Science & TechnologyS


Archaeology

Rare skeletons up to 30,000 years old reveal when ancient humans went through puberty

Kristina Killgrove
Live Science
Mon, 16 Sep 2024 20:22 UTC
puberty ancient adolescents
© Mila Tomsich via Getty ImagesResearchers looked at about a dozen skeletons from the last ice age, including those from Arene Candide in Italy (pictured here) to determine when teenagers hit major puberty milestones
An analysis of around a dozen teenagers who lived during the Paleolithic reveals that they hit puberty around the same time modern teens do.

Most ice age teens started puberty around the same time as humans in modern times do, according to archaeologists who studied the skeletons of adolescents who died in Europe between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago. But physical maturity was delayed in some individuals, likely because of their challenging and hazardous lifestyles.

An international team of researchers studied the skeletons of 13 adolescents recovered from seven archaeological sites in Italy, Russia and Czechia (the Czech Republic). In a study published Sept. 12 in the Journal of Human Evolution, the researchers detailed their use of "maturation markers" on the skeletons to estimate different puberty stages in teens who died in the Upper Paleolithic period.
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Sun

The sun is doing something that it is not supposed to do, and that could mean big trouble in the months ahead

Michael
The Economic Collapse
Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00 UTC
thesun
© UnknownThe Sun
The giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around has been far more active than scientists originally anticipated this year, and that could have very serious implications for all of us in the months ahead. Fluctuations in solar activity affect our climate more than anything else does, and we also tend to see more earthquakes when solar activity is at elevated levels. The current solar cycle is supposed to reach a peak at some point during the next 12 months, but so far there are no signs that solar activity is slowing down. In fact, the average number of sunspots that we witnessed last month was the highest that we have seen since 2001...
The average number of sunspots reached 215.5 in August, according to the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center at the Royal Observatory in Belgium. It's the highest number since Sept.-Dec. 2001, according to SpaceWeather.com. July's total was 196.5. Last month, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a preliminary statement that solar activity is at its highest since March 2001.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
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Better Earth

45-million-year-old extinct species of walnut discovered on remote Arctic island

Makena Lang, Florida Museum of Natural History
Sci Tech Daily
Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:10 UTC
walnut ancient
© Florida Museum photo by Jeff GageThree new species of walnuts have been found above the Arctic Circle, remnants of a time when the North and South Poles were covered in forests.
The discovery of extinct walnuts in the Arctic suggests a warmer historical climate with dense forests, extending our knowledge of walnut evolution and geographic spread.

Scientists have discovered three new speciesA species is a group of living organisms that share a set of common characteristics and are able to breed and produce fertile offspring. The concept of a species is important in biology as it is used to classify and organize the diversity of life. There are different ways to define a species, but the most widely accepted one is the biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce viable offspring in nature. This definition is widely used in evolutionary biology and ecology to identify and classify living organisms." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" tabindex="0" role="link">species of extinct walnuts on an island above the Arctic Circle. The fossils were discovered further north than any known walnut species, living or extinct, and represent some of the oldest-known records of this group.

Comment: A wealth of evidence suggests that these regions were warmer in the much more recent past, and so could it be that those walnuts are actually much, much younger?

In Pierre Lescaudron's article Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes, he details some of the evidence:
[...]
Charles Hapgood compiled the locations of the geographic poles over the ages and his results were unexpected. For example, during the Pleistocene - the epoch that lasted from about 2,588,000 years ago and ended with the Younger Dryas - the geographic pole occupied 15 different locations.

The Laurentide ice sheet represented most of the Northern ice cap which covered almost all of Canada, Greenland (except its coast) and a small fraction of Northern Europe. All the rest of the Northern hemisphere including the Arctic Ocean, Alaska, Siberia and part of the Yukon were ice free.
Location of the Ross sea. The green dot indicates the antipode of Hudson Bay.
Location of the Ross sea. The green dot indicates the antipodes of Hudson Bay.
The above strongly suggests that before the Younger Dryas, the North geographic pole was located around Hudson Bay, which is about 60° North - that is; 30 degrees in latitude away from the current North pole.

Second, the ancient maps which represent an ice-free Antartica.

A group of ancient maps, called "maps of the ancient sea kings" was published in 1531 by the French geographer Oronce Fine, but the maps were far more ancient than 1531. Apparently they were drawn by some very ancient people then preserved by some past civilizations (Greeks, Phoenicians, etc), and finally discovered by Fine.
[...]
The above evidence strongly suggests that, about 13,000 years ago, the geographic North pole was located around Hudson Bay, which is about 60° N, or 30° away from the current North pole.

This would have placed Northern Siberia at 40° degrees of latitude North (the current longitude of Northern Siberia is 70°, to which we subtract 30°, giving us 40° N).

