Southern Europe saw the arrival of early humans approximately 1.3 million years ago.

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

a New Researchpublished in the journal Geoscience Reviewhelps resolve one of the longest-running debates in paleoanthropology: when did early humans arrive in Europe?

Ancient humans. Image courtesy of Ninara / CC BY 2.0.

“chronology Homo “Migration out of Africa has expanded substantially over the past 40 years,” said paleoanthropologist Luis Hibbert of the University of Barcelona and his colleagues.

“In 1982, Homo The Asian volcano has been paleomagnetically dated to 900,000 years ago in Java and 700,000 years ago in Italy, Europe.

“Forty years later, the early Homo Outside of Africa, the South Caucasus dates back 1.8 million years, China 1.7-2.1 million years ago, and Java 1.5-1.3 million years ago.

“In Europe, several sites are found to have layers of paleomagnetic polarity reversal several metres deep, indicating that they are more than 770,000 years old.”

In the study, the authors used magnetostratigraphic dating, a method that uses the state of the Earth's magnetic field at the time the sediments were deposited, to date five paleontological localities in the Orce region of Spain.

“The technique is a relative dating method based on the study of the planet's magnetic pole reversals due to the dynamics of the Earth's interior,” they explained.

“These changes have no particular periodicity, but they are recorded in minerals and it is possible to establish periods from various magnetic events.”

“What's unique about these sites is that they are layered and sit within a very long sedimentary layer, over 80 metres long,” Dr Zibert said.

“Typically these sites are found in caves or within very short geological sequences, so it's not possible to develop long paleomagnetic sequences where you can find the different magnetic reversals.”

Global distribution of humans before 1 million years ago (orange) with major dated sites showing potential dispersal routes. The diagram shows Oldowan sites over 2 million years ago in Africa and over 1 million years ago in Eurasia (black dots). White dots indicate the earliest Acheulean sites in Africa (over 1.5 million years ago) and Eurasia (1 million to 800,000 years ago). The oldest Oldowan and Acheulean tools have been found in East Africa, over 2.5 million years ago and over 1.7 million years ago, respectively. In Asia, the oldest Oldowan and Acheulean tools have been found in the Caucasus (7) at 1.8 million years ago and in the Levantine Corridor (9) at 1.2 million years ago, respectively. In Europe, the oldest Oldowan and associated humans have been found in Spain (1, 2) and are debated to be between 1.6 and 900,000 years ago. Images/Photos Courtesy of: Gibert others., doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855.

The oldest remains at the Orce site, which have no evidence of human activity, date to 1.6 million and 1.35 million years ago, according to the study.

The top three sites containing evidence of early humans are dated 1.32 million years ago (Venta Misena), 1.28 million years ago (Barranco Leon 5), and 1.23 million years ago (Fuente Nueva 3).

These chronologies suggest that the Strait of Gibraltar acted as a filter bridge for African species such as hominins. Theropithecus Oswaldand the early Pleistocene hippopotamus.

“This new dating adds to other evidence and supports European colonization through the Strait of Gibraltar rather than the alternative route back to the Mediterranean via Asia,” the scientists said.

“We also support the hypothesis that they arrived from Gibraltar, as no older evidence has been found elsewhere along the alternative route.”

“Our results show a dating gap between the earliest occupation of Asia, 1.8 million years ago, and the earliest occupation of Europe, 1.3 million years ago. This means that African humans arrived in southwestern Europe more than 500,000 years after they first left Africa around 2 million years ago.”

“These differences in human expansion can be explained by the fact that Europe is isolated from Asia and Africa by difficult-to-surmount biogeographical barriers both to the east (the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara) and to the west (the Strait of Gibraltar),” Dr. Zibert said.

“When humans arrived in Europe, they had the technology necessary to cross the maritime barrier, just as happened a million years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.”

“In this sense, the Gibraltar route currently requires crossing a sea channel of up to 14 kilometres, although in the past this distance could have been shorter at certain times due to the tectonically active nature of the region and sea-level changes favourable for migration.”

“We found that African animals were migrating through Gibraltar both 6.2 million years ago and 5.5 million years ago, when the Strait of Gibraltar was very narrow.”

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Lewis Guibert othersMagnetic strata dating of Europe's oldest human remains. Geoscience ReviewPublished online July 2, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855

Source: www.sci.news

Study reveals last common ancestor lived 4.2 billion years ago

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is a hypothetical common ancestor of all modern cellular life, from single-celled organisms such as bacteria to giant sequoia trees and even to us humans. Our understanding of LUCA therefore has implications for our understanding of the early evolution of life on Earth.

Probabilistic inference of metabolic networks for modern organisms present in LUCA. Image courtesy of Moody others., doi: 10.1038/s41559-024-02461-1.

LUCA is a node on the tree of life from which the basic prokaryotic domains (Archaea and Bacteria) branch off.

Modern life evolved from LUCA from a variety of different sources: the same amino acids used to build proteins in all cellular organisms, a shared energy currency (ATP), the presence of cellular machinery such as ribosomes involved in creating proteins from information stored in DNA, and even the fact that all cellular organisms use DNA itself as a way to store information.

In the new study, University of Bristol scientist Edmund Moody and his colleagues compared all the genes in the genomes of modern species and counted the mutations that had occurred in the sequences over time since a common ancestor called LUCA.

The time when some species split off is known from the fossil record, and the team used a genetic equivalent of a familiar equation used in physics to calculate speed to determine when LUCA existed, arriving at 4.2 billion years ago – just 400 million years after Earth and the solar system formed.

“The evolutionary history of genes is complicated by the exchange of genes between lineages,” Dr Moody said.

“Reconciling the evolutionary history of genes with species lineages requires the use of complex evolutionary models.”

“We didn't expect LUCA to be so old, within just a few hundred million years of Earth's formation,” said Dr Sandra Alvarez-Carretero, also from the University of Bristol.

“But our findings are consistent with modern views of the habitability of early Earth.”

The study authors also traced the lineage of life back to LUCA and modeled the physiological traits of modern species to elucidate LUCA's biology.

“One of the real advantages here is that we applied the gene tree and species tree reconciliation approach to a highly diverse dataset representing the major domains of life: Archaea and Bacteria,” said Dr Tom Williams from the University of Bristol.

“This allows us to make statements with some confidence about how LUCA lived and to assess that level of confidence.”

“Our study shows that LUCA was a complex organism not too different from modern prokaryotes, but what's really interesting is that LUCA clearly had an early immune system, indicating that by 4.2 billion years ago our ancestors were in an arms race with viruses,” said Professor Davide Pisani, from the University of Bristol.

“LUCA clearly used and transformed its environment, but it is unlikely to have lived alone,” said researcher Dr Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter.

“That waste would then serve as food for other microorganisms, such as methanogens, helping to create a recycling ecosystem.”

“The insights and methods provided by this study will also inform future studies looking in more detail at the subsequent evolution of prokaryotes in the context of Earth's history, including the less-studied archaea and their methanogens,” said Professor Anja Spang, researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Marine Research.

“Our study brings together data and methods from multiple disciplines, revealing insights into the early Earth and life that could not be achieved by any single discipline alone,” said Professor Philip Donoghue, from the University of Bristol.

“It also shows how quickly ecosystems were established on the early Earth.”

“This suggests that life may thrive in an Earth-like biosphere somewhere in the universe.”

This study paper Published in the journal today Natural Ecology and Evolution.

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ERR Moody othersThe nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system. Nat Ecol EvolPublished online July 12, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41559-024-02461-1

This article is a version of a press release provided by the University of Bristol.

Source: www.sci.news

Research shows that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had 200,000 years of interaction

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A recent study indicates that multiple instances of gene flow occurring between 250,000 and 200,000 years ago impacted the genomes and biology of both modern humans and Neanderthals, who are believed to share 2.5 to 3.7 percent of human ancestry.

Li othersIt provides insight into the history of modern-human Neanderthal admixture, shows that gene flow has significantly influenced patterns of genomic variation in modern and Neanderthals, and suggests that taking into account human-derived sequences in Neanderthals allows for more precise inferences about admixture and its consequences in both Neanderthals and modern humans. Image courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum.

“For the first time, geneticists have identified multiple instances of interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals,” stated Professor Li Ming from Southeast University.

“It is now evident that throughout most of human history, there was interaction between modern humans and Neanderthals,” added Professor Joshua Akey from Princeton University.

“Our direct ancestors, hominins, diverged from the Neanderthal lineage approximately 600,000 years ago and acquired modern physical characteristics around 250,000 years ago.”

“Subsequently, modern humans continued to engage with Neanderthals for around 200,000 years until the extinction of Neanderthals.”

The researchers utilized the genomes of 2,000 modern humans, three Neanderthals, and one Denisovan to track gene flow between human populations over the past 250,000 years.

They employed a genetic tool called IBDmix, developed several years ago, which utilizes machine learning techniques for sequencing genomes.

Previously, scientists relied on comparing the human genome to reference populations of modern individuals with minimal or no Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA.

The study authors discovered traces of Neanderthal DNA even in populations residing thousands of miles south of Neanderthal caves, suggesting that the DNA might have been transmitted southward by travelers or their descendants.

Using IBDmix, they identified a first contact wave around 200,000-250,000 years ago, a second contact wave around 100,000-120,000 years ago, and a peak contact wave around 50,000-60,000 years ago, deviating from previous genetic data.

“Most genetic data indicates that modern humans originated in Africa 250,000 years ago, persisted there for another 200,000 years, and only around 50,000 years ago dispersed from Africa to populate other regions as humans,” said Prof Akey.

“Our model suggests that there wasn’t a prolonged period of stasis, but soon after the emergence of modern humans, we migrated out of Africa and eventually returned.”

“To me, the narrative revolves around dispersal, highlighting that modern humans have been more mobile than previously assumed, encountering Neanderthals and Denisovans,” added Prof Akey.

This portrayal of migrating humans aligns with archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence indicating cultural and tool exchanges among human populations.

A crucial insight was to search for modern human DNA in the Neanderthal genome, rather than vice versa.

“While much genetic research in the past decade focused on how interbreeding with Neanderthals influenced the evolution and phenotype of modern humans, these questions also hold importance and interest in the opposite direction,” noted Professor Akey.

They realized that the descendants of the initial interbreeding event between Neanderthals and modern humans likely stayed with the Neanderthals and thus left no genetic trace in modern humans.

“By incorporating Neanderthal elements into genetic studies, we can analyze these early migrations in a new light,” Prof Akey mentioned.

The final revelation was that the Neanderthal population was smaller than previously estimated.

Traditional genetic modeling used diversity as an indicator of population size: greater genetic diversity implied a larger population.

However, using IBDmix, the team showed that most diversity came from DNA sequences originating from a larger modern human population, leading to a reduction in the effective Neanderthal population from around 3,400 breeding individuals to approximately 2,400.

Collectively, these new findings provide insights into the disappearance of Neanderthals from the record roughly 30,000 years ago.

“I prefer not to use the term ‘extinction’ because I believe Neanderthals were mostly assimilated,” mentioned Prof Akey.

It is theorized that the Neanderthal population gradually dwindled, with the last survivors merging into modern human communities.

“The assimilation model was first proposed in 1989 by anthropologist Fred Smith from Illinois State University, and our results offer compelling genetic evidence supporting Fred’s hypothesis,” Prof Akey stated.

“Neanderthals likely faced prolonged near-extinction.”

“Our estimates suggest that even a slight decrease of 10 to 20 percent in the population size would have a significant impact on an already vulnerable population,” Prof Akey added.

“Modern humans can be likened to waves gradually eroding the shoreline, eventually overwhelming Neanderthals demographically and integrating them into the modern human population.”

Read the full research findings published in the journal Science.

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Li-Ming Lee others2024. Recurrent gene flow between Neanderthals and modern humans over the past 200,000 years. Science 385(6705); doi:10.1126/science.adi1768

Source: www.sci.news

Northern Europe may have been decimated by the plague 5,000 years ago

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The culture that built Stonehenge suffered a mysterious population decline

Wirestock/Alamy

The European Neolithic culture that produced megaliths like Stonehenge experienced a major decline about 5,400 years ago, and the best evidence now is that this was due to plague.

Sequencing of ancient DNA from 108 people living in northern Europe at the time revealed that the plague bacillus Plague Yersinia pestis The condition was present in 18 of those who died.

“We think the plague killed them.” Frederick Siersholm At the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

About 5,400 years ago, The population of Europe has declined sharplyWhy this happens, especially in the northern regions, has long been a mystery.

Ancient DNA studies over the past decade have revealed that local populations never fully recovered from the Neolithic decline, but were largely replaced by other peoples who migrated from the Eurasian steppes: in Britain, for example, by about 4,000 years ago, less than 10% of the population descended from the people who built Stonehenge.

Studies of ancient people have also uncovered some instances of the presence of the plague bacterium, suggesting an explanation that the plague may have wiped out the population of Europe, allowing steppe peoples to migrate with little resistance.

But not everyone agreed, arguing that occasional sporadic outbreaks were to be expected and not evidence of a major pandemic. Ben Krauss Keora The findings were published in 2021 at Kiel University in Germany. Plague Yersinia pestis He and his colleagues write that their DNA shows that the virus cannot survive in fleas, making it unlikely to cause a pandemic: Bubonic plague, which killed people in the Black Death during the Middle Ages, is often transmitted by the bite of an infected flea.

So Sirsholm and his colleagues set out to find more evidence of the plague pandemic. The 108 people whose DNA his team sequenced were buried in nine graves in Sweden and Denmark. Most of them died between 5,200 and 4,900 years ago, and they spanned several generations of four families.

Over the course of just a few generations, the plague appears to have spread three separate times, the last of which may have been caused by a genetically modified strain that was far more deadly.

“This virus is present in many people,” Searsholm said, “and it's all the same version. That's exactly what you expect when something spreads quickly.”

Plague DNA was found primarily in teeth, indicating that the bacteria entered the bloodstream and caused severe illness and possibly death, he said. In some cases, close relatives were infected, suggesting person-to-person transmission.

The research team suggests that this may be a result of: Plague Yersinia pestis It is a type of disease called pneumonic plague, which infects the lungs and spreads through droplets. Human lice can cause bubonic plagueNot only fleas but also the plague bacteria can be spread this way.

“Of course, it's worth noting that all of these people were properly buried,” says Searsholm, meaning society had not collapsed at this point. “If there really was an epidemic, we're only just seeing the beginning.”

The megalithic tomb appears to have been abandoned for several centuries after about 4900 years ago, but the 10 sequenced individuals were buried much later, mostly between 4100 and 3000 years ago. These individuals were from the steppe region and are unrelated to the people who built the tomb.

“It's a 100 percent complete turnover,” says Searsholm, “5,000 years ago, these Neolithic people disappeared, and now we have evidence that plague was rampant and widespread at exactly the same time.”

While the researchers don't claim their findings are conclusive, Searsholm says they do support the argument that plague caused the Neolithic decline.

“It's pretty clear that this virus can infect humans and can, for example, kill an entire family.”

Klaus Kiora acknowledges that the discovery shows that the plague was widespread in this particular place and time: “Previous explanations need to be somewhat revised and we can't just talk about isolated cases,” he says.

But there's no evidence of high prevalence in other areas, he says, and he thinks normal burials indicate there were no deadly epidemics. Yersinia The infection was like a long-term chronic disease.”

Sirsholm and his team plan to search for more evidence across Europe in the coming days, but the only way to know for sure how deadly the engineered strain was would be to resurrect it, which he says is far too risky to attempt.

“I think this paper will convince many of our colleagues who have been skeptical of our previous work,” he said. Nicholas Raskovin In 2018, a team of researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered the plague bacillus in two Neolithic individuals and proposed that the decline of the Neolithic period was due to the plague.

topic:

Archaeology/
Infection

Source: www.newscientist.com

145 million years ago in Thailand, a distant relative of T. rex roamed the land

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A team of paleontologists from Kasetsart University, Mahasarakham University and Sirindhorn Museum have unearthed three fossilized teeth from a previously unknown non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroid dinosaur in northeastern Thailand.

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Late Jurassic Phu Kradung Formation, northeastern Thailand. Image courtesy of Chacharin Somboon.

“Tyrannosauroidea is a lineage of theropods, which includes some of the best-known carnivorous dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus Rex “From the Late Cretaceous of North America.” Dr. Chacharam Ketwetulya Kasetsart University and colleagues.

“They lived primarily on the supercontinent of Laurasia from the Middle Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous.”

“The oldest known species of tyrannosauroids are found in the Middle Jurassic of Europe and Asia, suggesting that this group of theropods originated within Eurasia.”

“Tyrannosauroidea ranged across Asia from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous, with most Asian tyrannosaurids found in China and Mongolia.”

The three tyrannosauroid teeth examined by the research team were discovered in the Phu Noi area of Khammuang district, Kalasin province, northeastern Thailand.

The specimen dates back to the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period, approximately 145 million years ago.

A basal tyrannosauroid tooth from the Phu Noi region of Thailand. Image courtesy of Chowchuvech others.

“The Phu Noi area is known to be one of the richest sources of Mesozoic vertebrate fossils in Southeast Asia,” the paleontologists said.

“Many species have been unearthed from the site, including freshwater sharks, ray-finned fish, lungfish, amphibians, turtles, crocodylomorphs, pterosaurs and dinosaurs.”

“Three species of dinosaurs have been identified in the Phu Noi area: a metriacanthosaurid theropod, a mamenchisaurid sauropod and a basal neoornithischian. Minimo Cursor.”

“Three of the theropod teeth from the Phu Noi area display unique dental features that distinguish them from previously discovered metriacanthosaurid theropods, including lateral teeth with twisted mesial ridges on the proximal lingual side that extend above the cervical line and interwoven enamel surface textures,” the researchers added.

“Morphological examination and systematic and morphometric analyses reveal that these isolated teeth indicate basal tyrannosauroid relationships, Five colors of the dragon and Proceratosaurus bradleyi From the Jurassic Period.”

“This discovery marks the first report of a tyrannosauroid from the Jurassic of Southeast Asia and contributes to our knowledge of the paleoecology of the lower continent.” Phu Kradung Formation“Our results shed light on the morphological and morphological distribution of tyrannosauroids during the Late Jurassic, and on the paleobiogeographic distribution of tyrannosauroids during the Late Jurassic,” the researchers concluded.

“Furthermore, this study sheds light on the possibility that future excavations and research may uncover new species of dinosaurs in Thailand.”

of study Published in the journal Tropical Natural History.

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W. Chochubek others2024. First discovery of a basal tyrannosauroid in Southeast Asia: dental evidence from the Late Jurassic of northeastern Thailand. Tropical Natural History 24（1） : 84-95

Source: www.sci.news

Namibia was home to a massive salamander-like predator 280 million years ago

Posted on July 5, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A newly described trunk tetrapod exceeding 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in length Gaiacia geniae It was probably the largest organism of its kind.

Reconstructing your life Gaiacia geniaeImage courtesy of Gabriel Lio.

Gaiacia geniae It lived in what is now Namibia during the Early Permian period, about 280 million years ago.

“Most of our ideas about the early evolution of tetrapods come from fossils found in the vast coal-producing ancient equatorial wetlands of what is now Europe and North America,” said paleontologist Claudia Marsicano of the University of Buenos Aires and her colleagues.

“but Gaiacia geniae They come from far south and live in the area of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, around 55 degrees south latitude.”

The structure of the skull and jaw Gaiacia geniae It had a powerful bite that allowed it to catch large prey.

“Gaiacia geniae “This dinosaur was significantly larger than a human and likely lived near the bottom of a swamp or lake,” said Dr Jason Pardo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum of Natural History.

“It has a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head with an open mouth so it can suck in prey. It has huge fangs, and the whole front of its mouth is made up of giant teeth.”

“It's a large predator, but it could also be a relatively slow-moving ambush predator.”

Nearly complete skeleton Gaiacia geniae After preparation. Image courtesy of Claudia Marsicano.

At least four fossils Gaiacia geniaeRemains were found, including skull fragments and an incomplete spinal column. Gaias Layer Northwestern Namibia.

“When we found this enormous specimen lying in the outcrop as a giant concretion, we were truly shocked,” Dr Marsicano said.

“As soon as we saw it we knew it was something completely different. Everyone was so excited,” he said.

“When I examined the skull, the structure at the front of the skull caught my attention.”

“That was the only part that was clearly visible at the time, and it showed large tusks that interlocked in a very unusual way, creating a biting technique that was so typical of early tetrapods.”

“We had some really amazing material, including a complete skull, which allowed us to compare it to other animals from this period and learn what kind of animal it was and what makes it unique. We could see there's a lot that's special about this creature,” Dr Pardo added.

Gaiacia geniae They are related to the extinct family of amphibian-like animals called colosteids. Colostacea) are thought to date back even further, having been replaced by more modern amphibians and reptiles during the Late Carboniferous period, about 307 million years ago.

“There are ancient animals that survived 300 million years ago, but they were rare, small and had unique behaviours,” Dr Pardo said.

“Gaiacia geniae They are large, they are numerous, and they appear to be the primary predators in their ecosystem.”

“This shows that what was happening in the far south was very different from what was happening at the equator.”

“This is really important because we don't really know where a lot of the animal groups that showed up during this time came from.”

“What we discovered is Gaiacia geniae “This tells us that there must have been a rich ecosystem in the oceans far to the south that could support these very large predators.”

“The more we look, the more answers we may find about the major animal groups that interest us, such as the ancestors of mammals and modern reptiles.”

Team Investigation result Published in the journal Nature.

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CA Marsicano othersGiant trunk tetrapods were apex predators during the Late Palaeozoic glacial stages of Gondwana. NaturePublished online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07572-0

Source: www.sci.news

FarmVille Celebrates 15 Years: The Impact of the Beloved Facebook Game on the Digital Landscape

Posted on July 5, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

debtFacebook users of a certain age may remember a particularly lonely-looking farm animal that appeared in their feeds during the platform’s heyday. A lonely cow wandered into FarmVille players’ pastures with a frown on its face and tears in its eyes. “She’s very sad and needs a new home,” the caption read, urging players to adopt the cow or message a friend for help. Ignore the cow’s pleas and you’ll likely lose both your friend and your food. Message your friends about it and you’ll have fueled one of the biggest online crazes of the 2010s.

When FarmVille was released 15 years ago, it was a smash hit. Over 18,000 players played on the first day, and by the fourth day that number had risen to 1 million. At its peak in 2010, over 80 million users were logging in each month to plant crops, care for animals, and harvest to earn coins to spend on decorations. They made their obsession public.McDonald’s created farms for promotions long before artists were releasing music on Fortnite. Lady Gaga performs new song From her second album to a cartoon farm sim. Not bad for a game made in five weeks.

By 2009, developer Zynga had established itself as a pioneer in social media gaming, when four friends from the University of Illinois presented plans for a farming sim. It was a hastily reworked version of a failed browser game they’d made that copied The Sims, but Zynga was impressed enough to buy the technology, hire the four people, and pair them with some in-house developers. Zynga quickly released FarmVille.

The world of FarmVille… Photo: PhotoEdit/Alamy

“Facebook was exploding in popularity and engagement in a way that was novel at the time,” says John Tien, a former director of product at Zynga. Farm Town, a farming simulation game with a similar cartoony look and design made earlier by another studio, was already attracting 1 million daily active users on Facebook’s platform. Facebook had previously courted game studios and told Zynga it would soon give third-party developers access to user data, friends lists, and news feeds.

“By opening up its platform to app developers like Zynga, Facebook has been able to create an almost symbiotic relationship,” Tien says. “Facebook has given Zynga access to a large, engaged user base, and Zynga has given Facebook users more to do on the platform.”

Features like the lonely cow, which gently nudged players by requesting their friends to help grow their farm, became central to the experience, and Facebook was flooded with posts and notifications promoting FarmVille to the masses. These viral mechanics gave the game a “meme-like buzz,” says former Zynga vice president and general manager Roy Segal. “It’s this water cooler effect: you see your friends playing and you want to join in.”

And once you were in, it was hard to get out. For each crop you planted, you had to return at a set time, a few hours later, to harvest it. If you left it for too long, it would wither and die. “The idea is that the player makes their own schedule,” says Amitt Mahajan, co-creator and lead developer of FarmVille. “That’s what keeps people coming back every day.”

The result, Tien says, is a game that players feel they have to accomplish. “We all have growing lists of things we need to do and we’re struggling to get them done in the time we want,” Tien says. “Checking things off a list is viscerally satisfying, and playing FarmVille was a way for players to experience that satisfaction.”

New features and content were added several times a week to keep players interested, but the real magic happened behind the scenes with Zynga’s in-house data analytics tool, ZTrack. The tool could monitor the most detailed player behaviors, from what features players used to how long they spent on them to where they clicked on the screen, with the goal of building an ever-evolving, data-driven picture of player interests.

“At any given time, we had hundreds, maybe thousands, of dashboards and experiments running,” says Tien. “We could see core metrics every five minutes. We could see immediately after a new feature was released whether it was having an effective impact.”

Metrics-based design is standard today across social media platforms, apps, online retailers and digital services. Reliance on big data to predict consumer behavior is the foundation of everything from Google’s advertising empire to Cambridge Analytica’s political consulting. But back in 2009, no one was doing it quite like FarmVille.

“Zynga’s approach to game analytics inspired the entire digital analytics industry,” says Jeffrey Wang, co-founder and chief architect of analytics platform Amplitude. “One of Amplitude’s earliest customers was a former Zynga product manager who had started his own company and was looking for a tool comparable to ZTrack. There was nothing even close at the time.”

ZTrack became the backbone of FarmVille – features were repeatedly tested, analyzed and optimized, and the results determined what to deploy, monetization options and how to integrate to maximize player retention.

“Zynga’s dirty secret is that none of our five company values are more important than our metrics,” the Zynga co-founder said. Andrew Trader Ken Rudin, former vice president of growth, analytics and platform technology at Zynga, went a step further: Quoted In 2010:[Zynga is] An analytics company disguised as a gaming company.”

Like most Facebook apps at the time, users could not play FarmVille without giving Zynga permission to collect their personal Facebook data. But the details of what data would be shared were written in small print on click-through screens that most users habitually ignored. “We as citizens, and government policymakers, didn’t really know the extent of it. [online data harvesting]”We’ve seen the harm that can come from unrestricted data extraction,” says Florence Chi, an associate professor of communication at Loyola University Chicago. But since then, she says, “we’ve seen the harm that can come from unrestricted data extraction.” Discovered in 2010 They share players’ personal data with advertisers and online data brokers.

FarmVille’s success, driven by data-driven design, was short-lived. Over the next few years, players abandoned the game, Zynga turned to unpopular sequels, and Facebook eventually revoked access to developers the game relied on for its early virality. In 2020, Adobe dropped support for Flash, the software that powers FarmVille. The game suddenly went offline.

But Zynga’s success continued. Words with friendsmobile racing game CSR Racing, Draw Something and a suite of slot machine games all use player data to maximise engagement. Zynga still makes data-driven, aggressively monetised games for mobile phones under Take-Two Interactive, which acquired the company in 2022 for $12.7bn (£9.4bn).

For Chee, FarmVille was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur’s dream, and very much a product of its time. “If you look at today, there’s not really a Facebook social phenomenon like there was in 2009,” she says. “It was a very special time for a game like FarmVille to come out, and the recommendation systems and algorithms were just in the right place.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Long-Awaited Video Game ‘Kien’ Finally Released After 22 Years

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

IIn 2002, a group of five Italians garnered local attention for their ambitious project. They aimed to develop games for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance, becoming the first company in the country to do so. Armed with just a few hundred euros and basic computers, these executives dove headfirst into the world of game development without prior experience or a team of programmers. Their motivation stemmed from a shared passion for gaming, a distaste for traditional employment structures, and unwavering optimism.

Over the ensuing two years, the team poured their hearts and souls into the project. Countless late nights and minimal time off characterized their relentless pursuit to bring their vision to life. Despite facing numerous challenges, they remained steadfast in creating a groundbreaking game with intricate features. The game, named Kien, remained in obscurity for years, eventually surfacing this year. However, most original team members had already moved on to other endeavors by then, with only game designer Fabio Belsanti persevering and seeing the project through.

Kien holds a unique distinction as the longest-delayed video game release, spanning 22 years. Surpassing the notoriety of Duke Nukem Forever, Kien’s delayed launch finally allows gamers to experience the action-platformer on a Game Boy Advance cartridge.

The game commences with players selecting between two protagonists: the Warrior and the Priestess. The Warrior wields a sword against hordes of enemies, presenting a formidable challenge. Kien’s gameplay keeps players engaged with challenging encounters and respawning adversaries, drawing comparisons to the difficulty level of Dark Souls. This nostalgic experience harkens back to the unconventional games of yesteryears that captivated youthful imaginations.

Take your chance… Priestess of Kien. Photo: Incube8 Games

While Kien’s journey to release was fraught with challenges, it was not initially intended to span decades. Following completed development and failed publisher negotiations, the game languished in obscurity. Belsanti’s dedication to uncovering lost 15th-century literature and merging it with Japanese gaming influences and classic action titles like Turrican shaped Kien’s unique narrative. Despite setbacks, Belsanti remained resolute, eventually finding a publisher in Incube 8 to revive Kien for a new audience.

In a digital landscape dominated by modern graphics and technical prowess, Kien’s revival on original hardware stands as a testament to its enduring charm. Its availability on retro cartridges accompanied by multi-page manuals rekindles a sense of nostalgia and reverence for gaming’s roots.

Looking ahead, AgeOfGames seeks to create a spiritual successor to Kien, staying true to their ethos of delivering compelling gameplay experiences over flashy visuals. Belsanti’s enduring passion for storytelling through gaming underscores the timeless appeal of simpler yet immersive game design.

Embracing a new era of retro gaming resurgence, Kien’s resurgence symbolizes a return to simpler times in digital entertainment. Its rediscovery by a new generation echoes the enduring power of captivating storytelling and imaginative gameplay experiences.

Experience Kien’s revival on original hardware through Incube 8, a pioneering company championing classic console gaming. Witness the magic of Kien’s long-awaited release and embark on a nostalgic journey back to the golden age of gaming.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Denisovans thrived on the Tibetan Plateau for over 16,000 years

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Archaeologists have discovered a new human rib specimen in the White Cliff Cave, one of two sites known to have been inhabited by Denisovans. Dating from 48,000 to 32,000 years ago, the specimen also belongs to the Denisovan lineage and indicates that the caves were present into the Late Pleistocene.

Portrait of a young Denisovan woman based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from an ancient DNA methylation map. Image courtesy of Maayan Harel.

The Denisovans are an extinct human group first identified from a genome sequence determined from a finger bone fragment found in the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia.

Subsequent genomic analyses revealed that the Denisovans diverged from Neanderthals 400,000 years ago, and that at least two distinct Denisovan populations interbred with the ancestors of modern Asians.

In 2019, a 160,000-year-old jawbone discovered in Baishiyi Cave, a limestone cave on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, was identified as being of Denisovan origin.

In 2020, archaeologists found Denisovan mtDNA in deposits from the cave, suggesting they were present around 100,000 years ago, 60,000 years ago, and possibly 45,000 years ago.

