Jingszo !

She explains why the image was subsequently interpreted as depicting Capricornus, stating, "There is nothing like the goat-fish in pharaonic animal iconography… The Egyptians didn't create hybrid animals willy-nilly; instead, they drew together the features of animals that shared certain qualities, such as the Seth animal, which combines the physical features of a range of aggressive predators to create a truly powerful being. The el-Hosh creature also resembles the zodiac goat-fish so closely that we felt it is more likely the latter than evidence of a new type of hybrid animal."

The first occurrence of something resembling Capricornus occurred in Mesopotamia, where the Sumerian god Enki and the Akkadian equivalent Ea were usually depicted as bearded men with horned caps, wearing gowns. At the shoulders of these gowns, water streams filled with fish would spout. This later evolved into the first recognizable depiction of a goat-fish hybrid at the feet of the god on cylinder seals dating to ca. 2112–2004 BCE.

The nearby star Vega holds a special place in human culture. Located just 25 light-years away, this shining beacon—about twice the mass of the sun and 40 times as bright—is so prominent in Earth’s skies that it captivated ancient astronomers across the globe. A few thousand years ago it was also our planet’s North Star, until Polaris took its place as Earth’s axis wobbled. (Vega is set to reclaim the North Star crown in 12,000 years). As such, many have considered this iconic star an intriguing place to look for life, none more so than the astronomer Carl Sagan, who imagined signals from an intelligent civilization arriving from Vega in his 1985 novel Contact, which was adapted into a blockbuster movie in 1997.

So there was some disappointment earlier this month when astronomers announced a baffling discovery about this star.

The star, despite being about halfway through its one-billion-year lifetime, does not seem to have formed any large worlds.

Astronomers have analyzed the chemical signatures of millions of stars and noticed that many have evidence of surprisingly heavy metals in their upper atmospheres. These heavier metals should have sunk down into the star during formation, so they must have been deposited later. A new paper calculates that up to 30% of Sun-like stars have engulfed rocky planets during their lifetimes. This would explain why ultra-short-period planets are extremely rare. They were eaten.

Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) located in the Atacama desert region of Northern Chile, astronomers have revealed five stunning portraits of galaxies in the local universe.

The images of these galaxies show their shapes, structures and distributions of stars in stunning and colorful detail. Some of the galaxies are located at the edge of the so-called "local group," a galactic collection that includes our home, the Milky Way, while others are more distant.

The observations could help astronomers better understand cosmic evolution and how galaxies form stars as well as snatch other stellar bodies, gas and dust from neighboring galaxies via gravitational interactions.

The system was built by the lab, along with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and AMD, for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which will use it to model and simulate capabilities for nuclear weapons, helping to ensure the agency doesn’t need to actually explode bombs to test them.

Pig Pen, glowing tails and shooting stars

Comet Encke is the so-called parent comet of the Taurid meteors. It’s relatively small, just over 3 miles (almost 5 kilometers) in diameter, and crosses inside Earth’s orbit and back out every 3.3 years.

As Encke moves, it sheds dust wherever it goes, like the Peanuts character Pig Pen. A meteor shower occurs when that dust and debris light up while entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds. Ultimately, they vanish into an incandescent puff of vapor with a glowing tail, creating the illusion of a “shooting star.”

But dust isn’t all that breaks off the comet. So do bigger chunks, the size of pebbles and stones. When they collide with the air, they create the much brighter fireballs, which sometimes explode.

Here we present evidence for a two-phase accumulation of the Mediterranean salt layer based on the chlorine stable isotope composition of halite.

During the first phase, lasting approximately 35 kyr, halite deposition occurred only in the eastern Mediterranean, triggered by the restriction of Mediterranean outflow to the Atlantic, in an otherwise brine-filled Mediterranean basin.

During the second phase, halite accumulation occurred across the entire Mediterranean, driven by a rapid (<10 kyr) evaporative drawdown event during which sea-level dropped 1.7–2.1 km and ~ 0.85 km in the eastern and western Mediterranean, respectively. During this extreme drawdown event, the eastern Mediterranean basin lost up to 83% of its water volume, and large parts of its margins were desiccated, while its deep Ionian and Herodotus sub-basins remained filled with >1 km-deep brine.

Skull whistle sounds attract mental attention by affectively mimicking other aversive and startling sounds produced by nature and technology. They were psychoacoustically classified as a hybrid mix of being voice- and scream-like but also originating from technical mechanisms. Using human neuroimaging, we furthermore found that skull whistle sounds received a specific decoding of the affective significance in the neural auditory system of human listeners, accompanied by higher-order auditory cognition and symbolic evaluations in fronto-insular-parietal brain systems. Skull whistles thus seem unique sound tools with specific psycho-affective effects on listeners, and Aztec communities might have capitalized on the scary and scream-like nature of skull whistles.

Astronomers are continuing to find ultra-massive galaxies in the early history of the Universe. The three galaxies have a similar mass to the Milky Way, despite being within the first billion years after the Big Bang. These galaxies are forming stars nearly twice as efficiently as lower-mass galaxies or galaxies later on in the Universe. Although they're still within standard theories of cosmology, they demonstrate how much needs to be learned about the early Universe.

