Newsdesk Archive

As the stalled tropical storm that was once Hurricane Harvey continues to drench Houston, Texas, turning streets into muddy rivers, NASA workers are keeping watch over a giant $8.6 billion space telescope at the edge of the city.  The James Webb Space Telescope is currently sitting inside a massive, sealed cryogenic chamber at the Johnson Space Center, as floodwaters rise, and here's how they are protecting it.

A picture's worth a thousand words... Article contains a link to watch trending NBC video footage of historic post-hurricane flooding in Houston, Texas.

A sculpture of an unknown Egyptian pharaoh's head, found at the ancient city of Hazor in Israel, dates back around 4,300 years. The sculpture was smashed apart around 3,300 years ago, possibly after an Israeli force led by King Joshua destroyed the city.  The person depicted wears a short, close-fitting, curled cap wig, topped by a uraeus, the solar cobra, thus identifying the figure as a pharaoh beyond any doubt.

NASA is turning to a mysterious 2,300-year-old ancient device, referred to as the first ever computer on Earth, the Antikythera Mechanism, to construct a Rover which would survive the extreme environment on Venus.

Archaeologists excavating Cata Sand, a bay on the Orkney island of Sanday, have unearthed the remains of an Early Neolithic house and at least a dozen 19th century whale skeletons. The prehistoric structure dates to between 3400 and 3100 B.C. and is fairly extensive with its original hearth and remains of walls.

As if the Nazca lines weren’t already mysterious enough—there are more than 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures and 70 animal and plant designs at Nazca—if you plot the Nazca lines over the entire planet, they converge at one specific spot.

Generations of children and their families have scaled Serpent Mound Park’s 100 year-old viewing tower to take in the full scope of the 1,420 foot-long serpent, the largest effigy of its kind in the world.  It is now a familiar sight, but there was a time when the ancient earthworks was threatened with extinction.

In an unusual reproducibility effort, 14 ecology labs across Europe have teamed up to watch grass grow, using identical soil and seeds shipped round the continent. Their study is part of a budding movement to bolster trust in ecological research. Following the reproducibility crisis that has gripped psychology and biomedical science, ecologists are starting to recognize that their own field might not be immune to doubts over the reliability of its findings.

A vegetarian woman in southern California with meat allergies was about to eat an organic salad recently when she found a piece of protein she didn’t expect: a tiny living frog.  The salad was marketed by Taylor Farms and sold at Target.

A research team at the University of Bristol, UK, has developed a relatively cheap and small acoustic levitator that is capable of holding samples of interest in mid-air.   Both scientists and students can build their own levitator at home or school to experiment with new applications of acoustic levitation.

Internet Rule #1: Never read the comments.  A recent study, compiled by Wired magazine and Disqus, analyzed 92 million comments over a 16-month period written by almost 2 million authors on more than 7,000 forums.  Results reveal everything from the trolliest time of day, to the nastiest state in the US, detailed in a colour-gradient map.  Toxic comments, also known as nastygrams, now have their own rating system.  New software programs now allow "shadow banning" by moderators to block hostile users without their knowledge.  If you can't see the trolls, you can't feed the trolls.

Looters of Egypt's antiquities are using social media to seek out professional Egyptologists, and others with knowledge of Egypt's past, to better loot archaeological sites and sell antiquities.  Article contains firsthand report of its whistleblowing author's contact with these illicit requests on Facebook.

A new study reports on the incidence of abnormal cervical vertebrae in woolly rhinos, which strongly suggests a vulnerable condition in the species. Given the considerable birth defects that are associated with this condition, the researchers argue it is very possible that developmental abnormalities contributed towards the eventual extinction of these late Pleistocene mammals.

About 13,000 years ago, more than three-fourths of the large Ice Age animals, including woolly mammoths, mastodons, sabertoothed tigers and giant bears, died out.  Scientists have debated for years over the cause of the extinction, with both of the major hypotheses — human overhunting and climate change — insufficient to account for the mega die-off. Recent research suggests that an extraterrestrial object, possibly a comet about 3 miles wide, may have exploded over southern Canada, nearly wiping out an ancient Stone Age culture as well as megafauna like mastodons and mammoths.

The major seafaring group in Mexico were the Chontal Maya. They called themselves Putun.  The Spanish names for many Mexican tribes are based on their names derived from the Nahuatl language. The Spanish referred to the Putun as Chontal from the Nahuatl word: chontalli, meaning ‘foreigner’.

Lengthy but fascinating article detailing its author's premise regarding interpretation of new discoveries of Stonehenge:  that symbols of cosmic skygod Orion, overlord of Stonehenge, and his scythe remain on Salisbury Plain. The Celtic festival of Lughnassadh provided means for the people to participate in one of the important events in the cycle of life, events deemed vital enough to be forever carved symbolically as artifacts coverings the Stonehenge Sacred Landscape. The Stonehenge Palisade is but one of many. Whether it was built over 6 meters (20 ft.) tall or finished to the grade of the adjoining ground surface, the symbolism is clear.

According to Japanese weed museum curator Junichi Takayasu, the earliest evidence of cannabis in Japan dates back to the Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.) with pottery relics recovered in Fukui Prefecture containing seeds and scraps of woven cannabis fibers.  Cannabis once played a key role in Japan's religion, especially in Shintoism, which is the country’s indigenous religion, where it was revered for its cleansing abilities, which is why priests used to wave bundles of its leaves to bless believers and exorcise evil spirits.

When the Panamanian land bridge formed around 3 million years ago, Southern Mexico was in the middle of a great biotic interchange of large animals from North and South America that crossed the continents in both directions.  However, fossil animals from this time have been rare for the in-between environments of Central America and southern Mexico.  Recently, a team of technical cavedivers are helping fill in this gap by discovering remains of varieties of megafauna that once roamed the Yucatán Peninsula during the end of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago.

Maya cultivars affected politics, laws, customs, technology and financial empires. They have spurred armed revolutions, initiated rebellions, altered political boundaries, inspired industrial, technical and scientific revolutions, started college systems, promoted deadly habits, sparked sporting empires and changed cultural speech, music and lifestyles.

A witness tree begins its life like any other tree. It sprouts. It grows. And then it’s thrust into the spotlight, playing an involuntary part in a significant historic event; often a devastating, landscape-scarring battle or other tragic moment. Once Civil War soldiers march on to their next battle, say, or a country turns its attention to healing after a terrorist attack, a witness tree remains as a biologically tenacious symbol of the past.   This article from Smithsonian spotlights five such significant and historic trees.

Currently available in four US states, the technology used by EnChroma, a company based in Berkeley, Calif., was developed in 2010 with funding from the National Institutes of Health. Eyeglasses with EnChroma cost about $269 to $349. They can also be made with prescription lenses. The lenses are effective for about four out of five people with red-green color vision deficiency. They are not a cure for colorblindness.

A Bronze Age stone circle in the Scottish Highlands has seen its fair share of visitors after it featured in timetraveling TV show Outlander. But it appears to have been a mixed blessing after visitors to the Clava Cairns reported an increase of graffiti, road blockages, and mock seances.  CCTV is now being recommended to help protect the stones from damage.

Floating colonies of fire ants, as many as 500,000 in one group, are banding together to stay above water in flood-wracked Houston, Texas—and they bite.  “Floodwaters will not drown fire ants,”said a specialist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. "Floating fire ant colonies can look like ribbons, streamers, mats, rafts, or an actual ‘ball’ of ants floating on the water.”

Well over half of all adults will experience low back pain in their lifetimes.  Combining the science of biomechanics and advances in wearable tech, and funded by multiple grants, a team of engineers has designed a smart, mechanized undergarment that could help reduce lower back pain.

Mouse beans, makatomnica in the Lakota language, also called hog peanuts, are seeds from a perennial climbing plant native to areas cross the Great Plains.  Meaty and filled with protein, mouse beans were once an important, reliable food source for the Oceti Sakowin peoples, Lakota, Dakota and Nakota living along the Missouri River. Their near-extinction in that environment is a metaphor for the devastating impact of US development and flooding of tribal lands on Native peoples and cultures.  As explained by ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk, tribal elders tell stories of times gone by when women would dig up the large caches of beans gathered by mice on the floor of cottonwood forests along the Missouri River, singing beautiful songs that asked the mice's permission to share their harvest.

The lives of ancient humans remain a magnetic topic. To help piece together extinct cultures, behaviors, and origins, experts use two tools that sometimes provoke more debates than answers: physical evidence and theories. Scholarly debates can become so heated that only new discoveries can break the stalemates. However, sometimes, new “breakthroughs” are so controversial that they add more fuel to the fire.  Here are the top 10 recent discoveries in that everchanging field compiled by ListVerse.

In the latest of a string of sightings of a big cat resembling a 'black panther' in the Yorkshire area around a decade ago, a golfer was stunned to spot an apparent 'black panther' strolling across the fairway as he was about to play a shot. He managed to capture a photograph, and officials are investigating.

In 1977, NASA's twin Voyager space probes ventured into space carrying an audio message on golden discs.  The records were designed to be played at 16.67 rpm—half the usual speed of a typical phonograph record—trading audio fidelity for extended length. For the approximately two hours of sounds, the committee selected vocal greetings in 55 Earth languages; sounds such as thunder and machinery; and music from around the world.  As Dr. Carl Sagan himself observed, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”  Article contains an interactive link to listen to the recording.

Ancient stories of the indigenous people of the Heiltsuk Nation say that their ancestors sheltered on a mysterious strip of coastline in Canada during the last Ice Age. Thanks to the recent discovery of a 14,000-year-old settlement, science is now reaffirming those claims. There is also evidence to suggest that the sea-level around Triquet Island has remained remarkably stable for 15,000 years throughout the end of the last Ice Age.  This again confirms that this area acted as a haven of stability over millennia, just as the Heiltsuk Nation have said all along.

In 1958, a large earthquake along the Fairweather Fault struck Southeastern Alaska. A combination of disturbances triggered by the earthquake generated a mega-tsunami wave that rose to a maximum height of 1,720 feet (516 meters) at the head of Lituya Bay.  A handful of people witnessed this event firsthand.  Evidence for multiple prior events in Lituya Bay suggests that giant waves occur there every 30-40 years on average, so the 1958 event is quite unlikely to be the last

The idea that Africans fail to carry Neanderthal DNA has recently been proven as wrong. Marc Haber, a British geneticist, has found that the Touboo in Chad and the Amhara in Ethiopia carry Neanderthal genes. Whereas Eurasians carry ~2% Neanderthal ancestry, Ethiopians carry ~1% Neanderthal ancestry, and Central Africans carried ~0.5% Neanderthal ancestry.

Drones equipped with a shark detection system powered by artificial intelligence will start patrolling some Australian beaches from next month in a bid to improve safety.  These devices can also tag dolphins and whales with live video feed in real-time.

The 2,500-year-old Iron Age Ballachulish Goddess has “returned” to the Scottish Highland lochside where she was found after being recreated by a team of archaeologists researching prehistoric creativity. The life-size carving, which dates to around 600BC, was discovered face down in Highland peat in 1880.  The new replica goddess statue, carved from birch with Iron Age tools, was then placed to overlook Loch Leven close to the peat bog where she was found. Some believe she was originally worshipped by sailors to insure safe passage over the water.

A cave used as a hunting shelter up to 50,000 years ago has given archaeologists an unprecedented insight into the life of the earliest Australians. Boodie Cave on Barrow Island, off Western Australia, was the center of research conducted by a team of international archaeologists, who this month said its work pushed back human occupation of Australia by at least 3,000 years.  The cave was abandoned 7,000 years ago when rising sea levels cut it off from the mainland.

The mystery of building the Great Pyramid may have been solved by Stephen Blakely, an engineer from Alton.  His pulley device has lifted stones weighing 4,500 lbs.  But the publication of his successful experiment was greeted with... dead silence. It wasn’t as if people rushed forward to denounce the theory, or even be skeptical about it. Egyptologists simply ignored it. Blakely would really love to give a presentation at some prestigious Egyptology conference, but he does not have the academic chops for that.  He’s just an engineer. Just like the guys who built the Great Pyramid.

New research clarifies the genetic exchange that brought us today’s domesticated apples. Silk Road travelers, trading their goods and ideas across Eurasia, brought with them hitchhiking apple seeds, discarded from the choicest fruit pulled from wild trees. This early selection would eventually lead to the 7,500 varieties of apple that exist today.

Thought-provoking article from Psychology Today's 'In One Lifespan' series, by a professor from Ireland, which expounds the premise that our current dispositions – e.g., feelings of optimism, pessimism, or hope – may cause adoption of a particular perspective or belief in relation to our future: We may believe that future will be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  Perspective and belief can be more or less fixed, rigid.  Fixed beliefs may lead us to ignore aspects of reality, and act in ways that confirm our beliefs.

Thought-provoking article from Psychology Today's 'In One Lifespan' series, by a professor from Ireland, which looks at the geologic chronology of the past, and speculates about Science and Technology in the future for the third millennium of Holocene sapiens.

Thought-provoking article from Psychology Today's 'In One Lifespan' series, by a professor from Ireland, which looks at the fact that, as a collective, at least in his field of psychology and social science, scientists are slowly maturing beyond the idea that they, and their disciplines, stand alone, separate from their more or less mature colleagues.  A growing body of scientists are embracing a more transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary worldview, all of which basically means they are more willing to work together and share their knowledge.

After being shut down for almost seven years, the Rommel Cave Museum of Egypt again sees the light of the day. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities reopened the museum at seaside Matrouh province after a long closure for restoration. According to a press statement, the museum houses a collection of weapons, shells and military equipment used during World War II, as well as military attire and maps.

The journey to harvest hallucinogenic honey produced by Himalayan giant honey bees is far from easy. In eastern Nepal, select members of the Kulung people scale bamboo rope ladders up 300-foot (91 metre) cliffs to get it. They ward off swarms of the bees with smoke from burning grass attached to a pole, while trying to gather the precious liquid. Apparently, toxins from certain flowers at certain times of year cause the bees to produce a psychotropic type of red honey.  A documentary film called The Last Honey Hunter will be released in 2018.  The article contains a video clip.

Scientists tested the drug-seeking behavior in an aquarium that allowed zebrafish to trigger the release of the opioid hydrocodone in the water, self-medicating themselves. The new study, published in Behavioral Brain Research, can be used to study the underlying biological pathways that push zebrafish to seek drugs. Because zebrafish and humans are surprisingly similar, that could lead to new treatments for addiction.

Khaled Al-Anani, Minister of Antiquities, and Mohamed Badr, governor of Luxor, announced the discovery of a new archaeological necropolis in Luxor city. According to Anani, a press conference will be held on September 9 to reveal more details about the new discovery.

New study of 3,200-year-old documents including the Harris Papyrus from Pharaoh Ramses III suggests the much-reviled Philistines were not alien belligerents, but simply native Middle Easterners.  Editor's Note: Please be aware that several image graphics in the original article from Irsaeli News site Haaretz are misplaced and obscure a few paragraphs of text.

A new type of executive coaching course is teaching a different kind of mammal with a big bite -- business executives and senior managers -- to learn from awe-inspiring adolescent wolves. The aim is to give people an exploration of what it means to develop "leadership presence", to develop one's "animal self", and to "communicate on a primal level", said one of the co-creators of the "Talking with Wolves" programme in Austria.

A mysterious chemical haze that left scores of people on a stretch of the English coastline with streaming eyes, sore throats and breathing problems has dissipated, but its cause remains a mystery. The gas cloud appeared Sunday, 27 August, sending people fleeing from the beach and cliffs at Birling Gap, a coastal beauty spot about 60 miles (100 kms) south of London.

Residents of a Connecticut town say they're a bunch of sitting ducks, thanks to a flock of aggressive wild turkeys that has been on the attack.  The birds can get up to 24 pounds with a wingspan of about five feet.  They have become dangerous to the elderly, children and mail carriers.

The veterinary community has long known that cannabis — specifically the chemical THC that gives users their high — is toxic to pets. Dogs appear to be even more susceptible because they have more cannabinoid receptors.  However, veterinarians and researchers can’t determine the level of toxicity because cannabis still is listed as a Class 1 drug, which restricts its use even by researchers. What they do know is that cannabis can damage the neurological system in pets and can even sometimes be fatal, and they fear they are just seeing the start of these problems.

With medical marijuana becoming legal in more half of the states in the US right now, and more people turning to cannabis for help with various medical conditions, keeping their medicine away from children and pets is a priority. Here is a slideshow of some new lockable consumer devices that promise to do just that.

This National Geographic blog post from a senior research biologist details that the sunken remains of the steamship Silver Spray have led to explorations of the geology and ecology of an area now known as Morgan Shoal.  The outcrop itself was formed around 425 million years ago, and is made of Silurian dolomite, which is the compressed remains of a coral reef that formed in shallow seas at the time.  Fossil sponges and corals embedded in the bedrock are visible. Rock formations create a three-dimensional space, and the complexity of this habitat plays host to a wide variety of plant and animal species.