40°N is the current latitude of Spain, Greece, Italy, California and Nevada. It is a latitude typical of temperate climate. It is under this temperate latitude that the woolly mammoths lived, but it's not under this latitude that their corpses were preserved frozen.

The cometary bombardment had dramatic effects for our planet, including the location of its geographic poles. Now let's look at how it happened.
And in his article Did Earth 'Steal' Martian Water? we can see further evidence for why dating in the region may not be particularly reliable.

See also:

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Cassiopaea

'Abundant' live fungi, bacteria, viruses, found high in Earth's atmosphere, new study reveals

Bob Yirka
Phys.org
Thu, 12 Sep 2024 14:46 UTC
fungi virus atmosphere
© Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2404191121FLEXPART space-time simulations 4 days back in time for each individual day of flights for all 10 flights in February and April of 2014.
A team of climate, health and atmospheric specialists in Spain and Japan has found abundant live fungi, bacteria and viruses high in the Earth's atmosphere. In their study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group collected air samples from altitudes of 1,000-3,000 meters.

Prior research has shown that dust can travel thousands of miles in the atmosphere — large amounts of dust from Africa are carried to both North and South America, for example. Prior research has also shown that microbes that attach to dust can be carried equally far.

Comment: These findings support Dr Wickramasinghe's research on viruses from space, and their possible role in evolution - as well as their possible role in (near) extinction; because a number of plagues throughout history, like the Black Death, could not have traveled at the speeds, across the terrain, and at the time of year, that they did, unless they were spread via the air. Which, notably, was partly what people believed at the time.

See also:

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Airplane

Major TSA security flaw exposed, simple SQL vulnerability could have allowed access to airplane cockpits

Zo Ahmed
Techspot
Mon, 09 Sep 2024 12:51 UTC
ckpoint
© Unknown
An attacker could have added fake pilots to the roster using SQL injection.

Why it matters: Security researchers have uncovered a major vulnerability that could have allowed anyone to bypass airport security and even access airplane cockpits. The flaw was found in the login system used by the Transportation Security Administration to verify airline crew members at checkpoints.

The story began in April when researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curry were exploring a third-party website called FlyCASS. This vendor provides smaller airlines with access to the TSA's Known Crewmember (KCM) and Cockpit Access Security System (CASS) databases. While testing the site's login page, they noticed a telltale MySQL error appear after inserting an apostrophe - a classic sign of an SQL injection flaw.
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Gold mine

Study finds earthquakes can trigger quartz into forming giant gold nuggets

Sascha Pare
Live Science
Wed, 11 Sep 2024 18:00 UTC
gold vein in quartz earthquake
© Henri Koskinen via AlamyGold nuggets form inside quartz veins, which are cracks in the rock infilled with mineral-rich hydrothermal fluids.
Geologists have known for decades that gold forms in quartz with the help of earthquakes, but now they have worked out exactly how the setting and seismic waves combine to form large nuggets.

Scientists have discovered exactly how earthquakes trigger quartz into forming large gold nuggets — finally solving a mystery that's puzzled researchers for decades.

Gold naturally forms in quartz — the second-most abundant mineral in Earth's crust after feldspar. But unlike other types of gold deposits, those found in quartz often cluster into giant nuggets. These nuggets float in the middle of what geologists call quartz veins, which are cracks in quartz-rich rocks that periodically get pumped full of hydrothermal fluids from deep within the crust.

"Gold forms in quartz all the time," said Chris Voisey, a geologist at Monash University in Australia and the lead author of a new study published Monday (Sept. 2) in the journal Nature Geoscience. "The thing that's weird is really, really large gold nugget formation. We didn't know how that worked — how you get a large volume of gold to mineralize in one discreet little place," Voisey told Live Science.
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Fireball 5

6 doomsday asteroids that may crash into Earth someday, scientists warn

Prisha
WION
Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:28 UTC
Representational image of asteroid.
Representational image of asteroid.
Recently, scientists were caught off guard when an undetected asteroid crashed into the atmosphere of Earth on Wednesday (Sep 4) and burned in space.

The astronomers spotted the asteroid just eight hours before it turned into a fireball above the Philippines.


Comment: Moment asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere like a ball of fire over the Philippines on September 5


However, asteroid 2024 RW1 - which crashed into the atmosphere of the Earth - was too small to cause any damage.

But its late detection and crash into the atmosphere of Earth reminded experts of the dangers which have been lurking in the solar system.

Here are six asteroids which carry the risk of crashing into Earth

The experts have warned that from 'Valentine's Day asteroid' to other space rocks, six asteroids stand a chance of smashing into the Earth. These asteroids are:
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Info

Hints of a hidden structure detected at the edge of the Solar System

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Fri, 06 Sep 2024 16:38 UTC
An artist's impression of the Kuiper Belt.
© ESO/M. KornmesserAn artist's impression of the Kuiper Belt.
If you travel far enough away from the Sun, the Solar System becomes a lot more populated.

Out past the orbit of Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a vast, ring-shaped field of icy rocks. This is where Pluto resides, and Arrokoth, and countless other small objects in the cold and the dark.

These are known as Kuiper Belt objects or KBOs, and astronomers have just found hints of an unexpected rise in their density, between 70 and 90 astronomical units from the Sun, separated by a large, practically empty gap between it and an inner population of KBOs closer to the Sun.

It seems, almost, like there are two Kuiper Belts, or at least two components - something nobody was expecting to find.

"If this is confirmed, it would be a major discovery," says planetary scientist Fumi Yoshida of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences and Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan.

"The primordial solar nebula was much larger than previously thought, and this may have implications for studying the planet formation process in our Solar System."

The objects in the Kuiper Belt are thought to represent the most pristine material our Solar System contains.
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Nebula

Food dye tartrazine makes mice skin as transparent 'as glass', revealing organs, scientists discover

Lauren J. Young
Scientific American
Fri, 06 Sep 2024 20:18 UTC
tartrazine
© Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science FoundationNew research harnessed the highly absorbent dye tartrazine, used as the common food coloring Yellow No. 5, to turn tissues in living mice clear — temporarily revealing organs and vessels inside the animals. Skin normally scatters light, a phenomenon represented by white lines in the beginning of this clip. When the food, drug and cosmetic dye Yellow No. 5 is absorbed by skin, however, it reduces scattering and allows light to penetrate deeper, making the tissue transparent. (This technique has not been tested on humans. Dyes may be harmful. Always exercise caution with dyes and do not consume them directly, apply them to people or animals or otherwise misuse them.)
In mere minutes, smearing mice with a common food dye can make a desired portion of their skin almost as transparent as glass.

In a study published today in Science, researchers spread a solution of the dye tartrazine, a common coloring for foods, drugs and cosmetics, onto living mice to turn their tissues clear — creating a temporary window that revealed organs, muscles and blood vessels in their body. The procedure — a new form of a technique known as "optical tissue clearing" — has not yet been tested in humans, but it may someday offer a way to view and monitor injuries or diseases without the need of specialized imaging equipment or invasive surgery.

"One unique part about our strategy is that we are changing the optical properties of the tissue directly," says the study's lead author Zihao Ou, a physicist at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Comment: Considering how many significant discoveries are still being made about the human body, and the profound impact these are having on our health, this seems notable: The following documentary detailing the real time study of fascia, made possible by technological advances of the time, perhaps gives an idea of the discovery's possible implications:



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Cupcake Pink

Evidence of human genetic adaptation to carbohydrates since adoption of agriculture 12,000 years ago revealed in new study

Laura Baisas
Popular Science
Thu, 05 Sep 2024 18:18 UTC
Bronze Age
© Nikola NevenovFILE: Bronze Age family harvesting grain. Some human populations gained extra genes to help break down starch in only 12,000 years.
High-carbohydrate staples like wheat dramatically increased in the human diet when agriculture began to spread.

Our bodies absolutely need carbohydrates for energy. It's a matter of survival.


Comment: The majority of humans do appear to need some carbohydrates in their diet, however, note that these particular adaptations appear to have occurred in just the last 12,000 years, so it seems that, whilst humans have been on the planet for at least 200,000+ years, their dietary needs, or more likely their consumption habits, changed relatively recently.


So much so, that some human populations have actually increased the number of genes that help break down starches and sugars over the past 12,000 years. In that time, Europeans have gone from an average of eight starch breaking down genes to over 11.

The adaptation tracks a shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more agrarian one, as agriculture spread across Europe from the Middle East. High-carbohydrate staples like wheat dramatically increased in the human diet and the ability to efficiently absorb all of that energy was advantageous. The findings are detailed in a study published September 4 in the journal Nature.


Comment: The ability to absorb it more efficiently may have been advantageous when meat was, for whatever reason, more scarce. Because, otherwise, the data show that grain consumption for humans is. overall, deleterious.


Focus on the 'amylase locus'

Comment: Some groups of humans also evolved to be better able to digest animal milk components, like the fat, protein, and sugars, however it appears that, again, this was an evolutionary matter of survival. And there's evidence showing that these dietary shifts such occurred alongside significant climatic upheaval. So it may be that, at least for a period, the consumption of milk, relatively suddenly, became a necessity for survival.

Given how the archeological record shows how the adoption of agriculture had various deleterious effects on human health, and so it may be that these particular genetic adaptations for carbohydrates were also a matter of survival:

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