Scientists discovered evidence that North Americans tried to tame or domesticate canines 12,000 years ago.Analyzing biomarkers in a canine fossil found at an early human campsite revealed a significant signature for salmon. Since canines didn't pursue fish as their primary prey, the preponderance of isotopes in the canine bone signaling salmon presence suggests that humans fed the canine fish. This finding pushes back attempts to either tame or domesticate canines in North America about 2,000 ye ...read more
In all great writings, such as literature and song lyrics, the writer often associates certain emotions with body parts. If a person sees a crush, they may feel ”butterflies in their stomach.” If a person is experiencing a moment of pure happiness, they may say that their ”heart is full.” The same can be said if the person is experiencing heartbreak or a “churning in their stomach” if they’re feeling nervous or angry. But what if someone said that their “liver was full” or tha ...read more
Even though today we have seen the burial of ancient cities as a natural progression of time, there were actually a few ancient communities that were built underground from the beginning.An underground city offered several advantages over surface dwellings. The community would have been protected from the weather, and would be relatively easy to defend, depending on how the city was set up. Here are a few of the most prominent ancient underground cities in the world.1. Elengubu, Turkey(Credit: f ...read more
In 2016, astronomer Vera C. Rubin died at the age of 88. Three years later, Congress designated the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile in her honor. The telescope at the observatory will have the largest digital camera yet and is expected to go online in 2025. The camera will snap constant pictures for the next 10 years as part of a mapping project that will capture the changing sky.Shooting stars, supernovas, meteors, and comets will all be caught on camera. But the observatory will als ...read more
It’s humbling to realize that much of high-school math, so vexing to so many of us, was already well understood thousands of years ago. The Egyptians came nowhere near E=mc2, but they knew how to find the volume of a pyramid. The Greeks didn’t conjure up calculus, but they did determine the area of a circle and proved it. Seen in historical context, these calculations are hardly less impressive than those of Einstein or Newton.The modern world, with its digital computers and internal combust ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine