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‘What should be taught in schools?’: the infamous ‘Scopes monkey trial’ turns 100
by David Smith 10/7/25 The Guardian
Her great-grandfather was a doctor called to attend to the lawyer who put the case for creationism. Her great-grandmother was related to Charles Darwin. And now she works in the courthouse where the “trial of the century” – in which a high school teacher was accused of illegally teaching evolution – began exactly a century ago on Thursday.
Scientists reconstruct 540 million years of sea level change in detail
by Utrecht University 8/7/25 PHYS ORG
Sea level on Earth has been rising and falling ever since there was water on the planet. Scientists were already able to use sediments and fossils to roughly reconstruct how sea levels changed over time steps of a million years or more.
The oldest rocks on Earth are more than four billion years old
[https://theconversation.com/the-oldest-rocks-on-earth-are-more-than-four-billion-years-old-259657 by Hanika Rizo 6/7/25 THE CONVERSATION}
Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name “Hadean” comes from the Greek god of the underworld, reflecting the extreme heat that likely characterized the planet at the time.
US military cuts climate scientists off from vital satellite sea-ice data
by Keith Cooper 6/7/25 SPACE.com
Climate scientists in the United States are to be cut off from satellite data measuring the amount of sea ice — a sensitive barometer of climate change — as the U.S. Department of Defense announces plans to cancel processing of the data for scientific research.
'Never been found before’ – In one part of the world, the ocean is doing the opposite from everywhere else. Here’s why...
by Melissa Hobson 7/7/25 DISCOVER WILDLIFE
Scientists have discovered a new factor that contributes to the so-called ‘cold blob’ – an unusual area of cooling waters in the Atlantic Ocean
The ‘Great Dying’ wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why
A team of international researchers say they have now figured out why using a vast trove of fossils — and it all revolves around tropical forests.
Ancient wooden tools show human ancestors ate their veggies
by Andrew Curry 3/7/25 Science
Proponents of the “paleo diet” like to imagine the deep past as an all-meat barbecue buffet. And thus far, the kinds of tools dating to the dawn of humanity—countless stone blades and choppers, along with a few wooden spears and throwing sticks—seemed to support the idea of a pre-historic diet heavy on mammoth steaks.
Perfect solar system' found in search for alien life
Researchers have located "the perfect solar system", forged without the violent collisions that made our own a hotchpotch of different-sized planets.
Giganto, largest ever primate, died out due to diet change, say scientists
by Nicola Davis 10/1/24 The Guardian
Now researchers say the enormous ape was victim of an unfortunate choice of food when its preferred snacks became scarce.
Researchers find 3-million-year-old tools in Kenya, showing development of human ancestors
by Kerry Breen 4/1/25 CBS NEWS
The Homa Peninsula, in Kenya, is part of the East African Rift Valley, a part of the world often called "the cradle of humankind." So many of the oldest clues about humanity's earliest days have been preserved under the valley's fertile, human soil, including the remains of "Lucy," an ancient human relative who lived more than 3 million years ago.
Assyrian swimmers: 2,900-year-old carving of soldiers using inflatable goat skins to cross a river
by Kristina Killgrove 23/6/25 LIVESCIENCE
This carved relief from Nimrud, a major city of the ancient Assyrian Empire in present-day Iraq, regularly drifts around the internet as purported evidence for scuba diving nearly 3,000 years ago. But the wall panel actually depicts an army crossing a river, and soldiers are navigating the waves with the help of ancient flotation devices.
How huge migrating animal puppets captivate in ways that climate news can’t
by Matt Smith 26/6/25 THE CONVERSATION
A herd of puppet animals is migrating north from Africa. This 12,000 mile journey represents wildlife’s response to the climate crisis as species are forced to move north due to rising temperatures. As The Herds travels through the UK en route to the Arctic, the organisers hope this artistic project will help spectators along the route understand what is happening to the environment.
A Major Polling Company Is Throwing Its Weight Behind Huge Conspiracy Theories
by Matt Shuham 14/7/23 HUFFPOST
The news from Rasmussen Reports, which was based on an unprecedented 1,001-person poll taken four months after the election, was the boldest claim yet from the pollster, heralding a miraculous supposed 92% turnout rate in the election — rather than the certified rate of 62.56%.
