Rafael Jiménez Medina learned how to hunt elusive Iberian moles in the fields of southern Spain in the 1980s, when he was a young PhD student in genetics at the University of Granada.A local hunter of the moles (Talpa occidentalis) taught him how to capture these solitary, aggressive and territorial animals. The moles dig subterranean galleries and labyrinths in the meadows of the Iberian Peninsula, especially those with soft soils rich in earthworms, their favorite food. Such activity can bene ...read more
In 2017, a paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology reported on a surprising genetic analysis. A person buried at the ancient Viking site of Birka, alongside weapons and other equipment befitting a male Viking warrior, had no Y chromosome. She was a biological woman.Archaeologists had read about such warriors in ancient poetry, but female fighters “have generally been dismissed as mythological phenomena,” the paper says.The Birka woman and other discoveries have challenged the ...read more
Shishaldin in Alaska is a remote volcano by any standard. Less than 200 people live within ~60 miles of the edifice in the middle of Unimak Island, you'd be hard pressed to find many people who have seen the picturesque stratovolcano with their own eyes. Yet, like many things that might seem distant and unimportant, eruptions at volcanoes like Shishaldin are well worth noticing and monitoring thanks to the paths we have created around our planet.Turns out that Shishaldin may have been more notic ...read more
Some 300,000 years ago, an early hunter dropped a 30-inch stick in wet mud, and there it stayed through the Last Ice Age, two world wars and the dawning of the internet. The literal stick-in-the-mud remained in excellent condition, considering the amount of time, although it suffered some fungal and root damage.A new study has unearthed the stick and determines that it was once used as a hunting weapon and thrown like a boomerang.Read More: Ancient Humans Mapped Out Hunting Device on BouldersAnc ...read more
When a Manhattan parking garage collapsed in April this year, rescuers were reluctant to stay in the damaged building, fearing further danger. So they used a combination of flying drones and a doglike walking robot to inspect the damage, look for survivors and make sure the site was safe for human rescuers to return.Despite the robot dog falling over onto its side while walking over a pile of rubble — a moment that became internet-famous — New York Mayor Eric Adams called the robots a succ ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine