy Blackbird SR-71s on British soil.
Widdifield flew B-52 bombers before joining the Blackbird SR-71 program. Photo: Noel Widdifield
“There were fears in the UK that this move might cause a lot of backlash, especially in the Middle East. But after we broke the record and flew into the Farnborough Air Show, that seemed to be the clincher and the UK allowed the SR-71 to be parked.”
Widdifield was 33 when he made this historic flight. He originally wanted to be a train driver, but after seeing U.S. Air Force jets flying low over his house at age 12, he decided to become a pilot.
After training and flying B-52 bombers, Widdifield served in the Blackbird SR-71 program at Beale Air Force Base in California from 1971 to 1975, after which he retired from flying to serve in the U.S. space program until 1982.
Piloting a Blackbird was akin to being an astronaut: The crew wore space suits and flew at an altitude of 80,000 feet (most commercial airliners top out at 42,000 feet). “It was pitch black up there,” Widdifield said. “You could see the stars and, depending on the time of day, the moon or the sun.”
Their plane took off from Beale and had to fly along the coast to New York to avoid creating a sonic boom over populated areas and causing significant damage to buildings. High above the city was an invisible “gate” where the journey would begin. Reaching a speed of Mach 3.2 (three times the speed of sound, about 2,455 miles per hour), the Blackbird crashed through the gate and the record attempt began.
The plane had to refuel twice: once upon takeoff, once when it docked with a tanker over California to top off, and once en route to near Greenland.
In one incident that looked terrifying from the outside but was handled with cool by the crew, the Blackbird suddenly began to “yaw,” or move quickly from side to side, after losing thrust.
Because the Blackbird took in air from the front to provide thrust for the engines, the air intake mechanisms would often become misaligned, causing a momentary, significant loss of power in one engine.
Widdifield and Sullivan stand in front of a Blackbird SR-71. Photo: Noel Widdifield
“The automatic restart system was activated, the misaligned cones were corrected and the engine was restarted,” Widdifield said. “We had no real concerns other than what this would do to our record speed run.”
The plane then flew through the London “gates” without incident, and the Blackbird landed at Farnborough, where a large crowd waited and a press conference was held, during which Widdifield and Sullivan were on the phone with the new president. “It got huge international coverage for the next year,” says Widdifield, who has six scrapbooks of the clippings. “But what Jim and I always tried to emphasize was that although it was just the two of us who got the glory, there was a huge team behind every flight.
“When you take into account the support staff, the administrative staff and all the people who work to get us flying, that’s 1,000 people. They deserve as much credit as Jim and I do.”
Widdifield, who has been married to his wife Ann for 63 years and has two children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, is mourning the loss of his co-pilot, Jim Sullivan, who died in 2021, and the Blackbird SR-71 itself, which was officially retired in 1998.
He said: “Jim and I kept in touch but then lived far apart so we only saw each other a few times at SR-71 reunions.
“Obviously I was sad when the SR-71 program ended. So am I surprised that no one has beaten our record in 50 years? No, because no aircraft has been built since then that could break that record.”
Archaeologists say Genovesa Cave Discovered in Mallorca, the main Balearic island and the Mediterranean's sixth largest, the find suggests that humans settled in the western Mediterranean much earlier than previously thought.
5,600-year-old underwater stone bridge in Genovesa Cave, Mallorca, Spain. Image courtesy of R. Landreth.
Limited archaeological evidence makes it difficult to reconstruct early human colonization of the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean.
By studying the 7.7-metre (25-foot) submerged bridge, Professor Bogdan Onak of the University of South Florida and his colleagues were able to provide compelling evidence of prior human activity within Genovesa Cave.
“The presence of this underwater bridge and other artefacts indicates a high level of activity and suggests that early settlers were aware of the cave's water resources and strategically built infrastructure to navigate through them,” Prof Onak said.
Genovesa Cave, located near the coast of Mallorca, has had parts of its passage flooded by rising sea levels and has clear calcite deposits when sea levels were higher.
These layers, along with the light-colored bands on the submerged bridge, act as markers to precisely track historical sea-level changes and pinpoint the date of the bridge's construction.
Previous studies had suggested a human presence at the site as far back as 9,000 years ago, but inconsistencies in nearby carbon-dated bones, pottery and other evidence, as well as poor preservation, had left the findings in doubt.
Recent studies have used charcoal, ash and bones found on the island to create a timeline of human settlement dating back about 4,400 years ago.
This allows the timeline of human presence to coincide with important environmental events, such as the extinction of the goat antelope. Myotragus balearix.
By analysing the bridge's mineral overgrowths and the height of the bridge's colour bands, the authors found that the bridge was built around 6,000 years ago – more than 2,000 years older than previous estimates, narrowing the gap in the timelines between eastern and western Mediterranean settlements.
“The history of the bridge's construction appears to be closely linked to the rapid Holocene sea-level rise just before 6,000 years ago and the brief period of sea-level stillness that caused parts of the upper part of the cave to be flooded,” the researchers said.
“Our chronology shows that sea-level rise stopped and stabilized for several hundred years, between 5,964 and 5,359 years ago. During this time, so-called phreatic expansions of speleothems (POS) formed in the cave lake and the characteristic 'bathtub ring' formed on the bridge.”
“Construction of the bridge probably began early in this period, as it was needed to cross the 0.25 metre deep lake, but it must have been completed before 5,600 years ago, when the upper part of the bridge was submerged.”
“Evidence suggests that humans constructed a cobblestone path and a sturdy bridge leading to the cave's water pool, facilitating access to the only dry part of the cave, located in the Sala d'Entrada across the lake.”
“The exact reason these structures in Genovesa Cave were built remains unclear.”
“However, the dating constraints imposed by the depth of the bridge, and the similar depths at which the POS and colour marks are found, support the idea that early humans were present on the island by 5,600 years ago, potentially extending the date back to 6,000 years ago.”
a paper A paper describing the findings was published in the journal Neurology today. Communication Earth and the Environment.
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BP Onac others2024. An underwater bridge built at least 5,600 years ago marks early human arrival on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Community Global Environment 5, 457; doi: 10.1038/s43247-024-01584-4
Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have discovered a stone seal from the First Temple period near the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. The ancient seal bears a name inscribed in ancient Hebrew script and a winged figure.
A 2,700-year-old stone seal discovered in Jerusalem, Israel. Image courtesy of Emil Aladjem, Israel Antiquities Authority.
“The seal, made of black stone, is one of the most beautiful seals ever found in excavations in ancient Jerusalem and is executed at the highest artistic level,” said Dr. Yuval Baruch and Dr. Navot Rom, directors of the excavation at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“These objects, inscribed with mirror writing, served as talismans for their owners and as a means of legally signing documents and certificates.”
“It has convex notches on both sides and holes along its length so it can be put on a chain and worn around your neck.”
“In the centre is a profile of what is probably a king, winged and wearing a long striped shirt, striding to the right.”
“The figure has a long, curly mane that covers his neck and wears a hat or crown on his head.”
“The figure has one arm raised in front of him with the palm open, possibly suggesting that he is holding something.”
On either side of the statue are ancient Hebrew inscriptions. Rehoezer ben Hoshayahu.
“We believe this seal was worn around the neck as a talisman by a man named Hoshayahu, who was a high-ranking official in the administration of the kingdom of Judah,” said Dr Philip Vukosavovich, an archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“Hoshayahu, by virtue of his authority and position, allowed himself to be ennobled and to sport a seal bearing an awe-inspiring figure that embodied the symbols of his authority.”
“The amulet was likely made by a local craftsman, a Jew, at the request of the owner. It was made at a very high artistic level.”
“The hypothesis is that after Hoshaiah died, his son Jehoezer inherited the seal and added his own name and his father's name on either side of the demon.”
“Perhaps he did so in order to directly adopt for himself the beneficial properties that he believed the talisman embodied as a magical item.”
The name Jehoezer is better known in the Bible (1 Chronicles 12:7) as its abbreviated form, Yoezer. King David's Warriors.
“And in the Book of Jeremiah (43:2), which records the events of these times, a man with a similar name, Azariah ben Hoshaiah, is mentioned.”
“The two parts of his first name are written in reverse order to the seal bearer's name, and his surname is the same, but in an abbreviated form.”
“The text matches the name on the newly discovered seal and is appropriate for the period.”
“When we compare the shape and writing of the letters with other Hebrew seals and stamps from Jerusalem, we see that the names on the seals were carelessly engraved, in contrast to the carefully carved sculptures of demons,” said Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa.
“It is possible that it was Jehoezeru himself who inscribed his name on the object.”
“This is further evidence of the literacy that existed during this time,” Dr Baruch said.
“Contrary to popular belief, literacy during this period does not appear to have been the sole domain of the elite of society.”
“People were able to read and write at least at a basic level because of commercial necessity.”
“Numerous traces of seals written in ancient Hebrew characters have been found in the City of David and in the surrounding areas of the Kingdom of Judah.”
“The distinctive Neo-Assyrian image of the winged man is unique and highly unusual for a hieroglyphic style from the Late First Temple period.”
“The influence of the Assyrian Empire, which conquered the entire region, is clearly visible here.”
“Judah in general, and Jerusalem in particular, was under the hegemony and influence of the Assyrian Empire at that time, a reality that is reflected in its culture and art.”
“That the seal's owner chose the devil as the symbol of his seal may prove that he felt he belonged to a broader cultural context, much like the people of Israel today who consider themselves part of Western culture.”
“But even in his emotions, this Jehoezer held firmly to his local identity, so his name is written in Hebrew letters and his name is a Hebrew name that belongs to the Judah culture.”
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For her first-ever podcast, Maisie Williams has decided to tell the story of her idol Winona Ryder so far. Why now? Because Ryder is returning in the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel, and her life has certainly had its ups and downs, from being Tim Burton’s favorite to that infamous shoplifting arrest to her career resurgence thanks to Stranger Things. But that’s just the plot of a six-episode series. Holly Richardson
Mo Gilligan, host of “Beginning, Middle & End.” Photo: Paul Hansen/Observer
What more can be said about The Godfather, a film that has been celebrated worldwide for 50 years? Host Rebecca Keegan discovers much more with the help of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Talia Shire, covering a huge range of ground from delicate family dynamics to Francis Ford Coppola’s approach to improvisation. HV
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“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to your mother?” Filmmaker and “reformed bigot” Alan Zweig asks his guests the nastiest questions in his intentionally somber podcast. Topics include hemorrhoids, terrible mistakes and major regrets, and Zweig doesn’t know who he’s interviewing in advance. HV
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Pacific Crest Trail. Photo: Danita Delimont/Alamy
this week, Ella Braidwood 5 best podcasts The Great Outdoorsfrom the wild adventures of adventurers to a practical hiking handbook
Byland Podcast
The Byland Podcast is full of practical advice for getting started in the outdoors, including tips on the best gear. Hosted by Emory Wanger (above), who started the podcast after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, each episode features guest interviews, many of which are with industry experts who outline the best gear for camping, thru-hiking, mountaineering, and more. There are also interviews with outdoor enthusiasts, like David Daly, who hikes with his three kids, and Bailey Bremner, who takes her dogs on adventures.
“Fortnite” is making a comeback on mobile phones after four years of being absent from Apple and Google app stores. Android users worldwide can now download the new app store from the company to access the game along with two other titles from Epic Games.
In the EU, only iPhone users can enjoy the relaunch, as Epic Games embraces the looser regulations imposed on Apple by the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Founder Tim Sweeney expressed gratitude to the European Commission for enabling competition between app stores and preventing Apple and Google from hindering it. The three games will also be available in Alt Store PAL, the largest independent app store in the EU under Apple’s new terms.
This marks the end of a long-standing battle between Sweeney and mobile platforms regarding revenue sharing. In 2020, Epic took action by allowing users to make in-game purchases directly from the company to avoid the 30% fees charged by Apple and Google, leading to the game being blocked from their App Stores.
Despite the relaunch, Sweeney mentioned that the battle is not over, as both companies still impose hurdles for users to install alternative app stores. Epic is also working towards making Fortnite available to mobile users in the UK following similar legislation to the EU’s DMA.
Apple’s control over user activities on iPhones has been loosened by regulations, but the company continues to tighten restrictions in other areas. Patreon, a creator economy service, was recently instructed by Apple to end a longstanding exception to the 30% commission rule.
By November 2024, Patreon will phase out its in-app purchase system and implement a 30% fee on new memberships purchased through the App Store. Patreon creators can either increase subscription fees by 30% or absorb the loss from the additional fee.
Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized bones of a new species of parrot. Agapornis The event will take place in three regions of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “The Cradle of Humankind” in Gauteng, South Africa.
Rebuilding the couple's lives Agapornis longipes People forage on the ground during the dry season in the Early Pleistocene period of the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, South Africa. Image by Martina Cadin.
“Lovebirds (Genus Agapornis“Psittacidae (parrots) are small parrots endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar,” said Dr Marco Pavia from the University of Turin and his colleagues.
“It currently includes nine species that live in woodlands and wooded savannahs, breed in tree cavities, and feed mainly on grass seeds and fruits collected on the ground and, to a lesser extent, on trees.”
“Genetic data suggest that parrots colonized Africa during the late Eocene and early Oligocene. Agapornis They first migrated into Africa from Australasia during the Late Oligocene/Early Miocene, about 24 million years ago.”
“Psittacula Crameri “It is the most recent parrot to have dispersed across the continents around the boundary between the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs (2.5 to 1.5 million years ago).”
“The fossil record of African parrots is very scarce, with the oldest dating back to the early Pliocene period of the Langebaanweg.”
“Surprisingly, most of the African fossils AgapornisThe oldest one is Agapornis Attenborough It was described from the Early Pliocene of the Langebaanweg in South Africa.”
The newly identified species is Agapornis longipesIt lived in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago.
The fossils have been found at Kromdraai, Cooper Cave and Swartkrans sites in South Africa.
The specimen includes all major wing bones (humerus, ulna, carpometacarpals), tarsometatarsus, a fragmentary mandible, and a coracoid.
“The fossils were recovered from three sites in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Cradle of Humankind, a key area for understanding early human evolution in Southern Africa,” the paleontologists said.
“The Cradle of Humankind contains several hominin fossil sites dating from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene, and their study has shed light on the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental context surrounding the emergence of the genus Homo in the region, and its relationship to the contemporary species Australopithecus and Paranthropus.”
“The three fossil sites – Swartkrans, Cooper's Cave and Kromdraai – are located in the southern part of the Cradle Range, approximately one kilometre east and one and a half kilometres northeast of Sterkfontein Cave respectively, and are separated by a few hundred metres from each other,” the researchers added.
Agapornis longipes It is distinct from nine extant species. Agapornis Genus and extinct Agapornis atlanticus and Agapornis Attenborough It is known for several morphological characteristics and for having the smallest humerus-to-tarsometatarsal ratio. Agapornis seed.
“Except for one. Agapornis “These species feed primarily on grass seeds and then fruits and are generally associated with the presence of grasslands, permanent water sources and tall trees that provide either natural cavities or holes excavated by other birds such as woodpeckers or barbets,” the researchers said.
“The long, slender legs Agapornis longipes This may be related to feeding adaptations of this extinct species.”
“Indeed, modern species with a low humerus-to-tarsometatarsus ratio typically gather food on the ground, while others also gather seeds and fruits from trees.”
“We assume that Agapornis longipes As suggested by paleoenvironmental reconstructions, it used its longer legs to feed on grass seeds at ground level in the tall grass, dense prairie of the paleo-Blue Bank Valley.”
“The present-day environment in this region of the Cradle of Humankind and South Africa is not significantly different from that of the Early Pleistocene, and the extinction of lovebirds from this region during the Pleistocene is likely related to changes in microclimatic conditions and the extinction of specific food resources, rather than changes in general environmental conditions.”
Marco Pavia othersLovebirds (birds, parrot family, AgapornisThis fossil was discovered in the Plio-Pleistocene era (Gauteng, South Africa), the birthplace of humankind. GeobiosPublished online August 9, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.geobios.2024.05.006
Over the past five years, there have been more than 1,400 ambulance dispatches to Amazon warehouses, a figure that has been described as shocking by the GMB trade union. This raises concerns about the safety of Amazon’s UK workplaces.
The Dunfermline and Bristol Amazon centers had the highest number of ambulance attendees in the UK, with 161 and 125 respectively during the period.
In Dunfermline, a third of Scottish Ambulance Service call-outs were for chest pain, along with incidents related to convulsions, strokes, and breathing difficulties.
Since 2019, Amazon Mansfield has had 84 ambulance calls, with over 70% of them being for serious incidents such as heart attacks and strokes.
Accidents related to pregnancy, miscarriages, traumatic injuries, and suspected heart attacks have been reported at some Amazon sites, as well as exposure to harmful substances and severe burns.
The data was obtained through freedom of information requests to 12 emergency services covering more than 30 Amazon sites. However, the actual numbers may be higher as complete data was not available for all sites.
GMB staff campaigned for union recognition outside an Amazon warehouse in Coventry. Photo: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
In Coventry, Amazon workers and GMB union members narrowly lost a crucial union recognition vote amid allegations of intimidation by the company.
Amanda Gearing, a GMB organizer, called for investigations into Amazon’s working practices, citing the shocking figures as evidence of unsafe working conditions.
Martha Dark from Foxglove emphasized the danger of working at Amazon, criticizing the company’s disregard for safety.
Workers work at an Amazon fulfillment center in Peterborough ahead of the store’s annual Black Friday sales. Photo: Daniel Leal Olivas/AFP/Getty Images
An Amazon spokesperson denied claims of dangerous working conditions, stating that safety is a top priority and ambulances are always called for emergencies.
The spokesperson also refuted claims that ambulances were not called, emphasizing that the majority of calls were for pre-existing conditions, not work-related incidents.
They encouraged individuals to visit Amazon fulfillment centers to see the truth for themselves.
Use of Data ESA's Gaia mission Astronomers have discovered a number of metal-poor stars that are more than 13 billion years old and in orbits similar to our sun.
