We humans seem to have an on-again, off-again relationship with facial hair. Prehistoric cave drawings reveal the myriad tools our ancient ancestors used to shave: shark’s teeth, sharpened flints and even clam shells. Nowadays, beards are back in style and people are taking a razor to their brows, instead. But is there a reason we evolved to have these hairy baubles in the first place? And, if so, what evolutionary advantage might we be throwing away for the sake of staying on trend? Turns o ...read more
A little over 110 years ago, the remote wilderness of the Alaska Peninsula experienced what was likely the largest, more explosive eruption of the 20th century. This eruption covered the region with tens of meters of volcanic ash and debris, creating the aptly-named Valley of the 10,000 Smokes. Multiple volcanoes not eEven today, when the winds pick up during the late summer and fall, ash from this blast can be whipped up and lofted high into the air, sometimes even making people think an erupti ...read more
Archaeologists in New Zealand have recently uncovered nine new penguin specimens from the Paleocene Epoch, which occurred between 66 million years ago and 56 million years ago. Researchers have assigned the largest of these nine specimens to a new species known as Kumimanu fordycei. According to the study published by Cambridge University Press, based on humerus length and humerus proximal width, K. fordycei weighed anywhere between 148 kilograms (326 pounds) and 159.7 kilograms (352 poun ...read more
As much as we like to think of ourselves as superior, humans are animals. We descended from a common ancestor of humans, shared with what became chimpanzees and bonobos between 6 and 8 million years ago. Though we’ve evolved since then, we’re still 98.8 percent the same as chimpanzees and bonobos. Humans and monkeys are so much alike that documenting our similarities is much easier than listing our few differences. Shared Use of Tools According to Stephanie Poindexter, a primatologi ...read more
La Niña typically casts a bit of a chill over the globe, and that certainly has been the case during its reign over the past three years. Yet despite the climate phenomenon's continuing influence, last month turned out to be one of the warmest Januarys ever recorded globally. Moreover, even though La Niña exerted its maximum cooling effect in 2022, that year still entered the record books as being warmer than 2021. The reason, of course, was human-caused climate change. Now, La Niña is fadin ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine