News Desk

Oldest ever methane-cycling microfossils discovered
21st July 2021 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Researchers have discovered the fossilised remains of 3.4-billion-year-old methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system beneath the ancient seafloor – the oldest microfossils of this type found to date.

‘Jurassic Pompeii’ yields thousands of ‘squiggly wiggly’ fossils
21st July 2021 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Palaeontologist Tim Ewin is standing in a quarry, recalling the calamity that’s written in the rocks under his mud-caked boots.

‘Alien abduction’ stories may come from lucid dreaming, study hints
21st July 2021 | livescience.com | Humans, Weird

Lucid dreaming, in which people are partially aware and can control their dreams during sleep, could explain so-called alien abduction stories, a study suggests.

Scientists Are Giving AI The Ability to Imagine Things It’s Never Seen Before
21st July 2021 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Tech

Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving very adept at certain tasks – like inventing human faces that don’t actually exist, or winning games of poker – but these networks still struggle when it comes to something humans do naturally: imagine.

When did humans start experimenting with alcohol and drugs?
19th July 2021 phys.org | Humans, Misc.

Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t just reshape our external world—we engineer our internal worlds, and reshape our minds.

Psilocybin induces rapid and persistent growth of neural connections in the brain’s frontal cortex, study finds
19th July 2021 | psypost.org | Humans, Misc.

Harvard scientists have found that a single dose of psilocybin given to mice induces a rapid and long-lasting increase in connections between pyramidal neurons in the medial frontal cortex, an area of the brain known to be involved in control and decision-making. Their new findings are published in the journal Neuron.

Just 7% of our DNA is unique to modern humans, study shows
19th July 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans, Tech

What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.

Curiosity rover discovers that evidence of past life on Mars may have been erased
19th July 2021 | livescience.com | Humans, Space

Evidence of ancient life may have been scrubbed from parts of Mars, a new NASA study has found.

How the billionaire space race could be one giant leap for pollution
19th July 2021 | theguardian.com | Humans, Space

One rocket launch produces up to 300 tons of carbon dioxide into the upper atmosphere where it can remain for years.

Dogs Innately Understand Humans in Ways That Wolves Can’t, Experiment Shows
16th July 2021 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Humans

Dogs are born with an innate ability to read human gestures that is not apparent in their closest relative, wolves.

Why local legends about birds matter
15th July 2021 | bbc.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

The stories of enigmatic birds told in indigenous folklore aren’t just fascinating tales, they may be a way to preserve languages and cultures at risk of extinction.

Book of the Dead fragments, half a world apart, are pieced together
15th July 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans, Tech

A torn 2,300-year-old mummy wrapping — covered with hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead — has been digitally reunited with its long-lost piece that was ripped away.

Microdoses of psilocybin and ketamine enhance motivation and attention in rodent models relevant to depression
15th July 2021 | psypost.org | Humans, Misc.

Low doses of psilocybin and ketamine can heighten food-related motivation and improve attention in poorly-performing male rats, according to new research published in Frontiers in Pharmacology.

Sharing the menu: sharks take shifts
13th July 2021 cosmosmagazine.com | Animal Life

Large coastal sharks engage in ‘shift work’ to share their resources, according to a new study from Murdoch University’s Harry Butler Institute.

Oldest known cosmetics found in ceramic bottles on Balkan Peninsula
13th July 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

A trio of researchers from Slovenia’s Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia at the Centre for Preventive Archaeology and Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in Germany, has found evidence of the oldest known use of cosmetics at a dig site in the Balkans.

Technology boosts efforts to curb tree loss in Amazon
13th July 2021 | bbc.co.uk | Animal Life, Earth, Tech

Technology can help indigenous communities to significantly curb deforestation, according to a new study. Indigenous people living in the Peruvian Amazon were equipped by conservation groups with satellite data and smartphones.

Daily alternative news articles at the GrahamHancock News Desk. Featuring science, alternative history, archaeology, Ancient Egypt, paranormal and much more. Check in daily for updates!