Rotational motion of a young (blue) and an older (red) star similar to the Sun (orange). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt / SSC / Caltech.
“The Milky Way has a large halo, a central bulge and bar, and thick and thin disks,” said Dr Samir Nepal of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam and his colleagues.
“Most of the stars are found in a thin disk of the so-called Milky Way galaxy, which revolves regularly around the galactic center.”
“Middle-aged stars like our Sun, which is 4.6 billion years old, belong to a thin disk that is generally thought to have begun to form between 8 and 10 billion years ago.”
Astronomers used the new Gaia data set to study stars within about 3,200 light-years of the Sun.
They found a surprisingly large number of very old stars in the thin disk orbit, most of which are over 10 billion years old, with some being over 13 billion years old.
These ancient stars show a wide range of metal compositions: some are very metal-poor (as expected), while others have twice the metal content of the much younger Sun, indicating that rapid metal enrichment occurred early in the evolution of the Milky Way.
“These ancient stars in the disk suggest that the formation of the Milky Way's thin disk began much earlier than previously thought, around 4 to 5 billion years ago,” Dr Nepal said.
“This study also reveals that the Galaxy underwent intense star formation early on, leading to rapid metal enrichment in its inner regions and the formation of a disk.”
“This discovery brings the Milky Way's disk formation timeline into line with that of high-redshift galaxies observed with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).”
“This shows that cold disks can form and stabilize very early in the history of the universe, providing new insights into the evolution of galaxies.”
“Our study suggests that the Milky Way's thin disk may have formed much earlier than previously thought and that its formation is closely linked to an early chemical enrichment in the innermost regions of the galaxy,” said Dr Cristina Chiappini, astronomer at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam.
“The combination of data from different sources and the application of advanced machine learning techniques has allowed us to increase the number of stars with high-quality stellar parameters, which is an important step leading our team to these new insights.”
Samir Nepal others2024. Discovery of local counterparts of disk galaxies at z > 4: The oldest thin disk in the Milky Way using Gaia-RVS. A&Ain press; arXiv: 2402.00561
New genus and species of monophenestratan pterosaur named Propterodacillus frankellae It documents the transition from the older rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs to pterodactyloids.
The holotype Propterodacillus frankellaeImage credit: Frederik Spindler, doi: 10.26879/1366.
Propterodacillus frankellae It lived about 150 million years ago, during the Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic Period.
This flying reptile had a moderately long skull, about 9 centimetres (3.5 inches) long, and an estimated wingspan of about 55 centimetres (21.7 inches).
This species also had a very short tail and a small but functional fifth finger with two phalanges.
Propterodacillus frankellae a kind of Monophenestratan (Monofenestrata) is a large group of pterosaurs that includes the family Turconopteridae and the suborder Pterodactyloidea.
“As the earliest actively flying vertebrate lineage, pterosaurs were highly successful in evolution throughout the Mesozoic Era.” Dr. Frederick Spindler “The dinosaur museum's Altmühlthal writes in the new paper:
“For most of the long history of research, every specimen could be classified as belonging to one of two major types: the more ancestral long-tailed Rhamphorhynchioidea and the derived short-tailed Pterodactyloidea.”
“The rare anurognathids, the only short-faced pterosaurs, have similarly short tails but otherwise look like rhamphorhynchids and are therefore generally thought to have been deep-nesting rhamphorhynchids.”
“True intermediate, and therefore plausible transitional, forms between the major types were unknown until the discovery of the Curculionoptera.”
The fossil, named the Painten protterosaur, was discovered beneath the Rigol limestone quarry near Painten in Bavaria, Germany.
The specimen consists of a complete and fully articulated skeleton with soft tissue remaining in the radial fibrils of the torso and wings.
“Propterodacillus frankellae It is contemporary with the oldest Archaeopteryx “It came from a nearby basin,” the paleontologists wrote in their paper.
According to Dr Spindler, the discovery fills one of the largest knowledge gaps in the evolution of pterosaur morphology.
“Propterodacillus frankellae “It's a near-perfect mix of rhamphorhynchoid, curcunopteroid and derived pterodactyloid pterosaur features,” he said.
“Similarities with the derived Pterodactyloidea include the shape of the skull and the short tail.”
“For example, the ancestral traits shared with the Turconogopteridae family are Propterodactyl The most distinctive features of this pterosauroidea animal are its functional fifth toe and long caudal snout.”
“Intermediate conditions apply for neck extension, metacarpal extension, and shortening of the fifth toe.”
of paper Published online in the journal Palenitrogy Electronica.
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Frederick Spindler. 2024. Pterosaur articulation from the Late Jurassic of Germany. Palenitrogy Electronica 27(2):a35; doi:10.26879/1366
Peru’s Kecheke Glacier is retreating due to global warming
Emilio Mateo/Aspen Global Change Institute
Andean glaciers are almost certainly smaller than they have been for at least the past 130,000 years, a study of rocks exposed by melting ice has found.
“Frankly, this came as a shock to us.” Andrew Golin “We believe this is clear evidence that at least one part of the world has moved away from the comfortable climatic conditions that have fostered the development of human civilization,” said the University of California, Berkeley researcher.
The Andes are so high that many permanent glaciers exist in the tropics. In fact, almost all of the world’s tropical glaciers are found in the Andes.
For decades it has been clear that global warming is causing these glaciers to thin and retreat, but it has been unclear how this compares to what happened in the more distant past.
Gorin and his colleagues analyzed 20 samples of rocks recently exposed by the retreat of four tropical glaciers in the Andes. They looked at carbon and beryllium isotopes, which form when exposed rocks are hit by cosmic rays, and can reveal when a glacier last retreated beyond a particular point.
Similar studies in the world´s north have found that glaciers were at their smallest thousands of years ago, in the middle of the current interglacial period, because changes in Earth´s orbit caused more sunlight in the north during winter, causing glaciers to retreat, Gorin said.
Although the northern glacial retreat during the Interglacial Period was a regional rather than global phenomenon, the researchers expected to find a similar phenomenon in the Andes at the time, but the levels of the isotype they found were so low they were barely detectable.
“This is a wake-up call,” Gorin said. “It’s like a canary in the coal mine for any mountain glacier.”