Scientists say they’ve confirmed evidence that humans arrived in the Americas far earlier than previously thought
When the discovery of fossilized footprints made in what’s now New Mexico was made public in 2021, it was a bombshell moment for archaeology, seemingly rewriting a chapter of the human story. Now new research is offering further evidence of their significance.
'Perfect solar system' found in search for alien life
The system, 100 light years away, has six planets, all about the same size. They've barely changed since its formation up to 12 billion years ago.
The Role of Epistemic Trust in Vaccine Hesitancy and Conspiracy Thinking: Insights from New Research
by Cod Micah 01/25 BROADLY EPI
Understanding the psychological factors that shape belief systems, trust in information, and susceptibility to misinformation has never been more critical. A groundbreaking study published in PLOS Global Public Health investigates how epistemic trust—a person’s readiness to regard information as significant and reliable—affects vaccine hesitancy, belief in conspiracy theories, and the ability to distinguish between real and fake news.
Spear tips found in Idaho may be the oldest stone tools in America
The earliest coherent story of this kind that we know of has been taking shape over the last couple of decades or so at a site in western Idaho called Nipéhe (Cooper's Ferry), and it’s finally been solidified by more-convincing dating. We learn from this dating that a group of migrants arrived about 16,000 years ago, prior to the opening of any ice-free corridor. They must have come down the coast, on the water for at least some of the trip, around the glaciers, then taken a left turn at the Columbia River, and come inland.
Spear tips found in Idaho may be the oldest stone tools in America
The earliest coherent story of this kind that we know of has been taking shape over the last couple of decades or so at a site in western Idaho called Nipéhe (Cooper's Ferry), and it’s finally been solidified by more-convincing dating. We learn from this dating that a group of migrants arrived about 16,000 years ago, prior to the opening of any ice-free corridor. They must have come down the coast, on the water for at least some of the trip, around the glaciers, then taken a left turn at the Columbia River, and come inland.
Big oil is behind conspiracy to deceive public, first climate racketeering lawsuit says
by Nina Lakhani 20/12/22 The Guardian
“Puerto Rico is one of the most affected places by climate change in the world. It is so precariously positioned – they get hit on all fronts with hurricanes, storm surge, heat, coral bleaching – it’s the perfect place for this climate litigation,” said Melissa Sims, senior counsel for the plaintiffs’ law firm Milberg.
Radiocarbon dating of artifacts and bones shows North American Indigenous population changes over 2,000 years
by Bob Yirka 2/03/2025 Phys.org
Looking at their maps and data, the researchers found that population growth and decline varied over time and area—some areas grew in population while others shrank. For example, the population of Cahokia, the largest known city in prehistoric North America, peaked around 1100 and then declined soon thereafter due to over-farming, hunting and climate change. By 1350, no one was left.
The research team also found that the population of North America reached its maximum by approximately 1150—after that, there were ebbs and flows across the continent. The population was rebounding when the Europeans began arriving, but then began dropping soon thereafter and continued to crash over the following centuries.
DNA from cave dirt tells tale of how some Neanderthals disappeared
by Ann Gibbons 4/15/21 Science Advisor
Estatuas cave in northern Spain was a hive of activity 105,000 years ago. Artifacts show its Neanderthal inhabitants hafted stone tools, butchered red deer, and may have made fires. They also shed, bled, and excreted subtler clues onto the cave floor: their own DNA. "You can imagine them sitting in the cave making tools, butchering animals. Maybe they cut themselves or their babies pooped," says population geneticist Benjamin Vernot, a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), whose perspective may have been colored by his own baby's cries during a Zoom call. "All that DNA accumulates in the dirt floors."1
Mysterious Quantum Rule Reconstructed From Scratch
QuantaMagazine Phillip Ball 02/14/2019
Quantum mechanics became a strange kind of theory not with Werner Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle in 1927, nor when Albert Einstein and two colleagues identified (and Erwin Schrödinger named) entanglement in 1935. It happened in 1926, thanks to a proposal from the German physicist Max Born. Born suggested that the right way to interpret the wavy nature of quantum particles was as waves of probability. The wave equation presented by Schrödinger the previous year, Born said, was basically a piece of mathematical machinery for calculating the chances of observing a particular outcome in an experiment.