You interact with about two-thirds of the elements of the periodic table every day. Some, like carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, make up our bodies and the air we breathe.

Yet there is also a class of elements so unstable they can only be made in a lab.

These superheavy elements are the purview of a small group stretching the boundaries of chemistry. Can they extend the periodic table beyond the 118 in it now?

Find out scientists are using particle accelerators to create element 120 and why they’ve skipped over element 119.

Plus, if an element exists for only a fraction of a second in the lab, can we still say that counts as existing?

As our planet warms up and rain patterns shift, the feathers and skin of many species are changing colors, often getting lighter. Snails in the Netherlands are going from brown to yellow. In a species of tropical bee in Costa Rica, the proportion of orange to blue individuals is increasing. Lizards in France are turning lighter, and so are many insects and birds across the globe.

The Greater Antillean islands (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) are a natural laboratory for studying speciation. Although these islands were once connected and share many geographical characteristics, they have been separated for millions of years. This prolonged isolation with natural barriers allows each island's species to evolve in their own unique directions.

These conditions have led to explosive diversification in various groups, resulting in highly endemic species with unique adaptations. Spiders, particularly tarantulas, show remarkable diversification in this region.

The early Earth was bombarded by rocks from space, even after life had formed. Researchers are studying the implications of a meteorite that pummeled our planet 3.26 billion years ago. According to their calculations, this space rock was 200 times bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, triggering a tsunami that mixed up the ocean and flushed debris from the land. With the newly available organic material, bacteria and other organisms flourished.

The dream of traversing the depths of space and planting the seed of human civilization on another planet has existed for generations. For long as we’ve known that most stars in the Universe are likely to have their own system of planets, there have been those who advocated that we explore them (and even settle on them). With the dawn of the Space Age, this idea was no longer just the stuff of science fiction and became a matter of scientific study. Unfortunately, the challenges of venturing beyond Earth and reaching another star system are myriad.

When it comes down to it, there are only two ways to send crewed missions to exoplanets. The first is to develop advanced propulsion systems that can achieve relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light). The second involves building spacecraft that can sustain crews for generations – aka. a Generation Ship (or Worldship). On November 1st, 2024, Project Hyperion launched a design competition for crewed interstellar travel via generation ships that would rely on current and near-future technologies. The competition is open to the public and will award a total of $10,000 (USD) for innovative concepts.

A University of South Florida professor found the first-ever physical evidence of hallucinogens in an Egyptian mug, validating written records and centuries-old myths of ancient Egyptian rituals and practices. Through advanced chemical analyses, Davide Tanasi examined one of the world's few remaining Egyptian Bes mugs.

Such mugs, including the one donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984, are decorated with the head of Bes, an ancient Egyptian god or guardian demon worshiped for protection, fertility, medicinal healing and magical purification.

With a pulverized sample from scraping the inner walls of the vase, the team combined numerous analytical techniques for the first time to uncover what the mug last held.

The new tactic was successful and revealed the vase had a cocktail of psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids and alcohol—a combination that Tanasi believes was used in a magical ritual reenacting an Egyptian myth, likely for fertility. The concoction was flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes, which were commonly used to make the beverage look like blood.

"This research teaches us about magic rituals in the Greco-Roman period in Egypt," Van Oppen said. "Egyptologists believe that people visited the so-called Bes Chambers at Saqqara when they wished to confirm a successful pregnancy because pregnancies in the ancient world were fraught with dangers.

"So, this combination of ingredients may have been used in a dream-vision inducing magic ritual within the context of this dangerous period of childbirth."

Source:

Multianalytical investigation reveals psychotropic substances in a ptolemaic Egyptian vase

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-78721-8

The 2023 Planetary Defense Strategy focuses on six goals in total across Federal Departments and Agencies for the decade ahead:

Goal 1: Enhance NEO detection, tracking, and characterization capabilities. Early detection and tracking of a potential NEO impact threat provides the greatest leverage to adequately respond in time to prevent loss of life and damage to critical infrastructure.

Goal 2: Improve NO modeling, prediction, and information integration. Departments and Agencies will coordinate the development of validated modeling tools and simulation capabilities that aid in characterizing and mitigating NO impact risks while integrating and streamlining data flows to support effective decision-making.

Goal 3: Develop technologies for NO reconnaissance, deflection, and disruption missions. NASA will continue to lead development of technologies that could potentially be used in fast-response NEO reconnaissance missions and timely missions to deflect or disrupt hazardous NEOS.

Goal 4: Increase international cooperation on NO preparedness. The potentially cataclysmic consequences of a NEO impact, independent of national borders and geopolitical dynamics, presents special opportunity for engagement with the international community to foster cooperation in joint research and response efforts.

Goal 5: Strengthen and routinely exercise NO impact emergency procedures and action protocols. The United States will strengthen and exercise procedures and protocols for assessment of NO threats, communication-including to the public and international community-regarding threats, and response and recovery activities.

