Earth news stories

Hot news from two billion years ago: plankton actually moved mountains
6th December 2021 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Earth

The mighty forces that created our planet’s mountains in ancient days got some unexpected help, scientists have discovered. Their research shows some of Earth’s greatest ranges got a boost from primitive lifeforms whose remains lubricated movements of rock slabs and allowed them to pile up to form mountains.

A powerful and underappreciated ally in the climate crisis? Fungi
2nd December 2021 | theguardian.com | Animal Life, Earth, Humans

If we want to tackle the climate crisis, we need to address a global blindspot: the vast underground fungal networks that sequester carbon and sustain much of life on Earth.

4-legged ‘snake’ fossil is actually a different ancient animal, new study claims
29th November 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A dinosaur-age fossil heralded as the first four-legged snake known to science might actually be an entirely different beastie, a new study claims.

Mission to smash into Dimorphos space rock launches
25th November 2021 | bbc.co.uk | Earth, Humans, Space, Tech

A spacecraft has launched on a mission to test technology that could one day tip a dangerous asteroid off course.

Did Humans Invent Mathematics, or Is It a Fundamental Part of Existence?
25th November 2021 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Many people think that mathematics is a human invention. To this way of thinking, mathematics is like a language: it may describe real things in the world, but it doesn’t ‘exist’ outside the minds of the people who use it.

Psychedelics Could Become Extractive Capitalism—Unless We Hold Stakeholders Accountable
23rd November 2021 doubleblindmag.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Reciprocity with Indigenous stewards of plant medicine is one way to start…..Among the shamans of the Peruvian Andes, they have a word, “ayni,” translated as “sacred reciprocity.” Ayni is not about scorekeeping, but about keeping track. Ayni says we should partner…

How climate change goaded the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settlement and farming societies
23rd November 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Based on the identification of plant remains, Tel Aviv University and Tel-Hai College researchers provide the first detailed reconstruction of the climate in the Land of Israel at the end of the last ice age (20,000-10,000 years before present).

Magnetic Anomaly in New Mexico Reveals an Invisible Signature of Meteorite Impacts
23rd November 2021 | sciencealert.com | Earth, Humans, Space, Tech

Meteor impact sites might seem like easy things to recognize, with giant craters in Earth’s surface showing where these far-flung objects finally came to a violent stop. But it’s not always that way.

Our Universe Is Finely Tuned For Life, And There’s an Explanation For Why That Is So
23rd November 2021 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans, Space

Physically speaking, our Universe seems uncannily perfect. It stands to reason that if it wasn’t, life as we know it – and planets, atoms, everything else really – wouldn’t exist.

DNA analysis confirms 2,000-year-old sustainable fishing practices of Tsleil-Waututh Nation
15th November 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

Ancient Indigenous fishing practices can be used to inform sustainable management and conservation today, according to a new study from Simon Fraser University.

Earth’s 1st continents arose hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought
12th November 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth

Earth’s first continents, known as the cratons, emerged from the ocean between 3.3 billion and 3.2 billion years ago, a new study hints. This pushes back previous estimates of when the cratons first rose from the water, as various studies suggested that large-scale craton emergence took place roughly 2.5 billion years ago.

Not even extreme cold stopped the first modern humans from settling in Iberia’s interior
6th November 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Traditionally, scientists believed the Iberian hinterland to be a no-man’s land, avoided by Homo sapiens until about 19,000 years ago when the ice sheets of the Last Glacial Maximum—the period when ice sheets were at their greatest extent—retreated. However, recent research has been telling a different story.

Detroit just decriminalized psychedelics and ‘magic mushrooms.’
6th November 2021 d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net | Earth, Humans, Misc.

Detroit has joined the growing number of cities and states that have decriminalized entheogenic plants and fungi, more colloquially known as “magic mushrooms” and psychedelics.

Image from Magic mushrooms (Wiki Commons)

Mammoths and other extinct Ice Age giants clung on longer than previously thought, DNA analysis suggests
25th October 2021 edition.cnn.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

Mammoths and other giant creatures of the Ice Age such as woolly rhinos survived longer than scientists thought, coexisting with humans for tens of thousands of years before they vanished for good. That’s according to the results of an ambitious 10-year research project that analyzed DNA from hundreds of soil samples across the Arctic.

2.5 billion-year-old traces of life locked inside primeval ruby
24th October 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Traces of ancient life were locked inside a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby from Greenland, according to a new study.

This Jurassic Graveyard Holds The Oldest Known Evidence of ‘Complex’ Dinosaur Herds
24th October 2021 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A Jurassic graveyard in Patagonia, Argentina, holds more than 100 fossilized eggs and the bones of 80 Mussaurus patagonicus dinosaurs ranging in age from hatchling to adult. The trove of dinosaur remains suggests that these paleo-beasts lived in herds as early as 192 million years ago, a new study finds.

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