Ancient Britons Traveled Hundreds of Miles For Stonehenge Pork Roasts
geek.com – New research suggests prehistoric Britons traveled far and wide for a good party. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of the earliest large-scale celebrations in the UK, attracting people and animals from across the country. …
Source: R. Madgwick, et al. Multi-isotope analysis reveals that feasts in the Stonehenge environs and across Wessex drew people and animals from throughout Britain. Science Advances, 2019.
Massive solar storms are naturally-recurring events, study finds — and we’re unprepared for them
zmescience.com – Sunny days ahead!
Source: Paschal O’Hare, et al. Multiradionuclide evidence for an extreme solar proton event around 2,610 B.P. (∼660 BC). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019.
Scientists ‘Wake Up’ Ancient Woolly Mammoth Cells in High-Tech Experiment
geek.com – Scientists in Japan have “awakened” 28,000-year-old cells from a woolly mammoth that lived on our planet years ago, and their observations could provide a better understanding of extinct animals’ lives. The team, which …
Source: Kazuo Yamagata, et al. Signs of biological activities of 28,000-year-old mammoth nuclei in mouse oocytes visualized by live-cell imaging. Scientific Reports, 2019.
Chimpanzee Culture Is Disappearing Thanks to Climate Change, Study Finds
vice.com – Common chimpanzee behaviors are disappearing thanks to climate change and proximity to humans.
Source: Hjalmar S. Kühl, et al. Human impact erodes chimpanzee behavioral diversity. Science, 2019.
Hidden compounds in many medications can trigger allergies
sciencenews.org – Analysis of 42,000 pill recipes shows nearly 93 percent have ingredients that may cause allergic reactions.
Source: Daniel Reker, et al. “Inactive” ingredients in oral medications. Science Translational Medicine, 2019.
Geneticists push for a 5-year global ban on gene-edited babies
sciencenews.org – Prominent scientists are using the word “moratorium” to make it clear that experiments to create babies with altered genes are wrong, for now.
Source: Eric S. Lander, et al. Adopt a moratorium on heritable genome editing. Nature, 2019.
For Just The Second Time, an HIV Patient is in Remission After Stem Cell Transplant
discovermagazine.com – A patient who lived with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) for more than a decade is now free of the disease, researchers report today in the journal Nature. The retreat of the infection is only the second time such a case has been reported. In both instances, the patients received a bone marrow transplant to treat …
Source: Ravindra K Gupta, et al. HIV-1 remission following CCR5Δ32/Δ32 haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. Nature, 2019.
Shading the planet doesn’t have to come with rainfall side-effects
arstechnica.com – A smaller deployment wouldn’t necessarily leave anyone dry.
Source: Peter Irvine, et al. Halving warming with idealized solar geoengineering moderates key climate hazards. Nature Climate Change, 2019.
Trilobites: Massacre of Children in Peru Might Have Been a Sacrifice to Stop Bad Weather
nytimes.com – Nearly 140 child skeletons were revealed at the site last year. And now researchers say it may have been a response to an El Niño event.
Source: Gabriel Prieto, et al. A mass sacrifice of children and camelids at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas site, Moche Valley, Peru. PLOS ONE, 2019.
How sleep might repair your DNA
zmescience.com – Sleep might mitigate the damage done to DNA during wakeful hours.
Source: D. Zada, I. Bronshtein, T. Lerer-Goldshtein, Y. Garini, L. Appelbaum. Sleep increases chromosome dynamics to enable reduction of accumulating DNA damage in single neurons. Nature Communications, 2019.