Goal 6: Improve U.S. management of planetary defense through enhanced interagency collaboration. Actions under this goal will improve ongoing coordination and implementation on projects across Federal agency boundaries.

The primates in Pineda-Munoz and Alroy (2014) dataset are specialized plant-eaters. There is little argument that meat was not the main food of early hominins, but it appears that at least 3.2 Mya, australopiths may have increased the portion of meat in their diet.

The appearance of the genus Homo was associated with a gradual increase of the animal component in the diet. Early Homo has initially expanded the diet from major reliance on plant foods to scavenging of bone marrow and brains and meat. Consistent signs of increased concentration on animal-sourced foods appear in H. erectus .

Most of the evidence that has been collected and analyzed in this article points to a carnivore trophic level for humans during most of the Paleolithic, starting with H. erectus.

Saber-toothed cats are iconic creatures often seen in museum dioramas, displays of fossil skeletons, and even the movie Ice Age. Now, for the first time one of these extinct predators has been spotted in the flesh. In a study published this week in Scientific Reports, researchers describe the frozen body of a saber-toothed kitten preserved for 37,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.

The carcass—containing the head, forelimbs, and front part of the animal—was discovered encased in a chunk of ice in 2020 near the Badyarikha River in northern Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. Radiocarbon dating revealed the cat—belonging to the species Homotherium latidens—lived in the late Pleistocene epoch 35,500 to 37,000 years ago.

Based on the emergence of its baby incisor teeth, researchers estimate the cub was about 3 weeks old when it died.

In the Cornish moorlands of southwest England lies a mysterious mound of stone and turf. Now covered with grass, the site was previously thought to be a medieval livestock pen built around 1000 C.E. Now, researchers have concluded the construction is actually 4,000 years older—dating to at least 3000 B.C.E., during the Neolithic period.

Known as King Arthur’s Hall, the unique site is located in Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. It’s about 160 feet long and 70 feet wide, and its walls are made of 56 earth-covered stones, which once stood upright. Now, they are all leaning, lying flat or buried.

“There isn’t another one of these anywhere,”

Fun Facts about Teeth across the Animal Kingdom

Two competing theories about the evolutionary origins of teeth have been battling back and forth for decades, vacillating with the latest supporting discoveries in developmental biology or the fossil record. The “outside-in” hypothesis suggests that toothlike dermal scales with pulplike centers covered in hardened mineral—similar to denticles found today—gradually migrated across the body’s exterior surface over successive generations of fish before moving inward to take up residence in our ancestors’ jawbones. The “inside-out” hypothesis suggests that teeth originated internally before migrating forward in the oral cavity to become oral teeth.

An investigation of a fossilized sawtooth shark’s rostral denticles (the “teeth” on the fish’s sawlike bill) showed complex internal structures incredibly similar to those found in shark teeth. This discovery suggests that the developmental gap between dermal scales and teeth is smaller than originally thought, edging the outside-in hypothesis ahead of inside-out once more.

"Excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel and the public — all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos."

Like previous congressional UFO hearings, today's event featured testimony from current U.S. military personnel who claim the American government has for decades hidden evidence of advanced technologies and otherworldly visitors from the public. A multitude of anecdotes were presented about flying orbs coming out of the ocean, disc-shaped objects, and craft "exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal." While such claims are nothing new, what is noteworthy about today's hearing are the pedigrees of some of the whistleblowers who testified, including a former U.S. counterintelligence officer, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a former NASA associate administrator. All of them stressed the need for more government transparency, less stigma about the UFO topic and new policies to bring UAP data out of the "black" classified world and into the public domain.

The search for clues after a U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper fighter brought down a still-unidentified object over Lake Huron in February 2023 did result in the recovery of debris it has been disclosed. However, it remains unclear whether or not the wreckage was from that shootdown. The new details continue to raise more questions about the downing of this and two other mystery objects that same month in American and Canadian skies, and why more information has not been made public.

In early October, The Swan auction house in Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, listed several lots of human remains for sale, including skulls from west Africa and shrunken heads from South America.

They were withdrawn within a couple of days after objections were raised by representatives of the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford and indigenous activists.

The remains included examples from the Naga people of India, the Ekoi people of present-day Nigeria and Cameroon, and other groups in the Solomon Islands, Benin, Congo, Nigeria, Amazonia and Papua New Guinea.

While the UK’s museums and education institutions increasingly have professional guidelines about the respectful treatment of human remains, those in private collections do not have any protection. Although it is difficult to legislate how people care for private collections, this case raises the question of whether human remains should still be allowed to be bought and sold at all.

Last year the British spotter group UFO Identified documented 395 UK sightings - and you can see what UFO encounters have been reported where you live using our interactive map.

An international team of researchers has achieved an unprecedented milestone: the creation of mouse stem cells capable of generating a fully developed mouse using genetic tools from a unicellular organism, with which we share a common ancestor that predates animals.

In an experiment that sounds like science fiction, Dr. Alex de Mendoza of Queen Mary University of London collaborated with researchers from The University of Hong Kong to use a gene found in choanoflagellates, a single-celled organism related to animals, to create stem cells which they then used to give rise to a living, breathing mouse.