On the ancient steps of the remains of the pyramid of Queen Amanishaketo in Meroe, waiting to watch the orange globe of the sun slip beyond the horizon.  This is one of the most sacred places of the little-known Kingdom of Kush (2,400BC to 400AD) that once ruled Egypt and went on to conquer Saharan lands as far north as Lebanon. These pyramids are the remains of a thriving nation.

A unique house nicknamed the "UFO House" was built in Islamorada, in the Florida Keys, in 1978 by architect Peter Vander Klout. As photos show, the deserted dilapidated house is not for sale, but the property alone is valued at $1.6 million.  When the house was built, it was believed to be capable of withstanding a Category 5 hurricane, but that remains doubtful in its crumbling condition.

According to a study by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, wild salmon populations continue to decline because of several different identified factors.  The result: according to Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, between 75 and 90 percent of salmon caught there are hatchery-bred. Indigenous leaders in what became the state of Washington signed seven treaties with the United States in 1854-56.  In addition to ceding lands, those leaders reserved land for their people, as well as “the right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.”  The US District Court upheld Indian treaty fishing rights in a 1974 decision, establishing the treaty tribes and the State of Washington as co-managers of the state’s salmon population.

A crew of scientists who are spending two years aboard a research ship traveling around the world have said they were shocked to find basically all of the Pacific Ocean's reefs to be affected by bleaching.  Final results from the data collected on this trip will be analyzed and released in 2019.

Paleontology is synonymous with excavating fossils, but the stereotype of the rugged, white, male digger could be a barrier to diversity in Earth Science.  This editorial piece written by a doctoral student from University of Edinburgh, promotes the fact that there are many who want to celebrate and encourage the diversity of people, approaches, and scientific contributions among earth sciences. You can never be too well-dressed, or pregnant, or black, or languid, or LGBTQ+  to be a palaeontologist. You don’t even have to wear a hat.

In accordance with UNESCO bilateral cooperation agreement regarding smuggled antiquities, several seized ancient coins and documents were delivered to the Iraqi and Chinese embassies during a handover ceremony held by the Ministry of Antiquities in the Egyptian Museum on Sunday, 27 August.

In the small Armenian village of Byurakan, against the backdrop of Mount Aragats, one of the country’s highest spots, several silver domes can be seen shining in the sun. These domes cover the Byurakan Observatory, a premier astronomical center which was established during the Soviet era.  Armenia has a long history of astronomical study dating back several thousand years, and the observatory played a crucial part bringing it into the realm of modern science and study.

There are thought to be more than 40,000 shipwrecks around the British coast, but very few of them have been identified and explored by archaeologists. The beloved warship Mary Rose from King Henry VIII's fleet, which sank in 1545, will be the last great ship salvaged from British waters, as future visitors will explore shipwrecks using virtual reality instead.

The small town of Cassadaga is the oldest and most active community of psychics and mediums in the United States, founded in 1875 by George Colby, himself a medium. Dubbed the "Psychic Capital of the World", they now offer guided haunted 'spirit encounter' walks for the public, weekly message services from deceased loves ones in the chapel, a meditative Fairy Garden, a mystery phenomenon at Devil's Chair in the town cemetery, new age bookstores, orb photography at Spirit Pond, and even a haunted hotel.

Thought-provoking multiverse article written by an author and professor of Science and Religion from Wesleyan University.  Thinking about a pantheist multiverse prompts us to ask a host of psychological,  ethical, philosophical, and  even theological questions.  They may be controversial and unanswerable in any final sense. But for those who are interested in the history and future of science and religion, such questions should give rise to a far more productive conversation than the tiresome debate over the existence of a supernatural patriarch.

Editorial piece from Inquisitr:  Was an advanced civilization destroyed over 11,000 years ago as Graham Hancock believes?  The scientific community remains skeptical despite the recent scholarly paper supporting many of his dearly held theories.  Graham Hancock is a prolific author with dozens of titles in his bibliography, but the overwhelming body of his most successful works have been about his theories that civilizations existed on Earth over 10,000 years ago. It is a theory the many seem to instinctively want to believe, and also one that academia rejects with great passion. The author of both Fingerprints of the Gods and Magicians of the Gods was quick to point out that current society is based on the idea that the present time is the absolute height of civilization so far. Graham Hancock challenges this assumption.

