Showing 20 articles starting at article 181

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Anthropology: Early Humans, Geoscience: Earthquakes

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A world-first model of paleoclimate and hydrology in Iran has highlighted favourable routes for Neanderthals and modern human expansions eastwards into Asia. The findings reveal that multiple humid periods in ancient Iran led to the expansions of human populations, opening dispersal route across the region, and the possible interactions of species such as Neanderthals and our own Homo sapiens.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

By simulating early Earth conditions in the lab, researchers have found that without specific amino acids, ancient proteins would not have known how to evolve into everything alive on the planet today -- including plants, animals, and humans.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists who study the origins and evolution of the plague have examined hundreds of ancient human teeth from Denmark, seeking to address longstanding questions about its arrival, persistence and spread within Scandinavia.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study suggests there may be a layer of surprisingly fluid rock ringing the Earth, at the very bottom of the upper mantle.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Data captured from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of Earth's inner core, according to seismologists.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study explores 'balancing selection' by analyzing thousands of modern human genomes alongside ancient hominin groups, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. The research has 'implications for understanding human diversity, the origin of diseases, and biological trade-offs that may have shaped our evolution,' says evolutionary biologists.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research on friction between faults could aid in predicting the world's most powerful earthquakes. Researchers discovered that fault surfaces bond together, or heal, after an earthquake. A fault that is slow to heal is more likely to move harmlessly, while one that heals quickly is more likely to stick until it breaks in a large, damaging earthquake. Tests allowed them to calculate a slow, harmless type of tremor. The discovery alone won't allow scientists to predict when the next big one will strike but it does give researchers a valuable new way to investigate the causes and potential for a large, damaging earthquake to happen, and guide efforts to monitor large faults like Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Along the shores of Africa's Lake Victoria in Kenya roughly 2.9 million years ago, early human ancestors used some of the oldest stone tools ever found to butcher hippos and pound plant material, according to new research. The study presents what are likely to be the oldest examples of a hugely important stone-age innovation known to scientists as the Oldowan toolkit, as well as the oldest evidence of hominins consuming very large animals. Excavations at the site, named Nyayanga and located on the Homa Peninsula in western Kenya, also produced a pair of massive molars belonging to the human species' close evolutionary relative Paranthropus. The teeth are the oldest fossilized Paranthropus remains yet found, and their presence at a site loaded with stone tools raises intriguing questions about which human ancestor made those tools.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Cornell University researchers have unearthed precise, microscopic clues to where magma is stored, offering a way to better assess the risk of volcanic eruptions.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth's crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move. The molten layer is located about 100 miles from the surface and is part of the asthenosphere, which is important for plate tectonics because it forms a relatively soft boundary that lets tectonic plates move through the mantle. The researchers found, however that the melt does not appear to notably influence the flow of mantle rocks. Instead, they say, the discovery confirms that the convection of heat and rock in the mantle are the prevailing influence on the motion of the plates.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

An interdisciplinary team of scientistshas found that rapid sea-level rise drove early settlers in Southeast Asia to migrate during the prehistoric period, increasing the genetic diversity of the region today.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A 'back-projection' technique reveals new details of the volcanic eruption in Tonga that literally shook the world.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Seeking to better understand more about the origins and movement of bubonic plague, in ancient and contemporary times, researchers have completed a painstaking granular examination of hundreds of modern and ancient genome sequences, creating the largest analysis of its kind.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

New findings begin to fill major gaps in understanding about how geological faults behave and appear as they deepen, and they could eventually help lead future researchers to develop better earthquake models on strike-slip faults, regions with frequent and major earthquakes.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

The analysis of ancient DNA allows scientists to trace human evolution and make important discoveries about modern populations. The data revealed by ancient DNA sampling can be valuable, but the human remains that carry this ancient DNA are often those of the ancestors of modern Indigenous groups, and some communities have expressed concerns about the ethics of sampling by outside parties. A group of scientists make the case for involvement of descendant communities in all aspects of the research process.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Smallpox was once one of humanity's most devastating diseases, but its origin is shrouded in mystery. For years, scientific estimates of when the smallpox virus first emerged have been at odds with historical records. Now, a new study reveals that the virus dates back 2,000 years further than scientists have previously shown, verifying historical sources and confirming for the first time that the disease has plagued human societies since ancient times.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using a new method based upon comparing DNA mutation rates between parents and offspring, evolutionary biologists have revealed the average age of mothers versus fathers over the past 250,000 years, including the discovery that the age gap is shrinking, with women's average age at conception increasing from 23.2 years to 26.4 years, on average, in the past 5,000 years.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study has found that individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to experience disaster-related home loss, and they are also more likely to develop functional limitations following the disaster. 

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A machine-learning algorithm reveals the shape of massive subterranean structures linking active volcanoes.