What did Greenland look like over the last 800,000 years? Hard to know for sure but one thing is certain; it changed often, and quickly.
Drill cores taken from Greenland's vast ice sheets show that Earth's climate is capable of very rapid transitions - more of a mystery is why abrupt climate changes like that happen.
Layers of ancient snow accumulated and became compact to form the ice-sheets we see today. Each layer of ice can reveal past temperatures and even evidence for the timing and magnitude of distant storms or volcanic eruptions. By drilling cores in the ice scientists have reconstructed an incredible record of past climates. Those temperature records from Greenland covered only the last 100,000 years or so.
Brain, pelvis, hands and feet don't lie - and five recent studies of Australopithecus sediba, a primitive hominin that existed around the same time early Homo species first began to appear on Earth, suggest this ancient relative and its primitive and modern, human-like traits, make it the best candidate for an ancestor to the Homo genus.
The discoveries are casting doubt on some long-standing theories about human evolution, including the notion that early human pelvises evolved in response to larger brain sizes. And there is also some new evidence suggesting that Australopithecus sediba may have been a tool-maker.
In football, if you are a lineman, you are going to give and take a lot of hits - but running backs really get punished.
Whenever a popular television health claim makes its way into the media, some skepticism is in order. A decade-long war on "trans fats", including outright bans in some areas, was not based on science or objective evidence.
Geobacter can clean up uranium but a new study documenting how microbes generate electricity while cleaning up nuclear waste and other toxic metals could mean a big benefit for contaminated sites in the future.
Identifying the Geobacters' conductive pili (nanowires - hair-like appendages found on the outside of Geobacters) as doing the bulk of the work is a new revelation. The nanowires also shield Geobacter and allow the bacteria to thrive in a toxic environment.
In 2009, UK drugs advisor Dr. David Nutt was relieved of his duties due to controversial views on the harmfulness of different drugs and the lack of evidence behind current drug policy.
Various claims were that this was politically motivated and concern was that scholarly research such as Nutt's should not be subject to political attack.
Agreed, but a new article in Addiction says the attack was justified because Nutt's work on the harmfulness of drugs is scientifically flawed.
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Mesolithic People Had Meals With More Tradition Than You Thought