It can be understandably hard to treat a disease when its cause(s) remain elusive.  A recent study published in Nature Genetics suggests that for migraines, we may have been looking for causes in all the wrong places.  According to the study’s authors, this suggests that migraine is associated with general, not nervous system-specific, inflammatory processes and can possibly be mitigated with some of the same treatments developed for inflammatory diseases.

Discover Magazine's Neuroskeptic blog expounds a study regarding the discussion of scientific papers on Twitter is largely dominated by spam bots, paid content promoters, and “monomaniacs” obsessed with a single issue.  This analysis found: obsessive single issue tweeting, duplicate tweeting from multiple accounts presumably under centralized professional management, bots, and much presumably human tweeting duplicative, almost entirely mechanical tweets devoid of original thought.

The US' first federally approved study to see if medical marijuana can ease pain for those with terminal illnesses is under way in Connecticut. Advocates hope it will make patients less reliant on opioids.  It’s expected to run for at least a year, and the goal is to enroll 66 on-site patients who are well enough to swallow capsules filled with cannabis extract, but whose pain is so bad that they require prescription medication to manage it. Over 1.3 million US hospice patients are facing certain death and hoping to make it as pain-free as possible.

“He looks like he’s scared. He doesn’t know what’s going on,” cab driver Bruso narrates in one of 10 YouTube videos documenting the bird’s surprise visit. “He just kind of hopped on in and doesn’t want to leave. I’m not sure what to make of it.”  Texas Wildlife Rehab Coalition took the bird to a rescue shelter for professional care.  Article contains a video link.

Three page article with bibliography details prevailing theories of the late Klaus Schmidt, and others, regarding this ancient site in Turkey.  One recent paper proposed that a key purpose of the Göbekli Tepe site was to serve as an astronomical observatory to monitor comets and their meteor showers, principally of the Taurid system.

A femur discovered in a cave in southwestern Germany has provided researchers with firm evidence that a small population of humans left Africa and then vanished, long before the big migration that saw humans populate the globe.  Signs of this mysterious early migration remained in the DNA of the Neanderthal leg bone, revealing not only a previous tryst between the two hominin populations, but a sign that Neanderthals were far more diverse than we thought.

Conventional wisdom is that osteoarthritis of the knee results mostly from wear and tear, which is why these days, it's more common among older people and those whose excess body weight puts extra stress on those joints.  For this study, scientists from Harvard University examined human knee joints in museums around the country.  The specimens ranged from the oldest, those of prehistoric Inuit hunter-gatherers of Alaska from 4,000 BC, to more recent ones from Tennessee in 2015.  Though root causes are not pinpointed, the results of the study were unexpected.

If current trends continue, Central Florida's status as a major strawberry producer will depend largely on what happens in Mexico. The labor force is shrinking, and the work is backbreaking.  Robots can work longer hours and harvest crops at night, which is better for the integrity of the fruit.  According to one farmer, if we don't automate American agriculture and these specialty crops like strawberries, they're either going to be very expensive or non-existent within the next 10 years. One farm owner in Plant City, FL, created his own robotics company in 2013, and its first robots are expected to debut next winter.

First appearing in the fossil record some 300,000 years ago, the cave bear vanished between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Countless fossils, especially from the European Alps, have allowed paleontologists to reconstruct the lives of cave bears in great detail.  New research by the University of Zürich, Switzerland, sheds additional light on the biology of this extinct giant.

Archaeologists and composers at the University of York have come together to capture the sounds of the famous limestone gorge, Creswell Crags, a series of cliffs and ravines that contain a cave system once occupied during the Ice Age, between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago.  The soundscape will be played from different points across the site to create a 3-D surround-sound environment. A specially commissioned choral performance by Stonegate Singers will interweave with sound effects to fill the natural auditorium created by the twin cliffs of the gorge.

Among the world’s most diverse marine ecosystems, kelp forests are found on all continental coastlines except for Antarctica and provide critical food and shelter to myriad fish and other creatures. Kelp also is critical to coastal economies, providing billions of dollars in tourism and fishing. The likely culprit, according to several scientific studies, is warming oceans from climate change, coupled with the arrival of invasive species. In Maine, the invaders are other seaweeds. In Australia, the Mediterranean and Japan, tropical fish are feasting on the kelp.

Prehistoric artists in Altamira, Spain, used their rubbish to help make cave art, recycling discarded shells into key tools for making the art. In short, the seashells from Altamira could have been used three times:  First as food, then as tools, then as containers.  Reusing shells like this was a clearly sustainable trick that lasted for 9,000 years.