“We’re quickly passing climate milestones that we thought were decades away,” he says, “and we chose the specific locations on these glaciers that we sampled with the implicit assumption that these glaciers are smaller than they’ve ever been in human history.”
The results of the study directly show that these glaciers have never retreated as much as they are today in the past 11,700 years – prior to this point, the entire planet was in a global ice age, and work by other research teams has shown that the tropics were colder at that time.
Although the study does not say so, Gorin agreed when asked that this means Andean glaciers have shrunk to their smallest size since at least the last interglacial period, about 130,000 years ago.
“I would be willing to bet everything you say that these glaciers are currently at their smallest since the last interglacial period is true,” he says, “but the limitations of the techniques we used to address this problem mean we can’t definitively prove that’s the case, so we don’t say so in the paper.”
“This is a shocking study.” Liam Taylor “Science now conclusively shows that Andean glaciers are in a state not seen since the Holocene epoch that began 11,700 years ago, and this is the direct result of climate-altering human activities,” researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK said.
Taylor said the retreat of glaciers is already affecting agriculture, drinking water supplies, sanitation and hydroelectric power in the region because the glaciers act as reservoirs, storing snowfall in the winter and releasing meltwater in the summer.
“Many of the glaciers in the region are now past ‘peak water level,’ meaning that the meltwater that provides freshwater downstream is drying up,” he said.
Tens of thousands of people have died in Peru over the past century from floods caused by lakes formed by retreating glaciers. Stephen Harrison Researchers from the University of Exeter in the UK have warned that more similar disasters are likely around the world as mountain glaciers retreat.
Climate models predict that mountain glaciers will lose more than 90 percent of their ice by the end of the century, leaving only a few small glaciers in the highest regions, he says.
COVID-19 could have lasting effects on our mental and physical health
Alexander Davidov / Alamy
There is evidence that people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic still have lower than expected cognitive abilities several years later, forcing them to change jobs.
“What we found is that the average cognitive impairment is equivalent to 10 IQ points, based on what you would expect given age etc.” Maxim Take At Oxford University.
His team looked at 475 British people who had been admitted to and discharged from hospital with COVID-19 up to March 31, 2021.. All of the participants had undergone psychiatric and cognitive evaluations six months after they were discharged, as part of a separate study. Take's team asked them to be reassessed two to three years later and found that, on average, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and fatigue had worsened. “More people get worse than they get better,” Take says.
Overall, those suffering from moderate to severe depression increased from 34% at six months to 47% at the second assessment, and those suffering from moderate to severe fatigue increased from 26% at the first test to 40%. Smaller changes were seen in the proportion of those suffering from moderate to severe anxiety, increasing from 23% to 27%.
It's not clear why so many people's symptoms worsened, but the team found that people whose symptoms were more severe in the initial tests tended to get worse over time. One participant said he'd had shortness of breath for three years and it was hard for him not to fall into depression, Take said.
The team also found that more than a quarter of participants changed jobs after hospitalization, half of whom said they did so because of poor health. The researchers found a strong association between changing jobs and declining cognitive function, but not with depression, anxiety, or fatigue. This suggests that many people are changing jobs because they can no longer cope with the cognitive demands of their previous jobs, rather than for a lack of energy or interest, Take says.
He acknowledges that the study has some major limitations: Only a fifth of those invited to take part actually did so, so it's not clear how representative the study is, and because participants weren't tested before being admitted to hospital, there's no baseline to compare it to, team members say. Paul Harrison also conducted at Oxford University. Instead, the conclusion that people lost 10 IQ points on average was based on what would be expected for people of the same age, sex and education level, British Intelligence Test.
Scientists have widely accepted that complex life first appeared on Earth around 635 million years ago (during the Ediacaran Period). However, an international team of paleontologists from Cardiff, Toulouse and Poitiers universities and China Nonferrous Metals (Guilin) Geological Mining Co., Ltd. has discovered evidence of a much older ecosystem more than 1.5 billion years ago in the Franceville Basin near Gabon on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa.
Artist's impression of a lobe-like macrofossil that lived in a shallow inland sea formed by the collision of two continents 2.1 billion years ago. Image by Abderrazak El Albani, University of Poitiers.
“The availability of phosphorus in the environment is thought to have been a key factor in the evolution of life on Earth, particularly in the transition from simple single-celled organisms to complex organisms such as animals and plants,” said Dr Ernest Chi-Ful, from Cardiff University.
“We already know that elevated marine phosphorus and oxygen concentrations in seawater are linked to an evolutionary event about 635 million years ago.”
“Our study adds an even older event to the record, going back 2.1 billion years.”
Scientists have widely debated the validity of the fossils of megafauna from the Ediacaran period, the oldest of their kind in the geological record.
But Dr Chi Hulu and his colleagues identified a link between changes in the environment before their emergence and increased nutrients, which may have triggered their evolution.
Geochemical analysis of marine sedimentary rocks dating back 2.1 billion years has shed new light on this unusually large fossil assemblage in the Franceville Basin.
A 2.1 billion year old lobe-like macrofossil from the Franceville Basin. Image by Abderrazak El Albani, University of Poitiers.
“We think that after the Congo and San Francisco cratons collided and sutured together, undersea volcanoes further restricted water in this area and even cut it off from the global oceans, forming a nutrient-rich shallow inland marine sea,” Dr Chi-Hulu said.
“This created a localized environment of abundant cyanobacterial photosynthesis for extended periods, leading to oxygenation of local ocean waters and the generation of large food resources.”
“This would have provided enough energy to fuel the increased body size and more complex behaviors seen in the primitive, simple animal-like life forms found in fossils from this period.”
However, the restricted nature of this body of water, combined with the harsh conditions that existed beyond this environmental boundary for billions of years afterward, likely prevented these enigmatic life forms from colonizing the entire planet.
The study suggests that these observations may indicate a two-stage evolution of complex life on Earth.
Step 1 followed the first significant increase in atmospheric oxygen content 2.1 billion years ago, and step 2 followed a second increase in atmospheric oxygen levels about 1.5 billion years later.