The new Denisovan rib, discovered in the Baishigai Karst Cave, dates to approximately 48,000 to 32,000 years ago.

“The combined fossil and molecular evidence indicates that the Amaka Basin, where the Baishiqai Cave is located, was a relatively stable environment for the Denisovans, despite its high altitude,” said Dr Frid Welker, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen.

“The question now is, when and why did the Denisovans on the Tibetan Plateau become extinct?”

In their study, Dr Welcker and his colleagues examined more than 2,500 bones discovered in the White Cliff Cave.

“We know that the Denisovans hunted, butchered and ate a wide range of animal species,” said Dr Geoff Smith, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Reading.

“Our study reveals new information about Denisovan behavior and adaptation to high-altitude environments and a changing climate.”

“We are only just beginning to understand the behavior of this incredible human species.”

The bone remains found in the Baixa Karst caves were broken into many fragments, making them difficult to identify.

The researchers used a new scientific technique that uses differences in bone collagen between animals to determine which species the bone remains belong to.

“Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) allows us to extract valuable information from bone fragments that are often overlooked, providing deeper insights into human activities,” said Dr Huan Xia, a researcher from Lanzhou University.

Scientists have determined that most of the bones belong to blue sheep called bharals, as well as wild yaks, horses, the extinct woolly rhinoceros and spotted hyenas.

Bones from small mammals, such as marmots, and birds were also identified.

“Current evidence suggests that it was the Denisovans, and not other human groups, who lived in caves and made effective use of all available animal resources during their occupation,” said Dr Jiang Wang, also from Lanzhou University.

“Detailed surface analysis of the bone fragments shows that the Denisovans removed the meat and marrow from the bones, but also suggests that humans used them as raw material for making tools.”

This study paper In the journal Nature.

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H. Shea othersMiddle and Late Pleistocene Denisovan life in the Baishi Cliff karst caves. NaturePublished online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07612-9

Source: www.sci.news

The oldest known termite mound, active 34,000 years ago, astounds scientists.

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Scientists in South Africa were surprised to find that a termite mound standing in the country’s arid regions is over 30,000 years old, making it the oldest active termite mound known.

Located near the Buffels River in Namaqualand, several mounds have been dated back to 34,000 years ago by researchers from Stellenbosch University.

“I was aware of its age, but not to this extent,” said Michel Francis, a senior lecturer at the university’s soil science department who led the study. The findings were published in May.

These mounds existed during a time when sabre-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Earth, and large parts of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They even predate the oldest cave paintings in Europe.

While fossilized termite mounds millions of years old have been found, the oldest human-inhabited mound prior to this discovery was in Brazil and approximately 4,000 years old, visible from space.

Francis described the Namaqualand mounds as termite “apartment complexes”, showing evidence of a continuous termite colony living there.

Although termite mounds are a common sight in Namaqualand, their age was not questioned until samples were sent to Hungarian experts for radiocarbon dating.

The largest mounds, known as “heuweltjies” locally, can reach around 100 feet in diameter, with termite nests found up to 10 feet underground.

Researchers had to excavate parts of the mound for samples, but the termites went into “emergency mode” and started filling in the holes. The team reconstructed the mound to protect the termites from predators like aardvarks.

The project not only provided insight into ancient structures but also revealed information about the prehistoric climate, indicating Namaqualand was wetter when the mounds formed.

Southern harvester termites play a crucial role in capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and dead wood, contributing to offsetting climate change. This process also benefits the soil, supporting the growth of wildflowers on top of termite mounds in low rainfall areas.

Pope Francis encouraged further research on termite mounds for the valuable lessons they offer on climate change, ecosystem maintenance, and agricultural practices.

“Studying the termites’ activities within the mounds could provide valuable insights, considering the tedious job they are believed to have carried out,” she added.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Oldest known narrative art is a pig painting dating back 50,000 years

Posted on July 3, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Traces of cave paintings depicting pigs and human-like figures from Leang Karampuang, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Griffith University

An Indonesian cave painting depicting a pig with a human-like figure dates back at least 51,200 years and is known to be the oldest known example of figurative art in the world.

“I like to define us as a storytelling species, and this is the earliest evidence of that.” Maxime Oberle Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.

The pig artwork was discovered on the ceiling of a limestone cave in Leang Karampuang, Sulawesi, in 2017.

In 2019, Obert and his colleagues dated a hunting scene discovered in a nearby cave called Leang Bru Shipon 4 to at least 43,900 years ago.

Now, researchers have used new, more precise techniques to date both works of art, finding that the paintings at Reang Bulu Siphon 4 are actually more than 4,000 years older than previously thought, and the artwork at Reang Karampuan is even older.

According to Obert, the artwork at both sites predates the oldest known rock art in Europe by at least 10,000 years.

Modern people, Homo sapiens“We know they were in the area at that time, because they reached Australia by 60,000 to 65,000 years ago,” Obert said. “We think these art works were done by modern humans.”

The same cave contains depictions of creatures with both human and animal attributes, indicating spiritual beliefs.

“These rock art are not just little symbols,” team members say. Renaud Joanne Boyau “They were actually depicting scenes from the hunt and life, and were already using art to tell stories, inhabit a spirit world and try to make sense of their environment. This tells us a lot about human evolution,” said researchers from Southern Cross University in Lismore, Australia. Homo sapiens.”

Previous methods for dating artworks relied on chemical extraction of samples, which required crushing and destroying large portions of the rock.

The new technique involves taking a 5-millimeter-diameter core from the rock’s crust. A laser is used to remove material from the surface of this core, less than half the thickness of a human hair, which is then examined to measure the isotopic decay of the minerals. Once this is done, the core can be inserted into the rock art, much less disruptive than traditional methods.

Karampuang Hills, Reang Karampuang Cave site

Google Arts & Culture

Joannes Boyau says the new technique could lead to a major revision of the history of rock art around the world.

Kira Westaway Researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, say improved dating methods have allowed them to more accurately assess when the Sulawesi art was actually created.

“This is really significant given that the first period was already considered groundbreaking,” she says. “This has huge implications for understanding the capabilities of these early artists who passed through Indonesia and the types of skills and tools they already had when they entered Australia.”

Homo sapiens They probably weren’t the only species with complex symbolic practices. Martin Pore “It is highly likely that other hominins had at least some capabilities in this regard, as can be inferred from the highly sophisticated material culture of Neanderthals,” say researchers from the University of Western Australia.

“It will be important to study further archaeological evidence from this region in the future to understand and confirm the social, economic and cultural context of these statues during the Late Pleistocene,” Poa said.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The Gaiasia geniae: Namibia’s Prehistoric Giant Salamander Predator from 280 Million Years Ago

Posted on July 3, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Reconstruction of Gaiasia geniae

Gabriel Rio

280 million years ago, the cold swamps of what is now the Namib Desert were home to giant salamander-like predators that sucked prey into their mouths and captured them with their enormous fangs.

The fossil creature was first discovered in Namibia in 2015. Researchers found a total of four incomplete specimens, which they estimate to have measured 2.5 metres in body length and a skull length of 60 centimetres, making it the largest of its kind yet found.

Claudia Marsicano Researchers from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina have now described the fossils in detail and given them species names. Gaiacia geniae Paleontologist Jennifer Kluck with later strata of the Gaius Formation in Namibia.

nevertheless G. geniae It may have resembled a dangerous, extremely over-scaled salamander, like the giant axolotl, but it wasn't a true amphibian. Rather, the animal belonged to an ancient group of tetrapods that eventually gave rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

A specimen of Gaiasia geniae found in the wild

Roger M. H. Smith

Marsicano said the animal probably hunted by lying in wait, much like a crocodile, for prey to pass by.Gaiacia “It was an aquatic animal with a very elongated body that probably swam like an eel, but had very short limbs that would have made it very difficult for it to move around on land,” she says.

The discovery reshapes our understanding of the distribution of early tetrapods, most of whose fossils have been found in the Northern Hemisphere, which had a tropical climate centered on the equator 280 million years ago.

But at the time, Marsicano said, what is now Namibia would have been at a much higher latitude, around 55 degrees south. Gaiacia The fossils were discovered during the Ice Age. [at the time] Severe cold climatic conditions prevailed.”

Despite the cold, Gaiacia This suggests the area was relatively populated, with “a rich vertebrate community thriving,” Marsicano says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

After years of solitude, Boa constrictor delivers 14 baby snakes

Posted on July 3, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Ronaldo, a six-foot-long Brazilian rainbow boa constrictor kept at a British school, was thought to be male until he gave birth to 14 babies last month.

The boa hadn’t been in contact with other snakes for nearly a decade and appears to have undergone a natural process of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis, which comes from the Greek word for “virgin birth.”

According to the school, this is the third confirmed case of such a birth among captive Brazilian rainbow boas that they know of.

Ronaldo lives at Portsmouth City University. The snakes are being used at an academic and vocational school in the south of England for 16-18 year olds to teach students how to care for animals.

“A colleague called me and asked why we had released a small snake with Ronaldo,” said Pete Quinlan, an animal technician at the university who has cared for the snakes for the past nine years.

Quinlan said his first thought on June 21st was that there must have been a mistake. Although it was his day off, he went to the scene and quickly realised the snake with Ronaldo was a baby rainbow boa constrictor.

“I was totally baffled by it,” he said, noting that he has been studying reptiles for more than 50 years.

Ronaldo’s baby boa constrictor.
Portsmouth City University

“I’ve kept literally thousands of snakes in that time and bred a lot of snakes,” Quinlan added. “I’d never heard of this before.”

In a news release, the university described the event as “A Miracle Birth. However, some snakes and other animals, including crocodiles and honeybees, are known to produce offspring asexually.

Parthenogenesis is the development of an embryo without fertilization. This process is particularly Unusual among vertebrates including snakes.

While sexual reproduction requires a sperm to fertilize an egg, parthenogenesis produces polar bodies as a by-product of the egg-making process, which are then used to fill in the gap. These cells then recombine with the egg, giving the embryo two similar (but not identical) sets of DNA.

Parthenogenesis also occurs when reproductive cells replicate and recombine, a process that creates a clone of the mother, but it occurs primarily in plants and not animals.

Researchers are still investigating why parthenogenesis occurs in animals and how often it occurs.

A baby rainbow boa constrictor born through parthenogenesis by Ronaldo.
Portsmouth City University

Quinlan said some researchers believe snakes practice parthenogenesis, in which females spend most of their lives without mating.

In recent years, there have been several reports of animals reproducing asexually in captivity. Sharks at Brookfield Zoo gave birth to a baby shark through parthenogenesis after not having contact with a male shark for at least four years. 2021 Survey found California condors, a critically endangered bird, reproducing asexually in captivity despite having mates.

A stingray named Charlotte became pregnant parthenogenetically at an aquarium in North Carolina. He died on Sunday. The aquarium said last month that the ray (whose story was the subject of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch) is not pregnant. Diagnosed with a rare disease.

Quinlan said he initially adopted Ronald from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an animal welfare charity. A vet told him Ronald was male, and Quinlan never questioned it. Once a snake becomes an adult, it’s harder to determine its sex than when it’s a baby, he said.

Ronaldo is a “very popular snake” at the school, Ms Quinlan said, adding that this should be a “really good experience” for the pupils as they had never looked after a newborn snake before.

Evie Allen, a student at the university who works with Ronaldo said he was “shocked” and “perplexed” when he heard from a friend that the snake had given birth to a baby.

Portsmouth City College learning assistants Evie Allen and Ashley Nicol hold a baby snake and snake skin.
Portsmouth City University

“I honestly thought he was joking,” she said.

The university plans to keep one or two of the baby snakes and care for the rest until they have been fed a few times and are healthy enough to go to their new homes.

Ronaldo’s story has attracted attention around the world.

“We never expected it to take off as badly as it did,” said Paula Hetherington, the university’s director of marketing and communications.

“If you Google Ronaldo the snake right now, he seems to be more popular than Ronaldo the footballer,” Quinlan said.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Grape seeds dating back 60 million years found in Colombia

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Paleobotanists have described nine new species of the Vitaceae family. Vitaceae It is based on fossil seeds from four tropical palaeoflora sites, dating back 60 to 19 million years. Rithuva Susmani This new species, discovered in Colombia, is the oldest evidence of a Vitaceae plant in the Western Hemisphere.

Rithuva Susmani From the Paleocene of Colombia. Scale bar – 1 mm. Image courtesy of Herrera et al., doi: 10.1038/s41477-024-01717-9.

Soft tissues, like those of fruit, rarely preserve as fossils, so scientists often learn more about ancient fruits through their seeds, which fossilize more easily.

The oldest known grape seed fossils were found in India and date back to 66 million years ago.

“We always think about animals, we think about dinosaurs, because they were the ones most affected, but the extinction also had a big impact on plants,” said Dr. Fabianie Herrera, a paleobotanist at the Field Museum.

“The forest has reset itself and changed its plant composition.”

Dr Herrera and his colleagues hypothesize that the extinction of the dinosaurs may have prompted changes in the forests.

“Large animals like dinosaurs are known to alter the ecosystems around them,” said Dr. Monica Carvalho, a paleobotanist at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.

“We think that if large dinosaurs roamed the forests, they would likely have cut down trees and maintained more open forests than we have today.”

“But with no large dinosaurs around to cut down forests, some tropical forests, including those in South America, became densely wooded, with layers of trees forming an understory and a canopy.”

“These new dense forests provided an opportunity, and the fossil record shows that around this time we start to see an increase in plants that use vines to climb trees, like grapes,” Dr Herrera said.

“The diversification of birds and mammals in the years following the extinction may also have helped spread grape seeds.”

The researchers examined fossilized grape seeds from the 60-million-year-old Bogotá Formation in Colombia, the 41-million-year-old Tonosi Formation in Panama, the 28-million-year-old Máncora Formation in western Peru, and the 19-million-year-old Cucaracha Formation, exposed at the Gaillard Cut in the Panama Canal.

They were able to identify at least nine new species of the Vitaceae family, including: Rithuva SusmaniThis provides the oldest evidence of grapes in the Western Hemisphere.

“This new species is important as it confirms the South American origin of the group that includes the common grape vine. Grapes “It evolved,” says Dr Gregory Staal, a paleobotanist at the National Museum of Natural History.

“These are the oldest grapes ever found in this region, millions of years younger than the oldest found on the other side of the world,” Dr Herrera said.

“This discovery is important because it shows that grapes really started to spread around the world after the dinosaurs went extinct.”

The new species' place in the grapevine family tree indicates that its evolutionary journey has been a checkered one.

“The fossil record shows that grapevines are very resilient plants,” Dr Herrera said.

“They are an endangered group in the Latin American region, but they have been able to adapt and survive in other parts of the world.”

“Given the mass extinctions facing the Earth today, studies like this one are valuable in revealing patterns about how biodiversity crises will unfold.”

“But the other thing I like about these fossils is that these tiny, humble seeds can tell us a lot about forest evolution.”

of study Published in the journal Natural plants.

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F. Herrera othersCenozoic Vitaceae seeds reveal a long history of extinction and dispersal in the Neotropics. Natural plantsPublished online July 1, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41477-024-01717-9

Source: www.sci.news

Playing Out Each UK Party’s First Years of Power in a Video Game Revealed Disastrous Results

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

circleWhether referred to as manifestos or contracts, the documents released by political parties before elections often lack substance despite their length. Filled with idealistic scenarios, vague proposals, and questionable cost estimates, it’s difficult to gauge the true impact each party’s implementation would have on the UK. To investigate this, I’ve been inputting party documents into the political strategy video game Democracy 4 to see the outcomes. The results are… well, you can see for yourself.

Democracy 4 allows players to simulate their political fantasies or nightmares and witness how their decisions influence their chances of re-election. Developed by Positech Games, the game models various democracies, including the UK, with their respective institutions, government policies, and tax rates based on publicly available data. The simulation features thousands of virtual voters, each with unique characteristics. For example, the majority of UK citizens identify as capitalists, but they may also be middle-income, affluent, or farmers, commuters, or self-employed.

Democracy 4 serves as an approximate representation of the British political landscape of 2024, offering insights into the potential outcomes of each major party’s agenda. By testing the policies of the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, the game reveals who stands to benefit, who may be adversely affected, and whether any real progress can be achieved.

Simulated UK demographics. Photo: Positech Games

Keep in mind that Democracy 4 does not simulate Scotland and Wales separately, thus unable to capture the nuances of the SNP and Plaid Cymru’s plans. I have focused on the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats in my simulations. Each party assumes power with a slim 10% majority on July 5th, facing similar economic challenges. Can Labour bridge the funding gap across all sectors by boosting the UK economy? Will the Conservatives’ tax cuts stimulate business growth? And can the Liberal Democrats’ wealth tax and public service investments eliminate the national debt deficit?

Source: www.theguardian.com

Australian rituals have persisted for 12,000 years, as evidenced by ancient artefacts

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Ancient ritual sticks discovered in Australia's Clogs Cave

Gunaikurnai Land and Water Aboriginal Corporation

Wooden artefacts found in Australian caves suggest Aboriginal rituals recorded in the 19th century.^Number The ritual is believed to have taken place 12,000 years ago, making it possibly the oldest cultural ceremony in the world.

Between 2019 and 2020, a team of archaeologists and members of the local Indigenous community of Gunaikurnai in southeastern Australia carried out excavations at Clogs Cave, near the Snowy River in Victoria.

The site had been partially excavated in the 1970s, but during new work the team discovered two preserved fireplaces, containing mostly unfired artefacts made from local wood. Casalina Chemical analysis of the wooden remains found showed they were smeared with animal or human fat and dated to between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, making them some of the oldest wooden artefacts found in Australia.

This alone would have been a major puzzling discovery, but the researchers and local residents were also examining the ethnographic reports of 19 other people.^NumberAlfred Howitt was a 20th century cultural anthropologist who studied the customs and traditions of tribes in south-eastern Australia in the 1880s.

In 1887, close to Clogs Cave, he recorded the rituals of the indigenous “wizards”, powerful medicine men of Gunaikurnai, now known as “Mula-Mlang”, who smeared wooden throwing sticks with animal or human fat. Casalina The wood is placed in small ritual fires and used as magical talismans and curses, a ritual he understood to be used against enemies or anyone the ritualist wishes to harm.

“During this time, the wizard would continue to chant the spell – as the saying goes, he would 'sing the man's name' – and when the stick fell, the spell was complete – a practice that continues to this day,” Howitt writes.

Bruno David Monash University in Melbourne Russell MalletThe Gunaikurnai elder said similarities between archaeological finds and ethnographic descriptions led him to believe the same rituals had been taking place for up to 12,000 years.

Mallet said he was convinced of the connection because Howitt's description matched so closely with what was found in the cave — the type of wood and the position of the fat on the sticks were exactly as Howitt described them.

“This will ensure the longevity of our oral traditions and knowledge and the passing of that knowledge from generation to generation,” Mallett says.

David says the conclusions slowly deepened with the discovery of these unusual wood artefacts.

“Archaeologists never see the rituals that were taking place behind these ancient ruins,” he says, “and to me it's really amazing that the physical evidence that matches the cultural knowledge so well has remained so largely intact and for so long. It's exactly what Howitt described.”

“The team's methodology is thorough and excellent.” Paul Tassone At Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

According to Tason, these communities have undergone many changes over time, but this ritual appears to have remained constant: “What strikes me about this is that for this same form of ritual to have continued for such a long period of time, it must have been considered important and effective.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Eyed Needles Invented in East Eurasia 40,000 Years Ago, Archaeologists Say

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Archaeologists from the University of Sydney say eyelets were a new innovation used to decorate clothing for social and cultural purposes, and mark a major shift in clothing from protection to an expression of identity. Dr Ian Gilligan.

Eyelet needles are among the most iconic Paleolithic artifacts and are traditionally considered rare evidence of prehistoric clothing, especially tailoring. Image by Mariana Ariza.

Archaeologists have traditionally associated the emergence of tailored clothing with the invention of the eye needle, made from bone.

The first occurrence of eyed needles in the archaeological record from northern mid-latitude environments during the last glacial period is consistent with their primary function of providing thermal protection.

of The oldest eyed needle They appeared in Siberia by 40,000 years ago, in the Caucasus by 38,000 years ago, in East Asia by 30,000 years ago, and in Europe by 26,000 years ago.

“Eye hook tools are an important prehistoric development because they record a shift in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes,” Dr Gilligan said.

“From stone tools that allowed humans to craft animal hides for insulation, to bone awls and awls to create decorative, form-fitting clothing, why did we start wearing clothes to express ourselves and impress others?”

In the new paper, Dr Gilligan and his colleagues reinterpret the evidence from recent discoveries about the development of clothing.

“Why do we wear clothes? We think it's part of being human. But when we look at different cultures we see that people were able to fully exist and function in society without clothes,” Dr Gilligan said.

“What intrigues me is how clothing has moved from being a physical necessity in certain environments to being a social necessity in all environments.”

“One of the most iconic Paleolithic artifacts of the Stone Age, eyed needles, are difficult to make compared to bone awls, which were sufficient to make tight-fitting clothing.”

“A bone awl is a tool made from a sharpened animal bone.”

“An eyed needle is a modified bone awl with a perforated hole (eye) to facilitate the attachment of tendons and threads.”

“There is evidence that bone awls were already being used to make tailored clothing, so the invention of the eyed needle may have reflected the creation of more complex, layered garments, and the attachment of beads and other small ornaments to decorate garments.”

“We know that up until the last Ice Age, clothing was only used on an ad-hoc basis.”

“The classic tools that we associate with it are hide scraping tools and stone scraping tools, and we see that they appeared and disappeared at different stages during the last Ice Age.”

The researchers argue that traditional methods of body decoration, such as body painting with ochre or deliberate scarring, would have been impossible in the cold regions of Eurasia during the late last Ice Age, where people would have needed to wear clothes at all times to survive, so clothing became a decorative item.

“That's why the appearance of needles with eyes is particularly significant, as it shows that clothing was used as decoration,” Dr Gilligan said.

“Needles with eyes would have been especially useful for the very fine stitching required to decorate clothing.”

Clothing therefore evolved to serve not only the practical needs of protection against the external elements and comfort, but also social and aesthetic functions for individual and cultural identity.

“The regular wearing of clothing allowed larger and more complex societies to form. People migrated to areas with colder climates and at the same time were able to work together in tribes and communities based on common clothing styles and symbols.”

“The technologies associated with clothing production have contributed to more sustainable lifestyles, facilitating the long-term survival and prosperity of human societies.”

Team paper Published in the journal Scientific advances.

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Ian Gilligan others2024. The evolution of Paleolithic eyed needles and clothing. Scientific advances 10(26); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adp2887

Source: www.sci.news

Ancient Shipwreck Discovered in Mediterranean Sea with Canaanite Amphorae from 3,300 Years Ago

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The ancient ship and its cargo are estimated to date to the 13th century BC, making it one of the oldest shipwrecks ever discovered.

Canaanite amphorae discovered in a 3,300-year-old shipwreck. Image courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The 3,300-year-old shipwreck was discovered 90 kilometers (56 miles) off the coast of Israel, on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles).

“The ship appears to have sunk due to a storm or an attempted pirate attack,” said Dr Jacob Sharvit, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s maritime department.

“This is the first ship ever found in the deep waters of the eastern Mediterranean, 90 kilometres from the nearest coast, and also the oldest.”

“This is a history-changing discovery of global scale. It sheds light like never before on the navigational skills of ancient sailors who were able to cross the Mediterranean without ever seeing the coast. From this geographical point, all you can see is the horizon.”

“It seems likely that celestial objects were used to navigate by observing the positions and angles of the sun and stars.”

The discovery was made by a team from Energene, a London-based natural gas producer, during an environmental survey of the seabed.

“As part of our ongoing efforts to discover and extract natural gas from the deep sea, we are carrying out surveys to check various parameters using advanced submersible robots to explore the seabed,” said Dr Karnit Bahartan, head of Energean’s environmental staff.

“About a year ago, while surveying, we came across an unusual sight: a large pile of water jugs on the seabed.”

“We have been in constant contact with the Israel Antiquities Authority and when we sent them the images, it turned out to be a sensational find, far beyond our imagination.”

A 3,300-year-old shipwreck on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Image courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

“Robotic investigation and mapping of the site revealed that the ship was a wreck approximately 12-14 metres (39-46 feet) long and was carrying hundreds of passengers. Late Bronze Age Canaanite storage vesselsOnly a small fraction of it is visible above the ocean floor,” Dr Sharbit said.

“There appears to be a second level of ship hidden in the muddy bottom, with the wooden beams of the ship also buried in the mud.”

“The type of vessel identified in the shipment was designed as the most efficient means of transporting relatively cheap, mass-produced products, such as oil, wine, and agricultural products such as fruit.”

“The discovery of such a large number of amphorae on a single ship attests to important commercial links between their country of origin and the ancient Near Eastern countries along the Mediterranean coast.”

“This is a truly stunning discovery. There are only two other known cargo-laden shipwrecks from the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean – the Cape Gelidnja ship and the Uluburun ship, both found off the coast of Turkey.”

“But both wrecks were found relatively close to shore and were accessible using standard diving equipment.”

“Based on these two discoveries, the previous academic hypothesis was that trade at that time was carried out by flying safely from port to port, keeping eye contact along the coastline.”

“The discovery of this ship completely changes our understanding of the capabilities of ancient seafarers. It is the first time that a ship has been found so far away that land is completely out of sight.”

“There is great potential for research here. Because the ship has been preserved at great depth, time has stopped since the moment of the disaster. The hull and the surrounding conditions have not been disturbed by human hands (divers, fishermen, etc.), nor have they been subject to the waves and currents that affect shipwrecks in shallow waters.”

“The significance of these discoveries has led to the decision to open the archaeological campus for ‘tasting’ tours this summer, to display these Canaanite ships excavated from the seabed and to tell the public their story,” said Dr. Eli Eskseed, Director General of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

“This visit will allow visitors to get a glimpse of this unique building, its mosaics and laboratories ahead of the official opening of the vast visitor centre, scheduled for two years from today.”

“We are extremely grateful to Energiaan for their swift response in identifying this ancient cargo and for committing resources to enable this initial understanding to be gained from this unusual shipwreck.”

Source: www.sci.news

Oldest Wine in the World Found in Roman Tomb Dating Back 2,000 Years

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

2,000-year-old wine discovered in Roman tomb in Carmona, Spain

Juan Manuel Roman/University of Cordoba

Chemical analysis has revealed that a reddish liquid discovered in a 2,000-year-old Roman mausoleum in Spain is the oldest known liquid wine.

“I was shocked and couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. Jose Rafael Luis Arebola “It was inconceivable that the liquid could remain in this state for 2,000 years,” said a researcher from the University of Cordoba in Spain.

Until now, a sealed vessel found near Speyer, Germany, believed to be around 1,700 years old, was thought to have contained the oldest known wine, but it had never been opened.

Discovered by chance in 2019 in Carmona, near Seville, the Spanish tomb dates to the 1st century AD and belonged to a wealthy family. Eight burial niches were carved into the walls and contained six urns made of limestone, sandstone, and glass. Half contained the remains of a woman, the other half of a man. Two of the urns were inscribed with the names of the deceased: “Hispanae” and “Señicio.”

One of the glass jars, encased in a lead shell, contained the skeletal remains of a 45-year-old man, a gold ring engraved with an image of the two-faced Roman god Janus, and approximately five liters of liquid.

Luis Arrebola and his team studied the composition of the reddish liquid using various methods, including liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and found that it had a pH value of 7.5, which is much more alkaline than normal for wine and indicates severe spoilage.

Its mineral profile was similar to that of modern sherry and fino wines from Spain, and it contained seven types of polyphenols, natural antioxidant compounds found only in wine.

Entrance to the Mausoleum of Carmona, where wine was discovered

Juan Manuel Roman/University of Cordoba

The absence of syringic acid, a compound produced by the breakdown of the main pigment in red wine, confirmed that the wine was white, presumably intended for the dead to drink on their journey to the afterlife.

“The discovery of a 2,000-year-old liquid believed to be wine in a Roman jar is unusual and an important event, providing unique insights into Roman burial practices.” David Tanasi “This shows the continuity between ancient and modern wine production,” say researchers from the University of South Florida.

Luis Arrebola plans to carry out further tests to identify any residues of microorganisms such as bacteria or yeast that may be present in the wine.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New research uncovers that the Great Oxidation Event persisted for a minimum of 200 million years

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

About 2.5 billion years ago, free oxygen first began to accumulate in meaningful levels in Earth's atmosphere, setting the stage for the emergence of complex life. Scientists call this phenomenon Great Oxidation EventBut a new study led by researchers at the University of Utah suggests that Earth's early buildup of oxygen wasn't as simple as that moniker suggests.

The Great Oxidation Event refers to the transition from a slowly reducing Archean atmosphere-ocean system to an oxygen-rich atmosphere and shallow ocean during the early Paleoproterozoic. Image courtesy of Hadeano.

“The new data suggest that the early rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere was dynamic, possibly progressing intermittently up until 2.2 billion years ago,” said Dr Chadrin Ostrander, a researcher at the University of Utah.

“Our data validate this hypothesis and go a step further by extending this dynamics to the ocean.”

By analysing stable thallium isotope ratios and redox-sensitive elements, Dr Ostrander and his colleagues found evidence of fluctuations in ocean oxygen levels that are consistent with changes in atmospheric oxygen.

The discovery helps improve understanding of the complex processes that shaped oxygen levels on Earth at key times in its history and paved the way for the evolution of life as we know it.

“We have no idea what was going on in the oceans where Earth's earliest life forms are thought to have arisen and evolved,” Dr Ostrander said.

“So knowing the oxygen content of the ocean and how it evolved over time is probably more important for early life than the atmosphere.”

In 2021, researchers discovered that oxygen wasn't permanently present in the atmosphere until about 200 million years after the global oxygenation process began — much later than previously thought.

Definitive evidence for an anoxic atmosphere is the presence of rare mass-independent sulfur isotope signatures in the sediment record prior to the Great Oxidation Event.

There are very few known processes on Earth that could produce these sulfur isotope signatures, and atmospheric oxygen would almost certainly be absent for them to be preserved in the rock record.

For the first half of Earth's existence, its atmosphere and oceans were almost devoid of oxygen. This gas was likely produced by cyanobacteria in the oceans before the Great Oxidation Event, but during this early epoch the oxygen was rapidly destroyed in reactions with exposed minerals and volcanic gases.

Scientists found that traces of rare sulfur isotopes disappeared and reappeared, suggesting that atmospheric oxygen increased and decreased multiple times during the Great Oxidation Event – it wasn't a single “event.”

“When oxygen began to be produced, the Earth was not ready to be oxygenated. The Earth needed time to evolve biologically, geologically and chemically to encourage oxygenation,” Dr Ostrander said.

“It's like a seesaw. Oxygen is produced, but there's so much oxygen destruction that nothing happens.”

“We're still trying to figure out when the scales will tip completely and Earth will no longer be able to go back to an oxygen-free atmosphere.”

To map ocean oxygen levels during the Great Oxidation Event, the authors relied on expertise in stable thallium isotopes.

Thallium isotope ratios are sensitive to the burial of manganese oxides to the seafloor, a process that requires oxygen in seawater.

The team looked at thallium isotopes in the same ocean shales, which have recently been shown to be able to track fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen during the Great Oxidation Event, along with rare sulfur isotopes.

The researchers found a significant enrichment of the lighter isotope thallium-203 in the shale, a pattern best explained by the burial of manganese oxides on the ocean floor and the buildup of oxygen in the water.

These enrichments were found in the same samples that lacked the rare sulfur isotope signature, meaning the atmosphere was no longer anoxic, and they disappeared once the rare sulfur isotope signature reappeared.

These findings were supported by redox-sensitive element enrichments, a more classical means of tracing ancient oxygen changes.

“The sulfur isotopes indicate that the atmosphere was oxygenated, and the thallium isotopes indicate that the oceans were oxygenated,” Dr Ostrander said.

“Sulfur isotopes indicate that the atmosphere has become anoxic again, and thallium isotopes indicate the same for the oceans.”

“So the atmosphere and oceans were simultaneously oxygenating and deoxygenating. This is new and exciting information for people interested in the ancient Earth.”

of Investigation result Published in the journal Nature.

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Ostrander Commercial othersCoupled oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans began 2.3 billion years ago. NaturePublished online June 12, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07551-5

Source: www.sci.news

Archaeologists unearth ancient Pompeii temple adorned with blue walls dating back 2,000 years

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Italian archaeologists have unearthed the so-called Sacramento in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city frozen in time after the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

A 2,000-year-old sacramental vessel discovered in Pompeii, Italy. Image courtesy of Pompeii Archaeological Park.

The newly discovered sacrarium – an ancient temple used for ritual activities and storing sacred objects – covers an area of approximately 8 square meters.

The chamber was excavated in the center of Pompeii by Dr. Gabriel Suftriegel and his colleagues from the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

“Against the blue background of the wall, two female figures are depicted on either side of a central niche,” the archaeologists said in a statement.

“The figures in the side niches represent the horae, the four seasons, while the figures in the central panel represent an allegory of agriculture and shepherding, shown with the symbols of the plough and pedum (a short staff used by shepherds and hunters).”

“The blue color seen in this room is rarely seen in Pompeii frescoes and was usually used in more elaborately decorated rooms.”

In the sacristy, researchers found 15 transport amphorae and a set of bronze objects, including two jugs and two lamps.

They also unearthed large amounts of ancient building materials that can be used in the renovation work.

“A pile of empty oyster shells was found by the front door. The shells had probably been crushed into small pieces and added to the plaster or mortar,” the scientists said.

“The room was found in a building located on the southern side of a block (insula) belonging to the secondary area of the larger domus,” the researchers added.

“The structures discovered include a bathhouse, which is still being excavated, and a large reception room decorated with black frescoes overlooking a courtyard with a staircase leading to the first floor of the complex.”

“These excavations are part of a wider project aimed at strengthening the boundaries between excavated and unexcavated areas and improving the hydrogeological structure in order to more effectively and sustainably protect Pompeii’s vast archaeological site (more than 13,000 rooms in 1,070 residential units, public areas and sacred sites).”

Team paper Published in Electronic Journal Scavi di Pompei.

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Gabriel Suchtriegel others. Nostalgia Land: District 9 of Pompeii, 10 Sacred Sites on the Island. Electronic Journal Scavi di Pompeipublished online June 3, 2024

Source: www.sci.news

Our Solar System passed through a frigid interstellar cloud approximately 2 million years ago, new research reveals.

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A cold, dense cloud in the Milky Way’s interstellar medium is about four to five orders of magnitude denser than its diffuse counterparts, and a team of astronomers from Boston University, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University has found evidence that two to three million years ago, our solar system encountered one of these dense clouds, which may have been so dense that it disrupted the solar wind.

Offers othersThe interstellar material through which the Sun has traveled over the past few million years indicates the presence of cold, dense clouds that could have had dramatic effects on the heliosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Most stars generate winds that move through the surrounding interstellar medium.

This motion creates a cocoon that protects the planet from interstellar material. The Sun’s cocoon is the heliosphere.

It’s made up of a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind, which extends far beyond Pluto, enveloping the planet in what astronomers call a “local bubble.”

It protects us from radiation and galactic rays that can alter DNA, and scientists think it’s part of the reason why life on Earth evolved.

A cold interstellar cloud compressed the heliosphere, temporarily placing Earth and other planets in the solar system outside of its influence, according to a new study.

“Our paper is the first to quantitatively show that there was an encounter between the Sun and something outside our solar system that affected Earth’s climate,” said Professor Merab Auffar of Boston University.

“Stars move, and this paper shows that not only do they move, but they undergo dramatic changes.”

To study this phenomenon, Professor Orpher and his colleagues essentially went back in time and used advanced computer models to visualize where the Sun was located two million years ago, along with the heliosphere and the rest of the solar system.

They also mapped the path of a “localized cold cloud ribbon” system, a series of large, dense and very cold clouds made mainly of hydrogen atoms.

Their simulations showed that one of the clouds near the edge of the ribbon, a “local cold cloud,” may have collided with the heliosphere.

If this had happened, Earth would have been fully exposed to interstellar matter, where gases and dust would have mixed with atomic elements left over from the exploded star, such as iron and plutonium.

Normally, the heliosphere filters out most of these radioactive particles, but without protection they could easily reach Earth.

This is consistent with geological evidence showing increased levels of the isotopes iron-60 and plutonium-244 in the oceans, the moon, Antarctic snow and ice cores from the same period, according to the paper.

This timing also coincides with temperature records indicating a cold period.

“It is rare for our cosmic neighbors outside our solar system to have an impact on life on Earth,” said Harvard University professor Avi Loeb.

“It’s exciting to discover that our passage through dense clouds millions of years ago may have exposed the Earth to much greater amounts of cosmic rays and atomic hydrogen.”

“Our findings open a new window into the evolution of life on Earth and its relationship with our cosmic neighbours.”

“External pressure from localized lynxes of cold clouds could have continuously blocked the heliosphere for hundreds to millions of years, depending on the size of the cloud.”

“But as soon as Earth left the cold cloud, the heliosphere engulfed all the planets, including Earth.”

“It’s impossible to know exactly what effect the cold clouds had on the Earth, such as whether they caused ice ages.”

“But there are other cool clouds in the interstellar medium that the Sun likely encountered in its first few billion years.”

“And we’ll probably encounter many more over the next million years or so.”

The authors are currently working to determine where the Sun was 7 million years ago, and beyond.

Pinpointing the position of the Sun and cold cloud systems millions of years ago is made possible by data collected by ESA’s Gaia mission, which has produced the largest 3D map of the galaxy ever, showing in unprecedented detail how fast stars move.

“This cloud is certainly from our past, and if we passed through something this massive, we would have been exposed to interstellar material,” Prof Auffar said.

“This is just the beginning. We hope this paper opens the door to further exploration of how the solar system was influenced by outside forces in the ancient past, and how these forces may have shaped life on Earth.”

of paper Published in today’s journal Natural Astronomy.

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M. Offer othersIt is possible that Earth was directly exposed to cold, dense interstellar material 2 to 3 million years ago. Nat AstronPublished online June 10, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02279-8

Source: www.sci.news

Three million years ago, a cosmic cloud left Earth exposed to interstellar space

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Illustration of a protection bubble around the sun (yellow dot) and the earth (blue dot)

Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Two to three million years ago, the solar system encountered galactic-scale turbulence and collided with dense interstellar clouds, potentially altering both the Earth's climate and evolution.

Only recently have researchers been able to map the Sun's orbit through the Galaxy, particularly in relation to the relatively dense hydrogen clouds that pass through the interstellar medium, the vast expanse of space between star systems.

the current, Merab Offer A research team from Boston University in Massachusetts has found evidence that one of these clouds, a “local cold cloud ribbon” in Lynx, likely intersects with the Sun's heliosphere.

The heliosphere is a protective cocoon or bubble formed by the solar wind pushing out to the edge of the solar system. Within the heliosphere, the planet is protected from the worst gamma radiation in the galaxy.

The new study proposes that as the solar system passed through the interstellar cloud, the heliosphere retreated from it and moved inward toward the Sun. The researchers think that the heliosphere may have shrunk so much that Earth was outside the protective cocoon provided by the solar wind, perhaps for around 10,000 years.

Merab and his colleagues used the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite to map the location of the dense, cold clouds and the sun's past orbit.

Ofer says the heliosphere's encounter with the cold cloud coincides with deposits of the elements plutonium-244 and radioactive iron-60 in Antarctic ice, deep-sea cores and lunar samples. These elements, which originated from distant supernovae, would have been captured in interstellar clouds and deposited while Earth was outside the heliosphere.

“There are signs of an increase in these elements over the past two years. [million] “The solar cloud record going back 3 million years provides compelling evidence that the Sun did in fact pass through it around 2 million years ago,” Offer says. “The exposure of Earth to a cloud of cold interstellar material and the associated increase in atmospheric hydrogen and radiation almost certainly had a major impact on Earth and its climate.”

Sarah Spitzer The University of Michigan researcher says the paper provides “compelling” evidence that the heliosphere was exposed to a much denser interstellar cloud two to three million years ago. As the solar system passed through that dense, cold cloud, Earth would have been outside the heliosphere and directly exposed to the interstellar environment, she says.

“Understanding this can teach us about the impact interstellar material has had on life on Earth in the past,” Spitzer says, “but it also helps us better understand the impact the heliosphere has on life on Earth today, what would happen if Earth were exposed to interstellar material again in the future, and when that might happen.”

Evan Economo Researchers from Japan's Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology say it's intriguing to consider how encounters in “our nearby space” could have influenced the environment experienced by life on Earth.

“The heliosphere is part of the extended environment experienced by life on the Earth's surface, influencing climate and radiation from space,” he says. “If we had been outside the heliosphere for a period of time, it could have altered the evolutionary trajectory of a wide range of life, including humans. Such connections are highly speculative at this point, but they provide us with new research directions.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The Milky Way’s most recent major merger occurred billions of years later than previously believed

Posted on June 7, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The discovery was made possible by ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, which is mapping more than a billion stars across the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, tracking their motions, brightness, temperature, and composition.

This image visualizes the Milky Way and its surrounding halo of stars. New Gaia data reveals that the wrinkles seen in the Milky Way are likely the result of a dwarf galaxy colliding with the Milky Way about 2.7 billion years ago. Our galaxy’s two major satellite galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are visible at the bottom right. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / Donlon other./ Stephen Payne Waldenaar.

The Milky Way galaxy has grown over time as other galaxies have approached, collided, been torn apart, and been swallowed up.

Each collision still sends ripples through different groups of stars, influencing their movements and behavior in space.

One of Gaia’s goals is to study these wrinkles to unravel the history of our Milky Way galaxy. It does this by pinpointing the positions and motions of more than 100,000 stars close to Earth, a tiny fraction of the roughly 2 billion objects it observes.

“As we age, we tend to get more wrinkles, but our research shows that the opposite is true in the Milky Way – it’s like a cosmic Benjamin Button, and it gets less wrinkled over time,” said Dr. Thomas Donlon, an astronomer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Alabama.

“By looking at how these wrinkles fade over time, we can trace when the Milky Way last experienced a major collision — and it turns out this happened billions of years later than we thought.”

The Milky Way’s halo contains many stars with unusual orbits, many of which are thought to have been incorporated into the galaxy in an event that astronomers call the last great merger.

As the name suggests, this is the last time the Milky Way has experienced a significant collision with another galaxy, which is proposed to have been a giant dwarf galaxy that smothered the Milky Way with stars passing very close to the center of the Milky Way.

Astronomers estimate that the merger occurred between 8 and 11 billion years ago, when the Milky Way was still in its infancy, and is known as Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus.

But data from Gaia’s Data Release 3 suggests that another merger could have resulted in the unusually behaving star.

“For the stellar wrinkles to be as clear as we see in the Gaia data, the stars would have had to have appeared on Earth less than 3 billion years ago — at least 5 billion years later than previously thought,” said Dr. Heidi Jo Neuberg, also of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“Every time a star passes back and forth through the center of the Milky Way, a new stellar wrinkle forms.”

“If they had merged with us 8 billion years ago, there would have been so many wrinkles next to each other that we wouldn’t be able to see them as separate features.”

This discovery suggests that these stars did not result from the ancient Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger, but must have arisen from a more recent event called the Virgo radial merger, which occurred less than 3 billion years ago.

“The history of the Milky Way is currently being constantly rewritten, thanks in large part to new data from Gaia,” Dr. Donlon said.

“Our image of the Milky Way’s past has changed dramatically since even 10 years ago, and I think our understanding of these mergers will continue to change rapidly.”

“This finding that most of the Milky Way galaxy joined Earth within the last few billion years is quite different from what astronomers previously thought.”

“Many prevailing models and ideas about the growth of the Milky Way predict that a recent head-on collision with a dwarf galaxy of this mass would be extremely rare.”

“The Virgo radial merger likely pulled in a group of other small dwarf galaxies and star clusters, all of which joined the Milky Way at about the same time.”

“Future exploration will reveal which of these small objects previously thought to be related to the ancient Gaia sausage Enceladus are in fact related to the recent Virgo radial merger.”

of Investigation result Appears in Monthly Bulletin of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Thomas Donlon otherThe year is 2024. The remains of the “last great merger” are dynamically young. MNRAS 531(1):1422-1439; doi:10.1093/mnras/stae1264

Source: www.sci.news

A breeding revolution 4,200 years ago shaped the origins of the modern horse.

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Horse domestication began on the Eurasian steppes

Lina Shatalova/iStockphoto/Getty Images

A genetic study of hundreds of ancient horses suggests that ancient breeders dramatically shortened the horse’s natural development period, starting around 4,200 years ago. This intense breeding allowed the lineage to rapidly expand across Eurasia within a few centuries, according to researchers led by Ludovic Orlando at the Centre for Human Biology and Genomics in Toulouse, France.

“In other words, they controlled horse breeding,” he says, “so this tells us something about the breeding processes behind the success of horse breeding around the world.”

Horses were first domesticated 5,500 years ago by the Botai people in what is now Kazakhstan. The Botai, however, did not spread their horse culture to other regions and eventually went extinct. Horses released back into the wild.

More than 1,000 years later, a different lineage of horse was domesticated in the Pontic-Caspian steppes of southern Russia. This lineage eventually spread worldwide, giving rise to all the domesticated horses we see today, according to Orlando.

To trace the history of horse domestication, Orlando and his team analyzed the genomes of 475 ancient horses dating back 50,000 years in Eurasia. They compared these genomes with those of 71 modern domestic horses representing 40 breeds from around the world, along with six species of the endangered mullein genus (a separate subspecies).

The research found that, except for the Botai, horses were not domesticated before the third millennium BCE, indicating that horses did not play a significant role in early human migration or cultural expansion, as previously suggested, Orlando explained.

DNA analysis showed that horses in the Pontic-Caspian steppe underwent significant inbreeding around 4,200 years ago, likely in an effort to develop specific traits for high-quality riding or chariot horses, according to Orlando.

Through a combination of genome sequencing and carbon dating, scientists estimated that the average time between two successive horse generations, called the generation time interval, was significantly shortened during the same period of inbreeding in the Pontic-Caspian steppes, halving the interval seen in the wild.

“During the domestication bottleneck around 2200 BCE, breeders were able to control horse reproduction so well that generations became faster and faster,” Orlando said.

Orlando suggests that breeders may have achieved this shortening of generation times not by breeding horses at a younger age, but by increasing survival rates. Unlike wild horses, horses in human care are less susceptible to deaths among mares and newborn foals, as they are protected from predators and disturbances that could jeopardize their survival, according to researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna led by Kristin Orlich.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Research indicates that fresh water emerged on Earth approximately 4 billion years ago.

Posted on June 5, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Geologists have analysed 4-billion-year-old zircon crystals from Jack Hills in Western Australia’s mid-west region to date the emergence of fresh water back just a few hundred million years after the Earth formed.

Artistic conception of early Earth. Image by Simone Marchi/NASA.

On the early Earth, extensive interactions between flowing (fresh) water and the emerging continental crust may have been key to the emergence of life, but when the water cycle first began is unclear.

In the new study, Curtin University scientist Hamed Gamaleldien and his colleagues used the oxygen isotope composition of zircon crystals from Jack Hills in Western Australia to determine when the water cycle began.

Their findings suggest that meteoric water appeared on Earth about 4 billion years ago, 500 million years earlier than previously thought.

“We were able to date the origins of the hydrological cycle, the ongoing process by which water moves around Earth and is essential for maintaining ecosystems and supporting life on Earth,” Dr Gamalerdien said.

“By examining the age and oxygen isotopes of microscopic crystals of the mineral zircon, we discovered an anomalously light isotopic signature that dates back 4 billion years.”

“These light oxygen isotopes typically result from hot freshwater altering rocks several kilometers below the Earth’s surface.”

“The evidence for the presence of fresh water this deep in the Earth casts doubt on existing theories that the Earth was completely covered by oceans 4 billion years ago.”

“This discovery was crucial for our understanding of how Earth formed and how life began,” said Curtin University scientist Hugo Orioluk.

“This discovery not only sheds light on the early history of Earth, but also suggests that land and freshwater systems provided the foundation for life to thrive within a relatively short time frame – less than 600 million years after Earth’s formation.”

“This discovery represents a major advance in our understanding of Earth’s early history and opens the door to further exploration of the origin of life.”

of Investigation result Published in this week’s journal Nature Chemistry.

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H. Gamaleldine othersThe Earth’s water cycle began 4 billion years ago or sooner. National GeographyPublished online June 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01450-0

Source: www.sci.news

Ancient settlement uncovered in Chile dates back 12,500 years

Posted on May 24, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

About 12,440 to 12,550 years ago, hunter-gatherers regularly returned to Chile’s Lake Taguatagua to hunt an ancient elephant relative called Gomphotherium and exploit other local resources, according to a team led by archaeologists from the Pontificia Catholic University of Chile.

Taguatagua 3 site, Chile: (A) Burning evidence spatially associated with Gomphothery cervical vertebrae and skull fragments. (B) Sacral and caudal vertebrae, intervertebral disks, and unfused hipbone segments. Note the distance between the first sacral vertebra and its disk. (C) End scraper from the site. (D) Core debitage from the site spatially associated with Gomphothery remains. Image courtesy of Labarca others., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302465.

There are several known archaeological sites in the area. Lake Taguatagua Located in central Chile, it is one of the oldest known sites of human habitation in the Americas.

In a new study, Dr Rafael Labarca from the Pontificia Catholic University of Chile and his colleagues discovered an ancient hunter-gatherer camp dating back to the Late Pleistocene epoch, between 12,440 and 12,550 years ago.

The site, named Taguatagua 3, contains fossils of the Gomphosele, an extinct species closely related to the elephant.

Butchery marks on bones, stone tools and other evidence indicate that Taguatagua 3 was a temporary camp set up to process large carcasses.

During the camp’s short existence, other activities were also carried out, including the processing of other foods, as evidenced by the charred remains of plants and small animals such as frogs and birds.

Fossilized cactus seeds and bird egg shells suggest that the camp was inhabited, especially during the dry season.

Numerous archaeological sites from a similar period are now known to exist in the area, suggesting that Lake Tagua-Tagua was a recurring hunting and food-scavenging site for Late Pleistocene people thanks to abundant and predictable local resources.

“The area was an important location along the route of mobile groups at the time and the temporary camp may have hosted regular meetings between these groups,” the archaeologists said.

Further investigation of this archaeologically rich area will continue to provide insight into the migration and survival strategies of early humans in South America.

“Taguatagua 3 contributes to a greater understanding of how early humans adapted to the rapidly changing environment of central Chile during the Late Pleistocene,” the researchers said.

of Investigation result Published online in the journal PLoS One.

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R. Labarca others2024. Taguatagua 3: A new Late Pleistocene settlement in a highly suitable site for lacustrine habitat in central Chile (34°S). PLoS One 19(5): e0302465; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302465

Source: www.sci.news

Discovery of ancient star in Milky Way halo estimated to be 12-13 billion years old by astronomers

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered very old stars in the Milky Way’s halo, a cloud of stars that covers the entire disk of our galaxy. These objects formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were beginning to form. Researchers believe that each star once belonged to its own dwarf galaxy, which was later absorbed into the larger but ever-growing Milky Way, making them known as small accreting star systems (SASS). It’s called a star.

Artist’s concept of the Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi / CC BY-SA 4.0.

“Given what we know about galaxy formation, these oldest stars should definitely exist,” says MIT professor Anna Froebel.

“They are part of our cosmic family tree. And now we have a new way to find them.”

As they discover similar SASS stars, Professor Froebel and his colleagues hope to use them as analogues of ultrafaint dwarf galaxies, which are thought to be some of the first living galaxies in the universe.

These galaxies remain intact today, but they are too distant and faint for astronomers to study in detail.

SASS stars may once have belonged to similar primitive dwarf galaxies, but they are now located within the Milky Way and are much closer, making them more accessible for understanding the evolution of ultrafaint dwarf galaxies. This could be the key.

“Now we can look for more brighter analogs in the Milky Way and study their chemical evolution without chasing these very faint stars,” Professor Froebel said.

The low chemical abundances of these stars suggest that they first formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago.

In fact, their low chemical signature was similar to what astronomers had previously measured for several ancient, ultra-dark dwarf galaxies.

Are the team’s star players from similar galaxies? And how did they come to exist in the Milky Way?

Based on a hunch, scientists studied the orbital patterns of stars and how they move across the sky.

The three stars are located in different locations throughout the Milky Way’s halo and are estimated to be about 30,000 light-years from Earth.

When astronomers used observations from ESA’s Gaia satellite to trace the movement of each star around the galaxy’s center, they noticed something strange. All three stars appeared to be in motion, compared to most of the stars in the main disk, which move like cars on a race track. Wrong way.

In astronomy, this is known as retrograde motion, and is information that the object was once accreted or pulled in from elsewhere.

“The only way to get a star wrong from other members is if you throw it the wrong way,” Professor Froebel says.

The fact that these three stars orbit in a completely different way than the rest of the galactic disk or halo, combined with the fact that their chemical abundances are low, suggests that these stars are actually It was strongly argued that it was ancient and once belonged to an earlier era, a small dwarf galaxy that fell into the Milky Way at a random angle and continued its stubborn orbit billions of years later.

The authors were interested in whether retrograde motion was a feature of other ancient stars in the halo that astronomers had previously analyzed, and they looked at the scientific literature and found similarly low strontium and barium contents, discovered 65 other stars that appear to be moving in retrograde motion as well. Galaxy flow.

“Interestingly, they are all traveling very fast, hundreds of kilometers per second, in opposite directions,” Professor Froebel said.

“They’re on the run! We don’t know why it happened, but this is the piece of the puzzle we need and we never expected it when we started.”

Researchers are keen to find other ancient SASS stars, and now have a relatively simple recipe for doing so. First, they look for stars with low chemical abundance, then track their orbital patterns for signs of retrograde motion.

Researchers hope this method will uncover a small but significant number of the universe’s oldest stars, out of the more than 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.

“I really enjoyed working with three female undergraduates. It was a first for me,” said Professor Froebel.

“This is just an example of the MIT way. It is. And anyone who says, ‘I want to participate,’ can do so, and good things happen.”

team’s paper Published in Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices.

_____

Hilary Diane Anders other. 2024. The oldest star with a small amount of neutron-capturing elements and originating from an ancient dwarf galaxy. MNRAS 530 (4): 4712-4729; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae670

Source: www.sci.news

Gameboy: A Portal to Other Magical Realms at 35 Years Old

Posted on April 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

○On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky gray gameplay rectangle for Japanese stores. It’s safe to say that no one expected much of it. Inside Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters, the portable console was reportedly not a very popular project. However, within two weeks, the initial production run of 300,000 units had all been sold out. The Game Boy was released in the United States later that year, and would be released around the world over the next few years. We’ve found it to be equally popular wherever we go. Thirty-five years later and nearly 120 million units later, it remains the fourth best-selling gaming console of all time.

Like Sony’s Walkman, the Game Boy was an icon of technological design at the time, and is still instantly recognizable just by its silhouette. Developed by a team led by Satoru Okada and Gunpei Yokoi in Kyoto, the Game Boy was probably inspired by Yokoi’s dictum of “lateral thinking through dead technology” – do more with less, which continues at Nintendo to this day. This is an outstanding example of the technical principle of doing. It has a very simple design with four buttons and a cross-shaped D-pad, so it’s easy to use just by looking at it. Thanks to the grayscale screen, the battery lasted for several days of play. And, most importantly for the accident-prone kids of the ’90s (and their parents), you can throw this thing off a bridge and it’ll probably still work.

Gunpei Yokoi’s design principles made the Game Boy an international phenomenon. Photo: Associated Press

The Game Boy wasn’t the first handheld game console, nor was it the best game console at the time. Even in the late 80’s, it had a thick, retro feel. That screen didn’t have a backlight, but it was also sensitive to glare from bright sunlight, so I had to crawl across the screen to find the perfect amount of light (or use a large square I had to buy a portable lamp. more battery). Meanwhile, the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear arrived soon after with much better hardware and color graphics.

But it was the Game Boy that was the bestseller, spawning direct and spiritual successors from the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance to the Nintendo DS and even its Switch. These are all consoles that you can hold in your hand. The reason is that, unlike its rivals, it had an extraordinary game whose vibrancy went beyond the scope of its small gray-green screen.

The most memorable of these is definitely Tetris. Tetris wasn’t made specifically for Nintendo’s small console – it’s been playable on computers since 1984 – but it turns out the Game Boy was made for Tetris. Alexey Pajitnov’s shape slot puzzle game has found its perfect home on this small console. Its rudimentary graphics abilities were sufficient to render some configurations of falling blocks. In the US and Europe, the Game Boy was bundled with the game. So when you think of Tetris’ Earworm theme song, the bleeppy 8-bit Game Boy version of him probably comes to mind.

Block Rocking Blocks: Tetris battles have become a holiday staple for many families. Photo: Boston Globe/Getty Images

You can even play Tetris with friends, as there’s a port on the side that lets you connect your console with a cable, the Game Boy’s most advanced feature. This is what inspired Satoshi Tajiri, a quiet programmer who had a childhood interest in insects, to create Pokemon, the Game Boy’s most enduring game. From pixels and pure imagination, Pokémon has created a world full of distinctive creatures that kids and adults alike can lose themselves in and swap and battle over Link’s cables. Despite being released towards the end of the Game Boy, it became a phenomenon.

How a geeky little game like this – Pokemon battles are primarily about numbers and type matchups – became the single most profitable entertainment franchise on the planet, surpassing Mickey Mouse and Star Wars. is incredible to me. This is a testament to the creative vision of the creator, as well as the imagination of his 90s children, who did not suffer from elementary expressions. But it also teaches us about the power and intimacy of handheld gaming consoles. With television, games were rooted in the living room or bedroom. On the Game Boy, it became part of family vacations, long car trips, and lunch breaks at work. Games have become part of everyday life.

This handheld console spawned many hit series. Photo: Nintendo

Perhaps this is what helps games like Super Mario Land and the heartbreaking, otherworldly The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening stay alive in the memories of those who play them. I remember we played Zelda on the commuter train. I met lifelong friends at my first job. After school, I got together with my friends at the playground and played Pokemon. On my day off, I played Tetris and had a high score competition with his older brother. Many people still have their Game Boys sitting in drawers or boxes in the attic. Their emotional value is so high that people can’t bring themselves to throw them away.

Here’s a favorite photo of four kids with bowl cuts from the ’90s crowd around women I was concentrating on my Game Boy. You can almost see the cartridge inside. It’s Super Mario Land. As far as I know, the origin of this photo is lost to time, but I’d like to think it’s her Game Boy, and she teaches the kids how to get past one of its more difficult levels. This image, for me, perfectly sums up this console and what it feels like to play it. Gameboys were shared by families and played by everyone, girls and boys, men and women. It was a portal to other small worlds and introduced millions of people to the magic of gaming.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, has been a hotbed of volcanic activity for billions of years.

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Io, Jupiter’s innermost moon, is the most volcanically active object in the solar system.

Joshimer Binas/Alamy Stock Photo

Jupiter’s moon Io has been continually modified by volcanic eruptions over billions of years, probably since it first formed.

Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system, with many volcanoes spewing plumes of sulfurous material that can be seen from Earth. Astronomers now know this is caused by so-called tidal heating, in which the gravity of Jupiter and its nearby moons deforms Io, but they wonder if it’s always been this way or if there was a more benign past. It was unclear whether it was there or not.

now, Catherine de Clear Caltech researchers have discovered that Io has probably been spewing lava for almost the entirety of its history. They did this by measuring the ratio of her two isotopes of sulfur in the atmosphere.

The most common stable form of sulfur contains 16 protons and 16 neutrons in each atom, but a heavier stable form called sulfur-34 has two extra neutrons. On Io, volcanoes continually spew both isotopes into the atmosphere and onto the ground. The top layer of the atmosphere, rich in lighter sulfur atoms, is lost to space as the moon moves around Jupiter, changing the ratio of these isotopes.

De Kleer and colleagues used observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a series of radio telescopes in Chile, to measure the proportions of Io’s atmosphere. Then, by modeling how much sulfur Io loses each year, the researchers were able to see at what point Io’s sulfur ratios are similar to the rest of the solar system. Although it is not possible to say exactly how long the volcano has been active, it appears that it has been erupting for between 2.5 billion and 4 billion years.

Because Io’s volcanic activity is due to tidal heating by Jupiter and other moons such as Europa and Ganymede, the results can also be used to infer the configuration of the Jupiter system billions of years ago. “The length of Io’s volcanic activity is a direct reflection of how long this orbital structure has existed,” de Clare says.

If Io has been consistently volcanically active for billions of years, this also means that its deep geological formations have been recycled many times, they say. Lionel Wilson At Lancaster University, UK.

Sampling the ejected material will provide a rare opportunity to learn about the chemical composition of Io’s deeper layers, such as the mantle beneath its outer shell. “If these volcanoes have continued to erupt essentially throughout the history of the solar system, even if we look at the composition of what’s erupting and find that it’s actually a snapshot of Io’s entire mantle, It’s safe,” Wilson said.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Archaeologists uncover ancient human occupation of Saudi Arabia’s lava tube caves spanning 7,000 years

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

New archaeological excavations show that the Umm Jirsan lava tubes in Halat Khyber, northwestern Saudi Arabia, have been repeatedly visited by humans from at least the Neolithic period to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age (10,000 to 3,500 years ago). The stage of residence has become clear.

Photos of Umm Jilsan Cave and its interior.Image credit: Stewart other., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299292.

Intensified field research in northern Arabia over the past decade has highlighted the richness and diversity of the region's archaeological and paleontological record.

Human settlement in northern Arabia during the Pleistocene appeared to be sporadic and associated with periods of improved climate, but by the Holocene people had settled in the area more consistently through dry periods. I was able to.

“Our discoveries at Umm Jilsan provide a rare glimpse into the lives of the ancient peoples of Arabia, revealing repeated stages of human occupation and the pastoralism that once flourished here. It sheds light on people's activities,” said Griffith archaeologist Dr Matthew Stewart. University and the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology.

