Earth news stories

Jupiter and Venus ‘kiss’ in a stunning planetary conjunction tonight. Here’s how to watch.
2nd March 2023 | livescience.com | Earth, Humans, Space

On March 1 and 2, Jupiter and Venus will appear side by side in the night sky in an event called a conjunction, which is visible without a telescope or binoculars.

New Moai statue that ‘deified ancestors’ found on Easter Island
28th February 2023 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

A newly discovered Moai statue on Easter Island has been found buried in a dried up lake bed.

Fossils suggest early primates lived in a once-swampy Arctic
27th February 2023 | sciencenews.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

The Arctic today is a hostile place for most primates. But a series of fossils found since the 1970s suggest that wasn’t always the case. See study here.

‘Microdiamonds’ discovered at French winery point to ancient meteor crater below the vines
27th February 2023 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

A circular depression that holds a vineyard in a French winery is actually an old impact crater, new research finds. The new research did not give an estimate of the crater’s age. However, the winery website estimates that the crater impact occurred around 10,000 years ago.

All Living Cells Could Have The Molecular Machinery For a ‘Sixth Sense’
27th February 2023 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

The new findings suggest that magnetoreception could be much more common in the animal kingdom than we ever knew. If researchers are right, it might be an astonishingly ancient trait shared by virtually all living things, albeit with differing strengths. The study was published in Nature.

The big archaeological digs happening up in the sky
25th February 2023 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans, Tech

The endless excavations of yesteryear are no longer the best solution. Big digs aren’t the big idea they once were: mapping the human archaeological record is now moving upward, into the sky.

How to fold Indigenous ethics into psychedelics studies
24th February 2023 | science.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Over thousands of years, Indigenous communities have cultivated relationships with and accumulated knowledge on psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms, the Amazonian botanical brew ayahuasca, and the West African shrub iboga.

After a 20-Year Search, Scientists Have Finally Found Earth’s True Innermost Core
22nd February 2023 | sciencealert.com | Earth, Humans

A new analysis of Earth’s innards suggests the presence of an inner core within the inner core – a dense ball of iron at the very center of our planet.

Mushroom Extract Shown to Dramatically Improve Brain-Cell Growth in The Lab
21st February 2023 | sciencealert.com | Earth, Humans

In a new study conducted by an international team of scientists, researchers identified compounds in the lion’s mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) – an edible fungus species also known as yamabushitake or hou tou gu – that could boost nerve growth and enhance memory.

Scientists Reveal How Humans First Populated The Ancient Megacontinent of Sahul
15th February 2023 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Between 75,000 and 50,000 years ago, humans began to make their way across the megacontinent of Sahul, a landmass that connected what is now Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands.

Psilocybin appears to have a uniquely powerful relationship with nature relatedness
13th February 2023 | psypost.org | Earth, Humans, Misc.

The use of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic substance found in some “magic” mushrooms, has stronger connection to how people feel about nature compared to the use of other psychedelic drugs, according to new research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Fossil discovery reveals complex ecosystems existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought
10th February 2023 phys.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

About 250 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction killed over 80% of the planet’s species. In the aftermath, scientists believe that life on Earth was dominated by simple species for up to 10 million years before more complex ecosystems could evolve. Now this longstanding theory is being challenged by a team of international researchers. See paper here.

Oldest Stone Tools Ever Found Were Not Made by Human Hands, Study Suggests
10th February 2023 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Archaeologists have revealed what could be the oldest stone tools ever found, and they think someone other than our closest Homo ancestors may have made them. See paper here.

Native Americans Conducted Large-Scale Copper Mining 6,000 Years Ago
7th February 2023 | scientificamerican.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Copper’s allure has endured for millennia. Both ancient and modern mines for the extremely useful metal abound in North America’s Lake Superior region; long before modern miners extracted the ore from deep underground, local Indigenous communities dug it from shallow pit mines.

The moon has a hidden tide that pulls on Earth’s magnetosphere, new study reveal
5th February 2023 | livescience.com | Earth, Humans, Space

The moon exerts a previously unknown tidal force on the “plasma ocean” surrounding Earth’s upper atmosphere, creating fluctuations that are similar to the tides in the oceans, a new study suggests.

Remapping the superhighways traveled by the first Australians reveals a 10,000-year journey through the continent by Flinders University
5th February 2023 phys.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

New, sophisticated models combined recent improvements in demography and models of wayfinding based on geographic inference to show the scale of the challenges faced by the ancestors of Indigenous people making their mass migration across the supercontinent more than 60,000 years ago.

News stories covering the environment, plant life, and the Earth itself.