“While the first attempt failed to catch on, the second attempt led to the creation of the diversity of animals seen on Earth today,” Dr Chi Hulu said.
of result Published in the journal Precambrian Studies.
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Ernest Chi-Ful others2024. Hydrothermal seawater eutrophication triggers a localized macrobiological experiment in the 2100 Ma Paleoproterozoic Franceville Subbasin. Precambrian Studies 409: 107453; doi: 10.1016/j.precamres.2024.107453
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
The evolution of the first animals to appear on land 500 million years ago has been revealed. The ancestors of millipedes, called euticalcinids, evolved from larval arthropods in warm tidal pools. Individuals that reached sexual maturity early and survived the harsh tidal zone passed on their genes to the next generation, evolving into arthropods that could crawl onto land when the tidal pools dried up.
Reconstruction of the first land animal to live on the ancient tidal flats of Blackberry Hill, Wisconsin (500 million years ago). A washed-up jellyfish (1 meter wide), Euticarcinoidea. Mosineia (Lower left, 15cm long), Phyllocarididae crustacean Arenosicalis (bottom right, green) and a large, slug-like mollusk (70 cm long). Some euticalcinids live in tide pools before they dry up. Image courtesy of Todd Gass.
All life first evolved in the sea, and because carcasses decay more easily on land than in the sea, fossils of early land animals are very rare.
Arthropods — creepy-looking animals with segmented bodies, jointed limbs, and hard exoskeletons, like spiders, crabs, and insects — were the first animals to move onto land.
The oldest known fossils of land animals are those called millipedes. Pneumodesmus pneumanii It dates back to the Late Wenlockian Stage of the Silurian Period in Scotland, approximately 428 million years ago (Ma).
Millipedes, centipedes and their relatives are called myriapods, and there are about 12,000 species of them.
There's another type of fossil that can give us clues about when ancient animals first emerged from the sea: trace fossils.
They are Represent These are traces of biological activity, including animal tracks and burrows.
Trace fossils reveal a time-honoured snapshot of extinct animals' behaviours and interactions, allowing us to bring extinct animals to life.
Fossil burrows in Pennsylvania (445 million years ago) and fossil tracks in Cumbria, England (450 million years ago) suggest that myriapods lived on land 22 million years before the oldest body fossils.
The oldest known footprints on land were left in ancient coastal dunes in New York and Ontario by ancestors of myriapod animals called euticalcinids. Tidal flats (Quebec and Wisconsin) Approximately 500 million years ago.
It may have been one small step for insects, but one giant leap for life on Earth.
of Eutic carcinoid It had a body length of 4 to 15 cm (up to 30 cm, judging from fossilized footprints), and lived between 500 million and 225 million years ago. It resembled a pill bug (woodlouse), but had spines on its tail.
During the Cambrian Period, a group of marine arthropods called Fuchsianidae lived in shallow seas.
Euticarcinoids resemble larval fuchsiafiids, Precocious maturity (i.e. the retention of juvenile characteristics in descendant species) was involved in the evolution of these earliest land animals.
Euticalcinids spawned in warm tide pools, presumably to protect the eggs from marine predators and speed up larval development.
These harsh tidal conditions gradually selected for individuals in the population that reached sexual maturity earlier, survived, and were able to pass on their genes to the next generation – juvenile traits.
Cambrian euticalcinoids had barrel-shaped bodies, short legs, and six telson segments.
As they evolved, the number of tail segments gradually decreased, from six to five during the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, and in some later species to four segments. Also, the legs developed thin spines.
One group of euthycarcinoids, called the Sotticcercidae, has a long, multi-segmented body and legs of similar length, making it more myriapod-like.
Campecarids are a rare and extinct group of myriapods that may represent an evolutionary link between Sotticcercidae and myriapods, as they share a legless neck and tail segment.
The euticalcinids were soon followed by the sea scorpions (Eurypterids), the ancestors of scorpions, which led to widespread animal invasion of land.
Our own (vertebrate, i.e. backbone) ancestors, called tetrapods, first came onto land in a breathtaking adventure 130 million years after the eucaryotic vertebrates.
Walter Garstang eloquently states: “The facts are much the same: whatever the name, any yolk-bearing arthropod must have once had an aquatic ancestor that laid tiny eggs and hatched as tiny legless larvae. So the larvae that are the predecessors of our millipedes and spiders (and centipedes and insects) cannot be outsiders.”
this paper Appeared in New Jarlbuch in Geology and Palaeontology.
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Braddy, S.J. 2024. Euthycarcinoid ecology and evolution. New Jarlbuch in Geology and Palaeontology,doi:10.1127/njgpa/2024/1199
Illustration of the Deinotherium genus, an animal that became extinct after the evolution of humans
Heinrich Harder/Florilegius/Alamy
An AI-powered analysis of thousands of fossils suggests that human hunting was the main factor behind the extinction of dozens of elephant-like species over the past two million years.
The study found that the extinction rate of these animals increased five-fold when early humans evolved about 1.8 million years ago, and then increased again when modern humans emerged. Today, only three species of elephants from this group remain.
“If early humans had never appeared, the number of species would probably still be increasing.” Torsten Hauffe At the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
Hauffe said the number of species of elephant-like animals known as proboscideans, from the Latin word for “nose,” increased millions of years before humans arrived, probably due to the evolution of stronger teeth for eating grass.
By 1.8 million years ago, when the area began to overlap with early human habitats, there were about 30 species of organisms living in Africa. Deinotherium bozaciIt had downward-pointing, backward-facing fangs growing from its lower jaw. D. Bozaci It became extinct about 1 million years ago.
By the time modern humans began to spread across the world about 130,000 years ago, only 15 species of proboscideans remained. Most of these species had gone extinct, leaving only the Asian elephant, the African bush elephant, and the African forest elephant.
To find out why, Hauffe and his colleagues developed a statistical model that uses fossil finds to estimate how rates of extinction and speciation have changed over time, and the possible reasons for these changes.
Previous models of this kind have been limited to looking at only the impact of one factor, such as climate, but by using AI, the team’s model can estimate the relative contributions of many factors, Hauffe says. “We put it all together in one analysis.”