Neanderthals may have used their hands differently from humans
[1] By Katie Hunt, CNN Fri November 27, 2020
The Neanderthals did use their hands differently from us, a new study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports has suggested. Our archaic relatives, lead study author Bardo said, would have been more at ease with "squeeze grips" -- the grip we use when we hold tools with handles like a hammer.
Ancient stone tools hint at settlers’ epic trek to North America
16,000-year-old artefacts discovered in Idaho could be the oldest ever found on the continent. The finds make the site, called Cooper’s Ferry, one of the oldest-known human settlements in North America, if not the oldest, says Loren Davis, an archaeologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, who led the 10-year excavation that made the discoveries. His team’s results were published in Science on 29 August.
Pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas identified by human fecal biomarkers in coprolites from Paisley Caves, Oregon
Here, we use fecal lipid biomarkers to demonstrate unequivocally that three coprolites dated to pre-Clovis are human, raise questions over the reliance on DNA methods, and present a new radiocarbon date on basketry further supporting pre-Clovis human occupation. It is largely, but not entirely, accepted by the archaeological community that people first settled the Americas before Clovis (1–3), which was seen as the earliest technological tradition on the continent for most of the 20th century, dating to 11,500 radiocarbon years before the present (14C yr B.P.) However, many questions still remain over who the earliest settlers were, when they arrived, and what route they took.
Ancient genomics is recasting the story of the Americas’ first residents
Trove of DNA from prehistoric inhabitants reveals that the continents’ early settlers moved far and fast. Ancient genomics is finally beginning to tell the history of the Americas — and it’s looking messy. The Montana baby, known as the Anzick boy, belonged to a population known as the Southern Native Americans, who are most closely related to present-day Indigenous populations from South America. They split from Northern Native Americans, who are genetically closer to many contemporary groups in eastern North America, around 14,600–17,500 years ago. The common ancestor of these two groups split from East Asians some 25,000 years ago, scientists established this year by sequencing the genome of 11,500-year-old human remains from Alaska5.
Why So Many Physicists are Wrong About Free Will
Humans Domesticated Themselves New Genetic Evidence Suggests
From chaos to free will
Since Laplace’s day, scientists, philosophers and even neuroscientists have followed his lead in denying the possibility of free will. This reflects a widespread belief among theoretical physicists that if you know the initial values of the variables that characterise a physical system, together with the equations that explain how these variables change over time, then you can calculate the state of the system at all later times........ One of the most astounding discoveries of the previous century was that biological activity at the micro level is literally grounded in the physical shape of biological molecules, particularly DNA, RNA and proteins. This discovery became possible only when X-ray crystallography had progressed to the point of allowing us to determine the extraordinarily complex detailed structure and foldings of these molecules............................... Genuine mental functioning and the ability to make decisions in a rational way is a far more persuasive explanation of how books get written. That this is possible is due to the extraordinary hierarchical structure of our brain and its functioning. And that functioning is enabled by downward causation from the psychological to the physical levels, with outcomes at the physics level determined by constraints that change over time. No violation of physical laws need occur.................................
Physics has made huge strides since the days of Laplace; indeed, it would be completely unrecognisable to him. Yet there are still physicists today who confidently proclaim that we can’t have free will because physics determines everything, including brain functioning – entirely ignoring the complex context and the power of constraints............
If you seriously believe that fundamental forces leave no space for free will, then it’s impossible for us to genuinely make choices as moral beings. We wouldn’t be accountable in any meaningful way for our reactions to global climate change, child trafficking or viral pandemics. The underlying physics would in reality be governing our behaviour, and responsibility wouldn’t enter into the picture.
.............
That’s a devastating conclusion. We can be grateful it’s not true.
