A mammoth tooth uncovered from the Siberian permafrost yields the oldest DNA yet discovered and provides insight into the evolution of the giant beasts. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/worlds-oldest-dna-mammoth-evolution-video…
Tag: Pleistocene
What’s the coldest Earth has ever been?
Our planet’s history includes episodes of cold so extreme that glaciers reached sea level in equatorial regions. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/whats-coldest-earth-has-ever-been…
Dog Domestication May Have Begun Because Paleo Humans Couldn’t Stomach the Original Paleo Diet
A new theory described today in Scientific Reports posits that hunter-gatherers whose omnivorous digestive system prevented too much protein consumption likely shared surplus meat with wolves. Those scraps may have initiated a step toward domestication. Scientific American reports: [Maria Lahtinen, a senior researcher at the Finnish Food Authority and a visiting scholar at the Finnish Museum of Natural History] did not…
Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up
An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from Scientific American: Permafrost covers 24 percent of the Earth’s land surface, and the soil constituents vary with local geology. Arctic lands offer unexplored microbial biodiversity and microbial feedbacks, including the release of carbon to the atmosphere. In some locations, hundreds of millions of years’ worth of carbon is buried. The layers may still…
Fossils of Ice Age manatees discovered in Texas
Ice Age manatees either summered in Texas or lived there year-round, raising new questions about the environment off the coast of the Lone Star State during the Pleistocene. Source: https://www.livescience.com/ice-age-manatees-texas-coast.html
Save the giants, save the planet
Protecting large animals such as elephants and whales, and large plants like the sequoias, has a disproportionate positive impact on the health of the planet and resilience to climate change. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/why-to-conserve-large-animals-trees…
Joshua trees facing extinction
They outlived mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. But new research suggests that without dramatic action to reduce climate change, Joshua trees won’t survive much past this century. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/joshua-trees-climate-warming-facing-extinction…