The study concluded that overlap with humans was the most important factor contributing to extinction, followed by geographical distribution and tooth and tusk shape. For example, species restricted to islands, such as the dwarf Sicilian elephant, Palaeoloxodon falconeri, They were much more likely to become extinct.
Climate change, which some believe is the primary cause of extinction, came in fourth after these other factors, so the findings support the overhunting hypothesis, which suggests that human hunting was the primary culprit, Hauffe said.
A computer modelling study of woolly rhinos carried out earlier this year found that Low levels of hunting can drive slow-breeding animals to extinction,To tell Stephen Chan The researcher, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, was not involved in the proboscidean study but helped compile some of the fossil data that was analyzed.
but, 2021 analysis of this data Zhang and his team concluded that while an early human impact with Earth was possible, the underlying cause was climatic.
What's clear, says Zhang, is that early humans didn’t suddenly wipe out proboscideans: “In fact, some of the most fascinating extinct elephant species emerged during this period, including the giant elephants.” Palaeoloxodon These include the giant mammoths of Eurasia, which stood 4 metres at the shoulder and weighed 25 tons, and the familiar woolly mammoths.
Where early humans slaughtered mammoths Palaeoloxodon The species dates back more than a million years, says Chang, “and both lineages have survived for the past 25,000 years alongside prehistoric humans with much more advanced cognitive and technological capabilities.”
BThis month in design news, tinkering and hobby crafts get the respect they deserve. Read our articles to see where these wonderful activities are being treated as art. We also cover the history of Casio watches and the emerging future of the Apple Watch. Sign up for the Design Review newsletter to receive more articles like this on architecture, sustainability, and crafts every month.
Origami created by origami artist Darryl Bedford (London) Photo: Darryl Bedford
Oscar Wilde once said, “If you want to have fun in life, you have to take something seriously.” So he must have been impressed by the diverse works and collections on display in the new Art Angel exhibition, “Come As You Really Are,” which just opened in Croydon, UK. In January, British-Gujarati artist and filmmaker Hetan Patel put out a call for all passionate people — collectors, crafters, weekend painters — to send in photos and stories about their hobbies. From 1,500 responses, Patel has put together a stunning exhibition featuring everything from handmade banjos and origami to Warhammer figurines and My Little Pony collections. The artist is a huge Spider-Man fan, and the exhibition includes his own Spider-Man-inspired works. “Come As You Really Are” is currently on display at Grantsville in Croydon, but will be touring the UK for the next 18 months.
Patel said: “Sharing something so personal carries with it a vulnerability that often comes in private spaces with the responsibilities of everyday life. But there is great power in collective sharing, and that is at the heart of this project. We hope you will join us in celebrating the unstoppable nature of self-expression that hobby can represent.”
For more information on “Come As You Really Are” and tour locations, Art Angel Website
TinyPod models available in various sizes Photo: TinyPod
If the memory of the iPod still brings back nostalgia, the TinyPod might be just what you need. The new gadget is a strap-less Apple Watch in a case with the familiar old iPod click wheel, which you can use as a limited-function smartphone. You can make calls, send texts, and listen to music, but you can’t easily access social media or play videos. The Tinypod’s selling point is that it’s a “phone away from the phone,” and if you want to limit your screen time without reverting to a dumb phone, this could be the middle ground.
Sure, the TinyPod requires you to have an old Apple Watch gathering dust in a drawer, requires you to turn off wrist detection, and doesn’t count steps, but finding new uses for excess tech always seems like a good idea.
Approximately one in five Londoners is of South Asian descent, and the community has an impact across London’s streets and neighborhoods, and this rich history is celebrated in Blue Crow Media’s latest city guide map.
The publisher has earned a reputation for producing beautiful maps that combine hidden history with outstanding graphics. Previous titles include Brutalist London and Black History London. This latest map was created by urban planner and author Krish Nathaniel and Bushra Mohammed, director of Msoma Architects. It features 50 London locations, including Neasden Abbey, Drummond Street, the Statue of Noor Inayat Khan, and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond.
“In the UK, there’s often a comfortable assumption that our multi-ethnic history started in the 1950s. For South Asians, the story is much longer than many people know. We wanted to make that history visible and visitable,” says Nathaniel. “We want to show the intertwined stories that span every country and faith across the South Asian subcontinent and its diaspora. Anyone from the South Asian community can find themselves in this map, whether they’re 16 or 60.”
The South Asia History London Map is available at: Blue Crow Media and various independent bookstores.
A refurbished coastal pot by architect and leatherworker Martha Summers. Photo: Martha Summers
If you’re wondering whether to repair or replace your belongings, check out Architecture of Repair on Instagram before your next move. The feed explores the possibilities of repair and showcases the work of the Beyond Repair collective. Everyday objects like IKEA lamps, broken bottles, and moth-eaten rugs are restored to beautiful, usable condition by collective members like Phineas Harper, CEO of education charity Open City, architect Sanjukta Jitendar, and Smith Modak, CEO of the UK Green Building Council.
Some of these incredible pieces are also currently on display at the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale in the Netherlands, so be sure to check them out if you want to take a closer look.
“Around 62% of the 222 million tonnes of waste the UK produces each year comes from construction and building,” Harper said. “The UN estimates that e-waste alone is growing five times faster than recycling rates. The transition to a fair and green economy must be focused on restoring a culture of repair, care, maintenance, and restoration.”
Let’s take another look at the IKEA lamp.
“Beyond Repair” is on display at the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale until October 13th. Instagram: @architectureofrepair
It’s hard to believe Casio watches are still 50 years old, but this year the Japanese electronics manufacturer is celebrating the milestone. Everyone’s favorite brand of affordable keyboards and calculators is showcasing some of their vintage classic watches, with a focus on classics from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
If you grew up proudly wearing a G-Shock or adored an old-fashioned calculator watch, prepare to feel a tsunami of nostalgia.
Casio’s first digital watch was the Casiotron, introduced in 1974. It was the world’s first watch with an automatic calendar function. When Casio released a limited special edition of this watch earlier this year, it sold out in the UK within five minutes, with more due to be released later this year.
For more information on the Vintage Series, please visit Casio’s Website.
