(Credit: Dmitry Pichugin/Shutterstock)
As humans spread across the planet, high-altitude places like the Tibetan Plateau were some of the last regions to be inhabited. Now archaeologists have discovered a cache of ancient stone blades in northern Tibet from at least 30,000 years ago. The find is the earliest evidence for people living at high altitude and means humans were living in the harsh conditions of the miles-high Tibetan Plateau much earlier than previously thought.
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Researchers have discovered that mother jumping spiders (Toxeus magnus, an ant mimic) nurse their young with a milk-like substance. (Credit: Chen/Science)
Got milk? Of course you do; few things are as uniquely mammalian as our milky infancies. Sure, we’ve all got backbones (but so do lizards), warm blood (but so do birds), and hair (but so do plants) – but it’s the mammary glands from which mothers nurse their young that really set us mammals apart from the rest of the Tree o ...read more
Ain Boucherit, a site in Algeria, has yielded numerous stone tools, such as this Oldowan core. The tools are up to 2.4 million years old and were found with hundreds of animal bones, several of which show signs of butchery. (Credit: M. Sahnouni)
Stone tools and animal bones with cut marks, excavated at a site in eastern Algeria, are up to 2.4 million years old, the oldest archaeological evidence in North Africa and one of the oldest known examples of butchery. The finds suggest hominins, m ...read more
(Credit: Thithawat.S/Shutterstock)
If you think dating culture only applies to humans, think again.
A team of researchers recently discovered that female fruit flies take their mating preferences from their peers. When presented with a few differently-colored suitors, the flies were more likely to choose the color they’d seen other flies select before them. This kind of conformity suggests that the fruit flies are passing behaviors among themselves socially — what we huma ...read more
A gray whale shows off their baleen, the comb-like structure attached to their gums that allows them to filter feed. Previous theories explaining how baleen evolved might be wrong after researchers gave an ancient whales’ mouth a closer look. (Credit: Jo Crebbin/Shutterstock)
One of the great mysteries in marine research is how whales developed baleen, the unique array of plates and bristles that allow them to filter thousands of pounds of krill and plankton every day.
Because baleen wha ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