Early humans domesticated themselves, new genetic evidence suggests
Domestication encompasses a whole suite of genetic changes that arise as a species is bred to be friendlier and less aggressive. In dogs and domesticated foxes, for example, many changes are physical: smaller teeth and skulls, floppy ears, and shorter, curlier tails. Those physical changes have all been linked to the fact that domesticated animals have fewer of a certain type of stem cell, called neural crest stem cells.
Modern humans are also less aggressive and more cooperative than many of our ancestors. And we, too, exhibit a significant physical change: Though our brains are big, our skulls are smaller, and our brow ridges are less pronounced. So, did we domesticate ourselves?
Giuseppe Testa, a molecular biologist at University of Milan in Italy, and colleagues knew that one gene, BAZ1B, plays an important role in orchestrating the movements of neural crest cells. Most people have two copies of this gene. Curiously, one copy of BAZ1B, along with a handful of others, is missing in people with Williams-Beuren syndrome, a disorder linked to cognitive impairments, smaller skulls, elfinlike facial features, and extreme friendliness.
Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers
The 120 million-year-old fossil was discovered in the summer of 2013 while searching for fossils at Japan’s Kitadani Dinosaur Quarry. “One of my colleagues at Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum spotted tiny bones in a block of siltstone,” Imai says. At the time, it wasn’t clear what creature the bones belonged to, but once the encasing rock was chipped away, the structure of the fossil became clear. The skeleton was an early bird, and an unusual one at that.
Small bodies and hollow bones have made birds relatively rare finds in the fossil record. Only a few unique fossil deposits, like China’s 125 million-year-old Jehol Biota or the United States’ 50 million-year-old Green River Formation, allow paleontologists to get a good look at ancient avians. To find a well-preserved fossil bird outside such places of exceptional preservation represents a noteworthy paleontological discovery, and Fukuipteryx in Japan adds another significant spot on the map for fossil birds.
'Dragon teeth’ reveal ancient ape’s place in primate family tree
In 1935, anthropologist Gustav von Koenigswald came across several strange teeth in drug stores in Hong Kong and southern China. The specimens, sold as “dragon teeth,” to be ground up for use in Chinese medicine, were special: They were apelike, but huge—much bigger than the molars of any other fossil or living primates. Their size (and that of four fossilized jaw bones) suggested that Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest primate ever discovered, towering nearly 3 meters in height(9 feet). But without any skulls or skeletons, researchers didn’t know whether the animal, which lived from roughly 2 million to 200,000 years ago, was a relative of today’s orangutans, today’s African apes, or something else entirely. Frido Welker, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen, and his colleagues set out to examine G. blacki teeth for intact pieces of proteins called peptides, which may be preserved for up to a few million years—far longer than more fragile DNA. Welker and his colleagues dissolved tiny amounts of enamel from a G. blacki molar and used mass spectrometry to identify more than 500 peptides that matched six proteins. By comparing the amino acids to those in the same six proteins in living apes, including orangutans, gorillas, and other apes and monkeys, they calculated that the giant ape was most closely related to orangutans. The two lineages probably split off between 10 million and 12 million years ago, they report today in Nature.
Is Evolution Predictable? Important Implications for the Way We Understand Life on Earth
“Our team is the first to report that although evolution of similar color patterns in Heliconius may be driven by similar forces–like predators avoiding a particular kind of butterfly–the pathway to that outcome is not predictable,” said Carolina Concha, lead author of the paper and a post-doctoral fellow at STRI. “This really surprised us because it reveals the importance of history and chance in shaping the genetic pathways leading to butterfly wing-pattern mimicry.”
Heliconius‘ bright wing colors signal to bird predators that the butterflies are toxic. Flashy male wing patterns signal to females that they are choosing the right species to mate with. Somehow these two forces, predation and mating, lead to similar wing patterns in groups of butterflies isolated in the mountain valleys and foothills of the Andes. By knocking out a single gene called WntA in 12 different species and their variants, the molecular biologists on the team could tell whether the butterflies in a pair with the same wing patterns were using the same genetic pathways to color and pattern their wings. They were not.
