Category: Shorts

Namib Desert: The Origin of the Namib New research shows that even people who don’t speak a native language can maintain a genetic identity even without it. It turns out that the Kalahari and Namib Desert peoples have maintained their distinctiveness even without their native tongue. This finding may be due to, among other things,…

The Evolution of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens A new study shows that early Homo sapiens in Europe co-exist with Neanderthals in some regions where there are sufficient herbivores to support both populations. Herbivore carrying capacity In ecology, there’s an idea called the competitive exclusion principle, which states that competitive species cannot coexist over a long…

UFO E.T. This chapter opens with a little story about two mummies. A few weeks ago, a journalist named Jaime Maussan presented mummified aliens to the Mexican congress. These aren’t just any mummies: they’re more than a thousand years old. And they have a skeleton. Okay, definitely not like E.T. From the looks of it,…

The Pernambuco Holly Tree Rediscovered A holly tree that had been lost to botanists for almost two centuries has been found after a six-day search operation in Brazil. It is Ilex sapiiformis, commonly known as Pernambuco holly. The four trees that were rediscovered are thought to be the only ones left of this species, so…

Antarctica’s heatwave of 2022 Antarctica is seeing an explosion in the growth of plant life as a result of climate change, and some scientists worry that the ice-covered continent may soon reach its tipping point.” Due to its harsh conditions, Antarctica has only two native vascular plants: Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Antarctic pearlwort…

Aurora borealis and Aurora australis This week has been particularly strong in terms of geomagnetic activity, and we’re getting some stunning red auroras. Why? Well, a coronal mass ejection from the sun that struck the Earth on September 24 caused a hole in the Earth’s magnetic field. Usually, when these holes are punched in, charged…

Neanderthals and Neanderthals The Neanderthals made a glue out of birch bark to stick tools together; new studies confirm that they were smart. The term Neanderthal was wrong, this should put it to rest. When we talk about early technologies that allowed humans to master their environment, we usually think of fire or the wheel,…

TRAPPIST-1 b and TRAPPIST-1 c The TRAPPIST-1 system consists of seven Earth-sized planets that orbit very close to a red dwarf star. Three of them could have the right conditions for life, but only two are potentially habitable. The remaining two are too close to the star to be habitable, but there is still the…

Gulf Stream slowed by 4 percent over the past 40 years According to a new study, the Gulf Stream has actually weakened by 4 percent over the past four decades, and even more worryingly, scientists are 99 percent certain that this weakening is due to climate change. The Gulf Stream plays a significant role in…