“This site probably served as an important transit point along pastoral routes, linking major oases and facilitating cultural exchange and trade.”

Rock art and animal records attest to the pastoral use of Umm Jilsan and the surrounding area, providing a vivid picture of an ancient way of life.

Depictions of cows, sheep, goats, and dogs confirm prehistoric livestock practices and herd composition in the area.

Isotope analysis of animal remains collected from lava tubes shows that livestock primarily grazed wildflowers and shrubs, while humans maintained a protein-rich diet and increased their consumption of C3 plants over time. has increased significantly, suggesting the emergence of oasis agriculture.

Professor Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist from Griffith University, the University of Queensland, and the Smithsonian Institution, said: “Subterranean localities are of global importance in archeology and Quaternary science, but our research is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia. “This is the first comprehensive study.”

This discovery highlights the immense potential of interdisciplinary research in caves and lava tubes, providing a unique window into Arabia's ancient past.

“Umm Jilsan was probably not a permanent settlement, but a valuable transit point for people traveling between oasis settlements,” the authors said.

“Lava tubes and other natural shelters are valuable resources for communities surviving in difficult environments, and further research shows that they are important archaeological sources of information about the history of human occupation in Arabia. ”

“Our research into Arabia's hidden past uncovers thousands of years of human habitation in and around the Umm Jirsan lava tubes, revealing ancient lifestyles and environmental changes in this harsh desert environment. shed light on the adaptation of

team's paper Published in an online journal PLoS ONE.

_____

M. Stewart other. 2024. First evidence of human occupation of Arabia's lava tubes: Archeology of Umm Jirsan Cave and Surroundings, Northern Saudi Arabia. PLoS ONE 19 (4): e0299292; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299292

Source: www.sci.news

According to a study, Arabica coffee has been traced back to its origins in Ethiopia over 600,000 years ago.

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

An international team of scientists has generated the highest quality reference genome to date for coffee arabica, the world's most popular coffee species (arabica coffee tree). Their results suggest that this species developed through natural hybridization between two other coffee species in the forests of Ethiopia more than 600,000 years ago. coffee tree and robusta coffee (Coffea genus).

arabica coffee tree. Image credit: Sci.News.

Arabica is the source of approximately 60% of all coffee products in the world, and its seeds help millions of people start their day and stay up late.

Arabica populations waxed and waned throughout millennia of Earth's heating and cooling periods, eventually being cultivated in Ethiopia and Yemen and then spreading around the world.

Professor Victor Albert of the University at Buffalo said: “We are using genomic information from living plants to go back in time and map the long history of Arabica as accurately as possible, and to understand how modern cultivars have evolved. “We have clarified whether the two are interrelated.'' .

From a new reference genome created using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technology and advanced data science, Professor Albert and his colleagues identified 39 Arabica species and the 18 that Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus used to name the species. Even century specimens could be sequenced.

“Although other public references exist on Arabica coffee, the quality of our team's research is very high,” said Dr. Patrick Descombe from Nestlé Research.

“We used state-of-the-art genomics approaches, including long-read and short-read high-throughput DNA sequencing, to create the most advanced, complete and continuous Arabica reference genome to date.”

arabica coffee tree It is formed as a natural hybrid between Coffea genus and coffee treethen received two sets of chromosomes from each parent.

Scientists have struggled to pinpoint exactly when and where this allopolyploidization phenomenon occurred, with estimates ranging from 10,000 years ago to 1 million years ago.

To find evidence of the original event, the researchers ran the genomes of various Arabica species through a computational modeling program, looking for traces of the species' foundation.

The model shows three population bottlenecks in the history of Arabica, the oldest of which occurred about 29,000 generations, or 610,000 years ago.

this suggests arabica coffee tree It was formed shortly before that, between 610,000 and 1 million years ago.

“So the hybridization that produced Arabica was not human-made. It is clear that this polyploidy phenomenon predates modern humans and coffee cultivation,” Professor Albert said.

Coffee trees were long thought to have developed in Ethiopia, but the varieties the researchers collected around the Great Rift Valley, which stretches from southeastern Africa to Asia, showed a clear geographic divide.

The wild species studied all originate from the western side, whereas all cultivated varieties originate from the eastern side, closest to the Bab al-Mandab strait that separates Africa and Yemen.

This is consistent with evidence that coffee cultivation may have originated primarily in Yemen around the 15th century.

Indian monk Baba Budhan believed it Around 1600 AD, the legendary “seven seeds” were smuggled out of Yemen, establishing the Indian Arabica variety and setting the stage for today's global spread of coffee.

“It appears that Yemen's coffee diversity may be the originator of all of today's major varieties,” Dr. Descombe said.

“Coffee is not a crop that has been highly hybridized to create new varieties, like corn or wheat.”

“People mainly chose their favorite varieties and grew them. So the varieties we have today have probably been around for a long time.”

East Africa's geo-climatic history is well documented through research on human origins, allowing researchers to understand how climate change and wild and cultivated Arabica populations have fluctuated over time. can be compared.

Modeling shows a long period of low population size between 20,000 and 100,000 years ago, combined with a prolonged drought that is thought to have hit the region between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. This almost corresponds to a cold climate.

The population then increased during the Wet Period in Africa, about 6,000 to 15,000 years ago, and growing conditions are thought to have become more favorable.

Around the same time, about 30,000 years ago, wild species diverged from the varieties that would eventually become domesticated by humans.

“They still occasionally breed with each other, but this probably stopped around 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, around the end of the African Humid Period and the widening of the straits due to rising sea levels,” said Yarko, a researcher at the Southern Ocean Institute of Technology. Dr. Sarojärvi said. University.

of result Published in an online journal this week natural genetics.

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J. Sarojärvi other. 2024. Allopolyploid genomes and population genomics arabica coffee tree Uncovering the history of modern coffee variety diversification. Nat Genet 56, 721-731; doi: 10.1038/s41588-024-01695-w

Source: www.sci.news

Bread dating back 8,600 years uncovered in Turkey

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Archaeologists from Necmettin Erbakan University have announced the discovery of the world’s oldest known bread, dating from 6600 BC, at the famous Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkiye, central Anatolia (formerly Turkey).

8,600-year-old bread found in Çatalhöyük, Turkiye. Image credit: Necmettin Erbakan University.

Çatalhöyük is one of the largest and best preserved Neolithic settlements in the world.

The site is located southeast of the modern Turkish city of Konya, approximately 145 km (90 miles) from Mount Hasan.

Çatalhöyük began as a small settlement around 7500 BC, and may have consisted of a few adobe houses during what archaeologists call the Early Period.

The settlement reached its peak in the mid-6700-6500 BC period, rapidly declining in population during the later period, and was abandoned around 5950 BC.

Its inhabitants were early farmers, growing crops such as wheat and barley and raising sheep and goats.

Discovered by British archaeologist James Mellaart in the early 1960s, Çatalhöyük attracted worldwide attention for its large scale and well-preserved architecture.

Previous excavations at the site unearthed a vast number of artifacts and ancient structures, including a large mural depicting a town and two mountain peaks, sometimes called the world’s oldest map.

This is an artist’s impression of Çatalhöyük. Image credit: Dan Lewandowski.

Archaeologists from Necmettin Erbakan University have discovered an ancient building with an oven in the Mekan 66 area of Çatalhöyük in a new excavation.

Wheat, barley and pea seeds were found around the oven, as well as “spongy” organic residue.

Researchers determined that the residue was uncooked leavened bread.

“The small round ‘spongy’ residue found in the corner of the oven turned out to be bread,” said Dr. Ali Umut Türkan, an archaeologist at Necmettin Erbakan University.

“Because the building was covered with fine clay, both the wood and the bread were able to be preserved to this day.”

“We found that the bread had a porous and spongy structure and was not cooked,” added Dr. Yassin Ramazan Eker, also from Necmetin Erbakan University.

“The first known example of leavened bread was discovered in Egypt,” Dr. Turkan said.

“The newly discovered bread in Çatalalhöyük can be said to be the oldest bread in the world.”

Source: www.sci.news

Tesla’s quarterly new car deliveries experience their first decrease in nearly four years

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Tesla experienced its first drop in vehicle deliveries in almost four years, failing to meet Wall Street’s expectations. This indicates that the impact of price reductions is diminishing as car manufacturers face tougher competition and subdued demand.

Since the start of the year, Tesla’s shares have plummeted by nearly 30% and were down 5.7% in early trading on Tuesday.

The world’s most valuable automaker delivered approximately 386,810 vehicles in the first quarter of the year, a 20.2% decrease from the previous quarter, while producing 433,371 vehicles. Wall Street analysts, surveyed by Visible Alpha, had anticipated Tesla to deliver 454,200 vehicles on average.

Compared to the previous year, deliveries from electric vehicle manufacturers dropped by 8.5%. The last time Tesla encountered a decline in sales was in the second quarter of 2020, when the pandemic caused production halts.

The company attributed the decrease in production to preparations for scaling up production of the new Model 3 at its Fremont, Calif., plant, and disruptions at its Berlin plant due to transportation diversions amid the Red Sea conflict and an arson fire. This led to a temporary halt in early March. A left-wing group claimed responsibility for setting fire to a pylon at a German factory that churns out 500,000 cars annually.

In China, Tesla faces tough competition from local companies like BYD, which overtook the American company as the largest EV maker in the last quarter, and newcomer Xiaomi.

Despite this competition, Elon Musk’s company managed to outsell BYD in the quarter, delivering 369,783 Model 3s and Model Ys, along with around 17,000 other models including the Model S sedan, Cybertruck, and Model X premium SUV.

In January, Tesla also cautioned that sales growth would be “significantly slower” this year as it shifts its focus towards producing next-generation electric vehicles.

Source: www.theguardian.com

“Reflecting on 25 Years of Rollercoaster Tycoon: The Inspiration Behind a Classic”

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

‘I
“I remember rushing home from school just to play Rollercoaster Tycoon,” says Merlin Entertainments, the owner of UK-based theme parks including Olton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, and Legoland Windsor. John Burton, senior creative lead at Yahoo! He is designing the 72-meter (236-foot) Hyperia roller coaster planned for Thorpe Park. “Then I went to sleep dreaming of being the next Walt Disney.”

As an adult, Burton looks back on the game with the excitement of a teenager on a sugar high. “I learned so much about how roller coaster systems work with block zones and even little tricks at theme parks like adding side cues and strategically placed restrooms,” he said, continued, confirming my suspicions that a Jumanji-themed jungle world was his idea. The piece, which Chessington helped design, has what he calls “subliminal similarities” to his Jolly Jungle scenario from the classic PC game. “When I have to go to a theme park overseas for work, I still load the original game onto the plane and sketch out ideas. I never really stopped playing.”

John Burton of Chessington World of Adventures…he grew up playing on rollercoasters and now designs real-life rides.

Released 25 years ago today, RollerCoaster Tycoon (the best-selling PC game of 1999) was a viral success before online virality was established, with users sharing their favorite real-world designs and recreations. It has inspired countless geosite forum communities. vehicle. These communities still exist, and one designer recently created a nightmarish existential roller coaster that took him 12 years to cringe. complete.

The 1999 theme park strategy game RollerCoaster Tycoon sold 700,000 copies in its first year and helped keep publisher Atari afloat. Today is its 25th anniversary. RollerCoaster Tycoon not only provided millions of fans with an endless toolbox of fun to build the theme park of their dreams (more on that later), but the entire adjacent theme park industry. He has solved the mysteries of men and contributed to reducing the male-dominated industry.

“I remember for many years I was the only woman working on roller coaster projects,” says Legoland Resort Executive Creative Director and creator of the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster at Alton Towers, says industry heavyweight Candy Holland, who helped design Oblivion. “But when Roller Coaster Tycoon came out, there was a sudden surge in young women applying for jobs. I think I had a deeper understanding.”

One of those young women was Flora Louie, a senior project manager for Merlin’s “Magic Creation” team in California. She argues that unlike many games of the time (Resident Evil, GoldenEye 007), Roller Coaster Her Tycoon attracted male and female players because it traded the fantasy of death and destruction for fun creativity. . “Playing Rollercoaster Tycoon was radical,” she says.

“Graphic styles are now seen as quirky and unique, rather than as outdated and restrictive as they were back then,” says Roller Coaster Tycoon designer Chris Sawyer. Photo: Atari

“I remember changing the color so that all the rides were pink. We spent a lot of time creating maze-like lines, making the customers laugh and confuse them, and even telling our parents that all the designs were different.” As a project manager, I have to consider the push and pull of the budget; the impact of increased visitor numbers; safety; managing the flow of guests and delivering the magic; As I’m participating, I’m thinking about all these things and remembering how Roller Coaster Tycoon set me on this path.”

From tranquil lush lakes to more exhilarating Haunted Harbor and Diamond Heights, each of the game’s 21 scenarios is a theme park where you can find quick solutions to dilemmas and give pixelated attendees the time of their lives was intended to create. “The success of this game really kept Atari in business,” admits Atari CEO Wade Rosen. “The fact that you can build these very complex roller coasters and you can completely ignore all of them and launch them. [customers] It was really genius to jump into the lake and see how many fish you could gag. ”

Rosen claims that everyone who played it had a “different experience” and said that the canvas of creativity that existed in Rollercoaster Tycoon was essentially a prototype for what would become Minecraft. He was a ruthless player in capitalism, he says. “I really liked the business side of it…When it was raining, I would put a price on an umbrella right away. It’s like $20 now. And I brought a lot of cash. Sho.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Celebrating 20 Years of Katamari Damacy: The Surreal and Colorful Game That Remains the Weirdest Yet Most Beloved

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

MWhen I was a kid, my parents were somewhat skeptical of video games. When I was a kid, I had a Super Nintendo and his N64, but they only let me play on the weekends, so on Fridays I’d come home from school and munch on Mario 64 with a big pack of Haribo Tongue Fastiks. I was there. My gaming horizons didn’t expand until his teenage years. Around that time, I started making enough money to buy myself a PlayStation 2 and started participating in forums with other geeks whose gaming worlds were much broader than mine.

PlayStation 2 had several features strange game. While the N64 had some success, and I’ve developed a lasting attachment to his Mystical Ninja starring Goemon, it wasn’t as good as the Sony console. There was “Dark Cloud” and “Monster Hunter,” “Ryu ga Gotoku,” “Mojib Ribbon,” “God Hand,” “Okami,” and “Rivit King,” but as far as I know, this is Frolf (Frog Golf). This is the only game about.

And then there was Katamari Damacy, the very epitome of everything weird and wonderful in the PlayStation 2 library, a fun game that celebrates its 20th anniversary this week.

The premise is this. The eccentric king of the universe, who wears Shakespearean purple tights, drinks too much beer and messes up the universe. And you, his little green prince, have to take the sticky ball to Earth. Roll it and collect bigger and bigger objects until they are big enough to replace a moon or a planet. This song is a strong contender for the best theme song in video game history, and also one of his best intro sequences. Behold.

Actually, she’s only 5cm tall. “That body, that physique. Are you really our son?” cries the king. Therefore, he must start small. You’ll need to start with something really small, like rolled up thumbtacks, dice, or empty soy sauce packs. Animals will chase the ball to try to throw it off course, and precious trash will be scattered if it hits something too big to roll. Katamari Damacy is surreal, hilarious, and a lot of fun, winding up cows, cars, people, and eventually buildings, islands, and clouds. It’s only about four hours long, but it leaves a lasting impression on everyone who plays it, simply because the music is haunting. Twenty years later, it still pops into my head from time to time as I wait for the kettle to boil.