The Shimao ruins are Neolithic ruins that have been dated to 2000 BC, located at the northern edge of Loess Plateau in Shaanxi Province.  The site is the largest prehistoric city in China and extends over 4 square kilometres (1.5 square miles), rich in archaeological features. Researchers have detected fortified gates,  stone perimeter walls, palaces, houses, tombs, workshops, and sacrificial altars.

Relatively little is known about the iconic species which was wiped out by humans over 350 years ago. The dodo, a flightless bird that once inhabited the island of Mauritius, is perhaps the best known example of a species hunted to extinction by man.The first reported encounter with a dodo was by Dutch sailors in 1598 and by 1662 the species had been completely wiped out due to hunting and the destruction of its habitat.  Now scientists have been able to shed some light on what these long-lost birds might have actually been like by analyzing the bones of 22 specimens under a microscope.

Permafrost is losing in the battle against climate change, and is apparently not as stable as previously thought.  Even as we attempt to mitigate with reduction in fossil fuel use, researchers say thawing permafrost could make our atmosphere 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter over the next few centuries.  Parts of Alaska's permafrost are extremely vulnerable.  The New York Times reports that the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge could disappear by the middle of the century.  Article contains a slideshow of images.

Some have suggested the extinction of Neanderthals was actually a long time coming. It turns out their population may have been on the decline before we even showed up. Perhaps they were already vulnerable to extinction and we just tipped them over the edge. Or at least, that’s what preliminary reports suggested. A recent, thorough review has revealed the opposite might be true. Neanderthals were actually flourishing as humans arrived.

After decades of abandonment, psychedelics are getting new attention from researchers who are proving these medicines can treat addiction, depression, PTSD, and other disorders — but political and regulatory hurdles for widespread acceptance remain.

The 2 minutes of darkness caused by the recent total solar eclipse may seem momentous, but it's nothing compared with the prolonged darkness that followed the dinosaur-killing asteroid that collided with Earth about 65.5 million years ago, a new study finds.  When the 6-mile-wide (10 kilometer) asteroid struck, Earth plunged into a darkness that lasted nearly two years, caused in part by tremendous amounts of soot that came from wildfires worldwide. Without sunlight, Earth's plants couldn't photosynthesize, and the planet drastically cooled. These two key factors likely toppled global food chains and contributed to mass extinction at the end of the dinosaur age known as the Mesozoic, according to the study.

Take a peek inside the Cassini spacecraft team's beloved tradition of Friday breakfast together, going strong since 2006. For more than a decade, members of the Cassini team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) have turned the most important meal of the day into a tradition of friendship, conversation and delectable delights. Now as the mission counts down its final days during Cassini's grand finale, the beloved breakfasts continue to bring together a crew of people who have spent nearly two decades working together.

In 1930, a group of scientists and artists sailed to a tropical island called Nonsuch in Bermuda. They awaited a submersible called the “bathysphere,” which would bring the team of men and women deeper into the ocean than humans had ever gone before and permit the very first studies of deep-sea creatures in their natural waters.  The bathysphere—“bathy” meaning “deep” in Greek—was a hollow, steel ball less than five feet in diameter with three tiny windows and a steel cable tethering it to a ship.  The record human aquatic descent time was a mere 525 feet when curiosity drove us further beneath the waves.

Featuring a museum full of numerous ancient artifacts, many of which were found by chance, the Amasra (Greek Amastris) district of the modern Turkish Bart?n province on the Black Sea is conducting an excavation aimed at unearthing a 5,000-year-old ancient city.

Beliefs in magical creatures can impact the protection of biodiversity, and the field of conservation needs to consider them seriously, researchers have warned. According to a new study by the University of Leeds and Cardiff University, the conservation of threatened species has much to gain from acknowledging people's spiritual, magical and cultural beliefs.

And you thought Game of Thrones was rough. Lower-class young men in medieval London were subjected to extreme levels of violence, far worse than other parts of medieval England.  The upper classes would only have fought in more formal duels, perhaps involving swords, horses, or jousting lances, in which the opponents would have had armour to protect their heads.

The classic image of our ancestors is living in a stone age cave. But what was it really like in the underground homes of early hominids?  This entertaining article provides a whistle-stop tour of 3 million years of human (pre)history's transformation of dark stark caves into decorated homes to be proud of.

The sunken ruins of ancient Simena, Turkey, which was destroyed by earthquakes during the second century, lie just off the coast the small uninhabited island of Kekova.  While it is possible to boat or kayak around the area, and dive nearby, underwater exploration has been banned since 1986.

Sweeping wilderness vistas. Archaeological relics dating thousands of years. Undersea worlds of coral reefs and rare marine species. Their fate could become clear as details are revealed of US Interior Secretary's review of 27 National Monuments, as directed by an executive order signed this spring. The order targeted designations of at least 100,000 acres of public lands that were given protected status by former presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

A new tree species, Melicope stonei (Rutaceae or citrus family), endemic to the volcanic Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, is already assessed as Critically Endangered according to IUCN criteria, and is apparently restricted to unique old growth forest habitat found only on Kaua'i. This new tree species is the 249th endemic plant species known only from Kaua'i and nowhere else on earth.

Maine's wild blueberry crop is likely to be much smaller this year than in recent summers because the industry is contending with troubles such as "mummy berry" disease and a lack of pollination.

Striking aboriginal statues that have kept watch over Warriu Park in Western Australia’s majestic Kimberley for 28 years are being carefully restored to their former glory after being vandalized and damaged by fire over time.  The restoration is expected to cost about $10,000 [AU].

Hans Nilsson has spent three years trying to spot an elusive white moose in the town of Eda, in western Sweden. He got lucky and crossed paths with the ghost-colored herbivore two days in a row.  Although this moose has made international headlines, it probably has never taken a moment to appreciate its rare color. Moose are colorblind.

In Nepal, elephants were sent by local hotels to rescue stranded tourists in the Chitwan district after a nearby river burst its banks and cut power to 100,000 people. Reuters reports that some 300 people were evacuated from a popular jungle safari park with the help of elephants and tractor trailers. Article contains a link to video footage.

Eltyubyu, an ancient Balkarian settlement located in the Caucasus mountains of Russia, is a very picturesque place.  It became known because of the monument of antiquity, located near the village and called "City of the Dead".  It is located in the picturesque Chegem gorge, through which many years ago one avenue of The Great Silk Road passed.

Perhaps one of the more intriguing, and eerier forms of Bigfoot evidence is the auditory kind, wherein recordings have been put forward alleging to capture the sounds of the elusive creatures. Here we have spooky vocalizations of purported Bigfoot that not only capture the imagination, but also serve to create an unsettling feeling with their unearthly howls, whistles, wails, and even speech. Whatever the origins of these weird sounds may be, they are certainly not something that one would want to hear while camping out alone in the boondocks at night.

Human history goes back almost 10,000 years. Which might seem like a long time, but it’s nothing compared to our prehistory that stretches back to the earliest known modern humans who lived ~195,000 years ago. We are an ancient species. So ancient, in fact, that creationists seem to have difficulty comprehending just how old we are.

A new study conducted on the near death experiences discovered that not all the people who go through it experience the steps it in the same order. This gives the researchers some hints about the complex relationship between culture and neurology in one’s almost-final moments.

Homo naledi is the newest member of the human family we’ve discovered, living around 300,000 years ago, with a mixture of archaic and more derived traits. New research has found that there are even more modern-like traits than we thought.

Extremely low oxygen levels in Earth's oceans could be responsible for extending the effects of a mass extinction that wiped out millions of species on Earth around 200 million years ago, according to a new study. It took about 50,000 years for ocean oxygen levels to return to what they were before the extinction event, and it may have taken as long as 250,000 years for coral reefs around the globe to fully recover, according to the study.

The beautiful nickname "Siberian unicorn" belongs to Elasmotherium sibiricum, an ancient Siberian rhinoceros which was thought to have died out 350,000 years ago.  Recently, however, researchers determined that this "unicorn" had found its last refuge 29,000 years ago in western Kazakhstan. This mean that these mammals were most definitely on the Earth at the same time as prehistoric man.

A special repatriation ceremony will take place this weekend to mark the return of thousands of artifacts to Metepenagiag First Nation from provincial facilities across New Brunswick. The artifacts include stone tools, spear points, stone plates, heavy axes, sharp stone knives, strings of small and large copper beads, with preserved threaded materials.  Over several decades, about 60,000 artifacts, which are about 3,000 years old, were discovered on the shores near the community, formerly known as Red Bank.  "The artifacts are a direct link to the community's sacred path," said Claude DeGrâce, chair of the Metepenagiag Heritage Park.