The Tanimbar Islands are one of the main island groups of Wallacea (a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated from the Asian and Australian continental shelves by deep-sea straits) that was on the early human migration route from Sunda to Sahul (Australia and New Guinea). Despite their geographic importance, the group has not been thoroughly archaeologically explored. Now, archaeologists from the Australian National University have found the first evidence of Pleistocene human occupation in the Tanimbar Islands, dating back about 42,000 years ago.
Map of Walesia showing Birdsel's north and south migration route. The map also highlights the oldest Pleistocene sites on each island. On the north route, the following sites are highlighted: 1) Reang Karampuang, Reang Tedonggae, Reang Bulu Sipong 4, 2) Goa Topogaro, 3) Reang Saru, 4) Deo 2, 5) Goro, 6) Kero 6. On the south route, the following sites are highlighted: 7) Liang Bua, 8) Rua Meko, 9) Makupan, 10) Laili, 11) Ashitau Kuru, Rene Hara, Macha Kuru 2, 12) Hia Soloto Entapa, 13) Erivavan. The last two sites represent a connection to Sahul. 14) Reang Lemdub is now in the Aru Islands but was once connected to the mainland during the Pleistocene. 15) Majedbebe is the oldest known site in Sahul. Image credit: Kaharuddin others., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108834.
The Tanimbar Islands are located at the easternmost tip of Southern Wallacea.
About 250 km east of Tanimbar lie the Aru Islands, which were part of the Sahul mainland during the Pleistocene low sea level period.
Although geographically close to the Sahul continental shelf, the Tanimbar Islands have remained permanently isolated by an ocean barrier since the first human settlement on Wallacea and even before that.
Compared to neighbouring islands closer to the Sahul Shelf, such as Halmahera, Seram and Gebe in the north, and Timor, Rote and Kisar in the south, the Tanimbar Islands have received relatively limited archaeological attention.
“This is particularly significant as it was found in Erivavan in the Tanimbar Islands of Indonesia,” said Hendri Kaharuddin, a doctoral student at the Australian National University.
“Taninbar lies just offshore from the Sahul Shelf, which includes present-day Australia and New Guinea.”
“The question of how our early ancestors got there from Southeast Asia is one of the most intriguing of prehistoric migrations, mainly because of the long distances involved and the need for advanced navigation techniques.”
“There have been two main routes that have been explored as possibilities since the mid-20th century: a northern route through islands such as Sulawesi, and a southern route passing near Timor and the Tanimbar islands.”
“This discovery represents one of the oldest sites on the southern route and is an important piece of the puzzle.”
Although much remains unknown about Erivavan's first inhabitants, the perilous nature of the sea crossing suggests that the colonists had developed advanced maritime technology by about 42,000 years ago.
“They would have had to cross a body of water over a distance of more than 100 kilometres, regardless of the direction of their travel,” Kaharuddin said.
“Along with small fragments of pottery, evidence of bones, shells and sea urchins was also found, indicating that the island was a centre of early maritime activity.”
“As research continues in less-explored regions like the Tanimbar Islands, we hope to learn more about early human life and migration patterns.”
“It is also clear that the colonization of Sahul was not a single event, but a gradual process involving successive waves of seagoing populations.”
“Coastal communities likely navigated the coastline, exploited marine resources, and built resilient settlements along the way.”
“This island-hopping strategy fostered cultural exchange and adaptation, leading to the formation of diverse societies across the landmass.”
Hendri AF Kaharuddin others2024. Islands on the Brink: 42,000 Year Old Occupation of the Tanimbar Islands and Implications for the Sunda-Sahul Early Human Migration Theory. Quaternary Science Review 338: 108834; doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108834
Argentine archaeologists analyzed 21,000-year-old fossil remains bearing cut marks belonging to a specimen of the extinct glyptodon. NeosclerocalyptusThe discovery, made in the northeast of the Pampean region, on the banks of the Reconquista River, adds new insights into the earliest human settlements in southern South America, and in particular into the interactions between humans and local megafauna in the Pampean region during the last glacial period.
Paleo-Indians hunting a Glyptodon, a relative of the armadillo that lived in the Pleistocene era, by Heinrich Harder, 1920.
The timing of early human occupation in South America is a topic of intense debate and is highly relevant to studies of early human dispersal across the Americas and the potential role of humans in the end-Pleistocene large mammal extinction.
This debate is hampered by a general lack of direct archaeological evidence for early human presence or human-animal interactions.
In the current study, Dr Mariano del Papa from the National University of La Plata and his colleagues found evidence of butchery in Pleistocene mammal fossils discovered on the banks of the Reconquista River in the northeastern Pampeo region of Argentina.
The fossils examined by the team were: Neosclerocalyptus Glyptodon, a giant relative of the armadillo.
Cut marks on the pelvis, tail and parts of the armour matched known marks made by stone tools.
The placement of these marks was consistent with a slaughter procedure that targeted densely packed areas of meat.
“Radiocarbon dating has dated these fossils to approximately 21,000 years ago, approximately 6,000 years older than any other known archaeological evidence from southern South America,” the researchers said.
Distribution of cut marks on the tail vertebrae NeosclerocalyptusImage courtesy of Del Papa others., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304956.
The results are consistent with other recent studies showing early human presence in the Americas more than 20,000 years ago.
These fossils also represent some of the earliest evidence of human interaction with large mammals shortly before many of them went extinct.
“Our findings contradict the established dating framework for the earliest human occupation of southern South America, which was proposed to date back to 16,000 years ago,” the scientists said.
“Surprisingly, Recent Research “We now have reliable evidence of human habitation in Patagonia 17,300 years ago, indicating an even earlier initial settlement of southern South America.”
“Although traditional settlement models tend to support a later human migration into southern South America, we cannot exclude the possibility that humans were present and had associated cultural evidence much earlier than 16,000 years ago.”
“In this context, our findings support the growing body of archaeological evidence indicating an early human settlement in the Americas, especially the Southern Corn Islands.”
M. Delpapa others2024. Artificial cut marks on the bones of an extinct megafauna discovered in the Pampean region (Argentina) during the Last Glacial Maximum. PLoS One 19 (7): e0304956; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304956
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