Free Republic

...the experts have shown the end of the occupation of this part of the province of Seville happened between the 24th and 23rd centuries BCE, despite evidence of it being frequented and used in the Bronze Age (c. 2200-850 BCE). "In fact, the abandonment of the site seems rather abrupt, without a gradual transition towards a different social model. The possibility that the end of the Valencina settlement was due to a social crisis has been hinted at by the dates obtained from several human skulls separated from the rest of the skeletons in a pit in a Calle Trabajadores...

Consider the ancient human fossils from a Moroccan cave called Jebel Irhoud, which were described just last year. These 315,000-year-old bones are the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens. They not only pushed back the proposed dawn of our species, but they added northwest Africa to the list of possible origin sites. They also had an odd combination of features, combining the flat faces of modern humans with the elongated skulls of ancient species like Homo erectus. From the front, they could have passed for us; from the side, they would have stood out. Fossils from all over Africa have...

Ancient bones found around the Strait of Gibraltar... dating to the first few centuries AD or earlier, belong to grey whales and North Atlantic right whales -- coastal migratory species that are no longer found in European waters. Researchers... add that Romans would not have had the technology to hunt whale species found in the region today -- sperm or fin whales which live further out at sea -- meaning evidence of whaling might not have been something archaeologists and historians were looking out for... The right whale was once widespread in the North Atlantic, with breeding grounds off the...

A medieval gaming board has been found by archaeologists working to find a lost Pictish-era monastery in Aberdeenshire. Archaeologist Ali Cameron said the board found near Old Deer was a "very rare" find with it used to play the Norse strategy game of Hnefatafl. A date for the board has yet to be established but a similar piece found in Birsay, Orkney, in 1989 was dated to the Late Iron Age/Pictish period from the 5th to 9th Century AD. Ms Cameron said: "It is a very rare object and only a few have been found in Scotland, mainly on monastic...

By comparing genomic signatures from 71 mitochondrial and seven nuclear genomes of ancient North American and Siberian dogs spanning a period of 9,000 years, the research team was able to gain a clearer picture of the history of the first canine inhabitants of the Americas. The oldest dog remains in the Americas date to about 9,000 years ago... These dogs persisted for thousands of years in the Americas, but almost completely vanished after European contact, the researchers found... The team also discovered that the genomic signature of a transmissible cancer that afflicts dogs appears to be one of the last...

In a seismic decision from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Department of State (DOS), Cody Wilson’s open-source 3D printed firearm file sharing site Defense Distributed is no longer banned from distributing 3D models of guns. In the legal battle it was deemed that the ban was in breach of the First Amendment – imposing censorship on a gun maker’s rights to expression. It was also decided on the basis that certain types of guns are not “inherently military” and, seemingly, present less of a threat to the population.

These guys built a NERF bazooka/rocket launcher and it is positivalutely SCARY and awesome to behold. 2.5" barrel, pneumatic system powered by a 9-volt battery. The "NERF darts" are pool noodles with PVC fittings, put together and look exactly like ginormous official NERF ammo. 3D printed cosmetics including flip-up sights, safety switch and button to fire. Finally it's painted with the same scheme as real NERF toys.Here's the video of it on YouTube.

A mere 2 hours before his grisly murder about 5,300 years ago, Ötzi the iceman chowed down on some mouthwatering morsels: wild meat from ibex and red deer, cereals from einkorn wheat and — oddly enough — poisonous fern, a new study finds. It's unclear why Ötzi ate the toxic fern, known as bracken (Pteridium aquilinum). But it's possible that he used the fern to wrap his food, almost like a piece of plastic wrap, and then unintentionally ingested some of the toxic spores the fern left behind, said study co-senior researcher Albert Zink, head of the Eurac Research Institute...

The dental record reveals that Richard III had no congenitally missing teeth, in sharp contrast to the 'bones in the urn', where both skulls are said to present this genetic anomaly. Previously it has been argued that this feature provided strong evidence of the royal identity of the 'bones in the urn'. It was claimed that the 'Princes' inherited their missing teeth from their grandmother, Cecily, Duchess of York. But Dr Ashdown-Hill's latest discovery strongly suggests that the 'bones in the urn' are not related to Cecily's son, Richard III, who was a first degree relative of the 'Princes'. Scientific...

View Academic Paper DogsBite.org was recently introduced to a variety of works by internationally acclaimed animal behaviorist Alexandra Semyonova -- born in the U.S. and educated at John Hopkins University and University College London. Semyonova writes with breathtaking honesty about issues that matter the most: the reality of selecting for aggression and the repeated denial by humane organizations and dog breeders that such selection bears no hereditary significance. Semyonova's 8-page academic paper explains, in easily understandable terms, the roots and results of selective breeding. Semyonova states in the opening sentence, "Probably everyone understands that all dog breeds we have created...

Aside that it is neat, is it actually worth the expense over time?

Humans and mice share approximately 98% of genes, and have similar physiology and anatomy. This is because we share a relatively recent common ancestor, around 80 million-years-ago. In contrast, the ancestor of all animals lived over 500 million-years-ago. As genomic data becomes available for more animal species a detailed family tree can be created, allowing novel insight into the genomes of long extinct species. In the guest post below Jordi Paps summarises recent research that attempts to reconstruct the genome of the ‘first animal’ by using the genomic data available on living animals. The first animals emerged on Earth at...

A Virginia teen suffered significant burns to his face and arm after reportedly being exposed to hogweed. Alex Childress, 17, was inflicted with second-and third-degree burns after unknowingly touching the plant while he was working outside at his landscaping job on Tuesday, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Childress reportedly believed the plant was a weed and went to remove it from the ground. A person's skin can burn and blister after coming in contact with sap from the plant. Childress’ father, Justin, recalled to the outlet how his son told him he had a “really bad sunburn.” “The top layer...

A team of scientists at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has discovered that a 1,800-year-old papyrus from the Basel Papyrus Collection is an ancient medical text from late antiquity and that it was likely written by the famous Roman physician Galen. The University Library in Basel possesses a collection of 65 papyri, mostly in Greek and several in Coptic, Hieratic and Latin. Less than half of this collection was published by Ernst Rabel in 1917 in Papyrusurkunden der Öffentlichen Bibliothek der Universität zu Basel. With mirror writing on both sides, one of the Basel papyri — dubbed P.Basel 1A —...

Two tiny asteroids sneaked safely past Earth last weekend, only to be discovered hours after they'd buzzed our planet. Asteroids 2018 NX and 2018 NW zipped past our blue-green orb at distances of just 72,000 miles and 76,000 miles, respectively. That's about one-third of the distance from the Earth to the moon. Scientists think the asteroids both stretched between about 16 feet and 50 feet in diameter. That's relatively small for near-Earth asteroids.  Astronomers at an observatory on the Palomar Mountain range in California spotted both space rocks on Sunday, according to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. Although they passed our planet in quick...

The bouncing-baby asteroids were revealed by three radar telescopes, which shoot a beam of radio waves at nearby asteroids and wait for the reflection to return to Earth. Astronomers can use those received signals to paint a picture of the shape of an asteroid. In this case, that meant discovering that what looked like two lobes of one rock are actually two separate rocks, circling each other every 20 to 24 hours. It's a particularly exciting surprise because the two pieces of 2017 YE5 are almost the same size, each about 3,000 feet (900 meters) across. So far, scientists have...

It will let researchers study distant energy sources across the universe in "a completely new way" SCIENTISTS have captured a ghost-like subatomic particle on Earth, helping to solve a mystery baffling scientists for 100 years. The so-called "ghost particle" was trapped by researchers in a giant ice cube at the South Pole. It's actually a high-energy neutrino, and is the first of its type ever detected by scientists. Importantly, researchers believe they've tracked its likely source: a supermassive black hole that emits light and cosmic rays. The black hole is roughly four billion light years away, at the centre of...

The U.S. team won first place for the third time in four years at the 59th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) which took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on July 3-14, 2018, with 116 countries participating. Prior to a fourth place finish in 2017, the U.S. team won first place in 2015 and 2016 in the prestigious international competition. In 2018, the International Mathematical Olympiad brought together the top math students from around the world with 615 student competitors. The six U.S. team members also took home five gold medals and one silver medal for their individual high scores in the competition,...

Athletes who drink chocolate milk during exercise or after a hard workout may recover just as quickly as they would with sports drinks, a research review suggests. What people eat and drink during intense exercise and afterward can impact how well their muscles recover and how rapidly their body replaces fluids and electrolytes lost during the workout, previous research has found. Most studies assessing whether drinks with carbohydrates and electrolytes, or with protein, might aid recovery have been too small to draw firm conclusions about which beverages are the best option, the authors of the new review write in European...

Talk about a paleo diet. Scientists have uncovered the last meal of a frozen hunter who died 5,300 years ago in the Alps. The stomach contents of the corpse, widely known as Oetzi the Iceman, offer a snapshot of what ancient Europeans ate more than five millennia ago, researchers said. On the menu, described Thursday in the journal Current Biology, were the fat and meat of a wild goat, meat of a red deer and whole wheat seeds, which Oetzi ate shortly before his death. Traces of fern leaves and spores were also discovered in Oetzi's stomach. Scientists think he...