Katamari soul. Photo provided by Bandai Namco

Katamari Damacy symbolizes Japanese game development during this era. PS2 technology was good enough for game designers’ more ambitious ideas to start blossoming, and budgets weren’t yet so outrageous as to require multi-million sales. The result is a slew of short, surreal, and often quite broken games. who I really wanted that. You can clearly see the designer’s heart reflected in it. Many of these games were never released to the world. Katamari Damacy itself was never officially released in Europe, but fortunately for curious teenagers in the ’00s, importing the game was relatively easy if you knew how to use the Internet. Thankfully, the PS2’s region lock was easily circumvented. In 2004, getting a copy and putting it to work felt like unearthing an artistic treasure.

Katamari designer Keita Takahashi brought together students from publisher Namco’s design school and programmers from the arcade division to complete the game in less than a year on a budget of £650,000. Takahashi studied sculpture at art school and went on to create some interesting games, but it’s safe to say that none were as interesting as this one.Namco continued make a series without him Many years have passed since he left the company in 2009, but things have never been the same. Recent Katamari Damacy games have felt like self-parody. The reason Katamari Damacy is so loved is precisely because no one has ever seen anything like it before.

No doubt, this is mainly because I am not a teenager anymore, but I hardly ever feel that way now. It feels like you’re playing something you’ve never seen before.If you’re lucky do not have For those who have already experienced it, there is a great remaster of Katamari Damacy on Steam and all consoles called Katamari Damacy Reroll. Happy 20th birthday, beautiful weirdo.

what to play

Dragon’s Dogma 2. Photo: Capcom

dragons dogma 2 ‘ released on Friday and I’m having the time of my life. I’ve been waiting 12 years for a sequel to the weirdest medieval RPG I’ve ever played, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s like Elden Ring meets The Witcher, except it’s pleasantly silly in that it can pick up people and carry them around for hours. For no reason, you find yourself fighting an ogre in the middle of a crowded city where no one is paying attention.

This is the antithesis of the tightly scripted RPGs that currently dominate the genre, and instead allows you to mix and match a bunch of fun systems and experiment with how they collide, giving you a sense of the unexpected. always happens. As I type this, I’m in a haunted castle with a magician who looks like Aladdin Sane-era David Bowie and a retinue of greatsword-wielding warriors straight out of Dark Souls. I’m in the middle of an adventure.

Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, PC
Estimated play time: 50+ hours

what to read

Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. Photo: Afro/Rex/Shutterstock

Bloomberg claims that Sony has temporarily suspended production of the product. PSVR2 virtual reality headset, thousands of units remain unsold. Sony has never fully bought into the luxury of this expensive accessory – it’s only released a few games for it since its launch last year – and consumer demand just isn’t there either. It seems that. I’m sorry I said that.
Mutsumi Inomatathe character designer and artist who defined the look of Bandai Namco’s Tales series of role-playing games; died63 years old.
EAstudio is the latest giant publisher to suffer layoffs. 5% reduction in workforce worldwide. Apex Legends developer Respawn was the hardest hit.

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Question Block

Pokemon Sword and Shield. Photo: Nintendo

This week’s question from reader Danny:

“Which Pokemon game for Nintendo Switch would you recommend for my introduction?” 9-and Will my 6-year-old daughters be involved in this series? ”

Luckily, Danny, I just introduced Pokemon to kids my age this year, and now they’re hooked. They get so much joy out of these games and it’s really gratifying. Here he has two good options. The first one Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee!is a remake of the OG Red/Blue Pokemon games that blends old-school combat and collecting with Pokemon Go-style catching, where kids can help catch creatures by simulating throwing Pokeballs at the screen. Masu. (Also, if you played the original version, your kids will think you’re omniscient.)

Other options are pokemon sword and shield, just finished with the kids. It’s simple, cartoonishly beautiful, easy to read, and comes with all the game mod cons that first-generation Pokemon trainers had to do without (which moves are effective against opponents, which (e.g. actually letting you know if a technique is ineffective). (on the battle screen).

If you have any questions for the questions block or anything else you’d like to say about the newsletter, please reply or email pushbuttons@theguardian.com.

Source: www.theguardian.com

5,000 years ago, Cacao likely spread from the Amazon to other regions in Central and South America

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Humans have a long history of transporting and trading plants, contributing to the evolution of cultivated plants. The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), whose beans are used to make products such as chocolate, liqueurs, and cocoa butter, is native to the Neotropics of South America. However, little is known about its cultivation and use in these regions. In a new study, archaeologists analyzed ceramic residues from a large sample of pre-Columbian cultures in Central and South America. Their findings reveal that cacao was widely used in South America outside of its Amazonian region, going back 5,000 years.

Recent discoveries have recorded the domestication of cacao trees (Theobroma cacao) inhabited its native Amazon region of Ecuador by at least 5,300 years ago. Lanau other. This study shows that a large-scale landscape of domestication of cacao outside of its native region along the Pacific coast of South America occurred simultaneously during this same early period and later periods. Image credit: Fernando Granier.

The modern cacao tree (its scientific name means “food of the gods”) is one of the world’s most important crops.

Eleven genetic groups are known, including the widely used Criollo and Nacional strains.

Although it is well established that the cacao tree was originally domesticated in the upper Amazon basin, it has not been clear how the use of cacao by other cultures spread throughout Central and South America.

In a new study, AGAP Institute researcher Claire Lanau and colleagues found 352 ceramic remains from 19 pre-Columbian cultures dating back approximately 5,900 to 400 years, spanning Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Belize, and Panama. was analyzed.

Researchers tested ancient cacao’s DNA and the presence of three methylxanthine (mild stimulant) compounds (theobromine, theophylline, and caffeine) present in modern cacao tree lineages to determine the ancient cacao’s DNA. Identified the residue.

The authors also used genetic information from 76 modern cocoa samples to establish the ancient cocoa ancestry present in ceramic products. This could reveal how ancient cocoa strains diversified and spread.

The study results show that cacao was domesticated in the Amazon at least 5,000 years ago, and was soon cultivated extensively along the Pacific coast, with high diversity among ancient lineages likely due to genetic This shows that different populations were bred together.

The presence of cacao genotypes originating from the Peruvian Amazon in the Valdivia coastal region of Ecuador suggests that these cultures have been in contact for many years.

The Peruvian strain was also detected in artifacts from Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

“Taken together, these indicate that cocoa varieties spread widely across countries and were interbred to adapt to new environments as different cultures adopted the use of cocoa,” the researchers said.

“A better understanding of cocoa’s genetic history and diversity may help combat the threats facing modern cocoa varieties, such as disease and climate change.”

a paper The survey results were published in a magazine scientific report.

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C. Lanau other. 2024. Revisiting the history of pre-Columbian cacao cultivation revealed through an archaeogenomic approach. science officer 14, 2972; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-53010-6

Source: www.sci.news

Clues from ancient canoes suggest thriving trade in the Mediterranean region 7,000 years ago

Posted on March 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Canoes are up to 10 meters long and are made by hollowing out trees.

Gibaja et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0

More than 7,000 years ago, skilled craftsmen built wooden canoes to probably transport people, animals, and goods across the Mediterranean.

Scientists identified five boats with evidence of advanced navigation techniques, such as lateral bracing and towing attachments. The canoe, found in a freshwater lake and inadvertently kept secret for decades, likely enabled trade and transportation between Mediterranean farming communities during the Neolithic period. Niccolo Mazzucco At the University of Pisa, Italy.

Along with the well-preserved village where they were discovered, the canoes “opened a window into the past,” he says.

In 1989, Italian researchers discovered a site buried beneath a lake slightly northwest of Rome, 38 kilometers upstream from the west coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and named it La Marmotta. In addition to several wooden buildings, a dugout canoe made by burning and hollowing out wood was also found.

Despite these discoveries, the language barrier prevented it from becoming internationally famous, and almost all relevant information was only published in Italian, it said. Mario Mineo At the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome, which took part in the discovery.

Now, Mazzucco, Mineo, and their colleagues have made new observations of these canoes using modern methods and shared their findings in English.

Lasse Sorensen David, from the National Museum of Denmark, who was not involved in the study, said he was unaware of these boats, despite having done extensive research on dugout canoes in Scandinavia.

He is particularly intrigued by a wooden T-shaped device attached to the canoe. Holes drilled in them suggest that they were probably used for ropes, implying that the boat was being towed. That way, Sorensen said, he would have been able to transport “more people, more animals, more goods.” “So these details are very important because they provide evidence of how they were actually able to transport large quantities of goods.”

Using the latest carbon dating techniques, the research team dated each ship to 6,000 BC. The two oldest ships were built in 5620 BC, and the newest in 5045 BC. Carbon dating of one of the T-shaped accessories revealed that it was made around 5470 BC.

The length of the boat is up to 10 meters. Its size suggests it was used at sea, Mazzucco said. Recent tests of replicas of these canoes confirmed that The original would have been seaworthy. Foreign grains, livestock remains, and stones found in the village indicate that the villagers were trading across the Mediterranean region.

To identify the wood used to build the boats, the team cut nine thin wood samples from each canoe. After analyzing them under a microscope, the researchers determined that two of the boats, including the oldest, were made from alder wood, which is lightweight and resistant to splintering and cracking. The newest boats were made of durable and rot-resistant oak, while the other two were made of poplar and beech.

“They probably had a good knowledge of wood types and their properties, so they selected them and used them based on those properties,” Mazzucco says. “They worked with wood with the same knowledge as today's carpenters, just with different tools.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The human brain remains mysteriously intact after thousands of years

Posted on March 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A 1,000-year-old human brain unearthed from a churchyard in Ypres, Belgium.The tissue folds, which are still soft and wet, are stained orange with iron oxide.

Alexandra L. Morton Hayward

Studies of human brains that have been naturally preserved for hundreds or thousands of years have identified 1,300 cases in which the organ survived when all other soft tissue had decomposed. Some of these brains are over 12,000 years old.

“This type of brain is the only one with preserved soft tissue and has been found in sunken ships and flooded graves with only floating bones.” alexandra morton hayward at Oxford University. “It's really, really weird.”

“To be honest, we don't expect the brain to be preserved in any environment,” she says. “As an archaeologist, if you were to dig a grave and find a brain rattling inside a skull, you would be shocked. But you don't expect soft tissue to be preserved, especially in a waterlogged environment. yeah.”

Morton-Hayward first became interested in brain preservation while working as a mortician. “The brain is known to be one of the first organs to decompose after death. I saw it liquefy pretty quickly. But I also saw it preserved.” she says.

Many researchers point out that the human brain is preserved more often than expected and in surprising circumstances, says Morton-Hayward. Now, she and her colleagues are conducting the first-ever systematic study of this phenomenon. They compiled a database of more than 4,400 preserved human brains found around the world.

They also collected and studied many preserved brains themselves. “We actually put it in an MRI machine, and that was a terrible mistake. We didn't know how much iron was in there,” says Morton Hayward.

In most cases, brain preservation can be explained by known processes. For example, the brains of sacrificial Incas buried atop volcanoes in South America around 1450 AD were freeze-dried along with the bodies, Morton-Hayward said.

2,400 years ago, the bodies and brains of swamp people like Tollundman, who was hanged and dumped in a swamp in what is now Denmark, were preserved through a tanning process similar to that used for leather.

Saponification, in which fatty substances are turned into a soap form called grave wax, also preserved the brains of some people who were shot and buried in mass graves in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.

However, the known process preserves all soft tissue, not just the brain. They do not account for the 1300 cases in which the brain is the only surviving soft tissue.

“This unknown mechanism is completely different,” says Morton-Hayward. “The key feature of this device is that only the brain and bones remain. There is no skin, no muscle, and no intestines.”

For example, St. Hedwig of Silesia was buried in Poland in 1243. When her body was exhumed in the 17th century, it was discovered that her brain was preserved, and at the time it was thought to be due to divine powers.

Alexandra Morton Hayward holds a preserved 1000-year-old brain

graham poulter

Morton-Hayward's working hypothesis is that under certain circumstances, substances such as iron can catalyze the formation of cross-links between proteins and lipids, forming more stable molecules that resist degradation. The nature or ratio of proteins and lipids in the brain may be key.

“The mechanisms are similar to those seen in neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia,” she says. “So if we can understand what happens to the brain after death, we may be able to understand what happens to the brain as it ages during life.”

“It's great news that the data is being made public,” he says. brittany moeller He is one of the researchers at James Cook University in Melbourne, Australia who discovered that: Brain preservation is more common than thought. “This may raise researchers' awareness of the possibility of preserving brain material,” she says.

This is important because preserved brains are often the same color as the surrounding soil. “Therefore, it is very likely that brain material is not recognized for what it is and is frequently discarded during archaeological excavations,” Moller says.

Although this study focused on the human brain, the findings should also apply to animals. Morton Hayward says there are at least 700 examples of animal brains preserved as fossils, the oldest of which he says is an arthropod from 500 million years ago.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Indigenous Australians’ management of land through fire spans 11,000 years.

Posted on March 11, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Aboriginal people use fire to manage the landscape

Penny Tweedy/Getty Images

Analysis of sediment cores taken from ancient lakes shows that Australia's indigenous peoples have been using fire to manage their environment for at least 11,000 years.

michael bird Researchers at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, say their findings suggest that returning to indigenous regimes of more frequent but smaller fires could reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. This suggests that environmental management could be improved.

It has long been known that Australia's first people, who are thought to have lived on the continent for 65,000 years, carefully managed the landscape, using fire to make it easier to move around and hunt prey. . They also realized that this benefits some of the plants and animals they like and reduces the risk of more dangerous fires.

But how long this has been going on is difficult to establish, Bird said. That's because most waterways dry up completely during the annual dry season, destroying carbon in the sediment.

Girraween Lagoon, near Darwin in the Northern Territory, is a huge sinkhole that covers an area of about 1 hectare and has remained permanently wet for at least 150,000 years. As the climate changed over the millennia, so did the vegetation around the sinkhole. “Girraween Lagoon has 150,000 years worth of sediment that has never dried out,” says Bird.

Bird and his colleagues were able to study three important indicators by analyzing sediment cores from the lagoon floor. It is a measure of the accumulation of fine charcoal particles, the proportion of burnt material in charred vegetation material, and the amount of different types of charcoal. Carbon that remains after combustion.

The first two indicators allow researchers to estimate the intensity of the fire, and the third indicates whether the fire was cold enough to leave traces of grass.

Before the arrival of humans, natural fires in the savanna of northern Australia were ignited by lightning strikes at the end of the dry season, when the vegetation and landscape were almost completely dry. This type of more intense fire burns biomass more completely, especially fine fuels such as grass and trash, leaving less grass uncharted.

Indigenous fires, on the other hand, burn more frequently, but with much lower heat, and their impact is confined to smaller areas and to the ground layer, promoting a mosaic of vegetation and helping to protect biodiversity.

Byrd said recent layers of the core show more frequent fires and clear evidence of grass that hasn't completely burned, indicating the fires are cooler. . This type of fire is very different from traditional natural fire patterns and is evidence of indigenous fire management, he says.

Researchers collect sediment cores in Girraween Lagoon, Northern Territory, Australia

michael bird

This signal can be seen in sediments that are at least 11,000 years old, but the study found that metrics for the proportion of grass and tree debris before that point have become difficult to study. Bird said there are signs of human fire starting 40,000 years ago, but the evidence is less clear.

“This means that savannahs have been growing alongside humans for at least 11,000 years,” he says. “Biodiversity has grown with that fire policy. When you remove this kind of burnout, you start to see serious problems with biodiversity.”

david bowman Researchers from Australia's University of Tasmania say the paper highlights the twin importance of climate and humans in shaping fire regimes.

“Decoupling climate from anthropogenic and, importantly, indigenous fire management is a very important topic,” he says. “As we fight to combat climate-induced wildfires around the world, a long-term perspective like this will be an invaluable addition to current research and development in sustainable fire management. .”

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Source: www.newscientist.com