Month: August 2022
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Medieval map shows ‘lost’ islands of Cardigan Bay | HeritageDaily
A map found in the Bodleian Library shows two ‘lost’ islands in Cardigan Bay, possibly indicating the legendary sunken kingdom from Welsh mythology, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Cantre’r Gwaelod was a land said to be west of present-day Wales. Accounts on the legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod vary, but the earliest depiction appears during the 13th century in…
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Sea urchin skeletons’ patterns may strengthen their structure
Sea urchin skeletons may owe some of their strength to a common geometric design. Components of the skeletons of common sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) follow a similar pattern to that found in honeycombs and dragonfly wings, researchers report in the August Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Studying this recurring natural order could inspire the…
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Monks were ‘riddled with worms’ during medieval period | HeritageDaily
A study by the University of Cambridge has found that monks within the Cambridge area were ‘riddled with worms’ during the medieval period. The population of medieval Cambridge consisted of residents of monasteries, friaries and nunneries of various major Christian orders, along with merchants, traders, craftsmen, labourers, farmers, and staff and students at the early…
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‘The Five-Million-Year Odyssey’ reveals how migration shaped humankind
The Five-Million-Year OdysseyPeter BellwoodPrinceton Univ., $29.95 Archaeologist Peter Bellwood’s academic odyssey wended from England to teaching posts halfway around the world, first in New Zealand and then in Australia. For more than 50 years, he has studied how humans settled islands from Southeast Asia to Polynesia. So it’s fitting that his new book, a plain-English…
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Common, cheap ingredients can break down some ‘forever chemicals’
There’s a new way to rip apart harmful “forever chemicals,” scientists say. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, are found in nonstick pans, water-repellent fabrics and food packaging and they are pervasive throughout the environment. They’re nicknamed forever chemicals for their ability to stick around and not break down. In part, that’s because…
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What did the megalodon shark eat?
About 23 to 3.6 million years ago, a shark roughly three times the size of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)—arguably made famous in the blockbuster 1975 movie JAWS—roamed the oceans of the world. The megalodon (Otodus megalodon or O.megalodon) is believed to be the largest shark that ever has lived, measuring 34 to 66…
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MeepCon comes to MIT | MIT News
Meep is not just the sound made by the Road Runner and Beaker the Muppet. Meep is a software package that MIT physicists originally developed in the early 2000s as a custom code written in C++ to facilitate the academic research of photonic crystals. It was released as open source in 2006. After nearly two…
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There may be a giant asteroid crater near Africa
When Africa and South America split apart during the Jurassic, birthing the Atlantic Ocean, the separation left a plateau of shallow ocean off the west coast of Guinea. “All the sediments are very flat, almost like a layer cake,” says Uisdean Nicholson, a marine geologist at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland who studies the region to…
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Early humans were drawn to Kalahari during water-rich periods | HeritageDaily
Evidence of water-rich periods in the Kalahari attracted early humans, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The Kalahari is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa, named from a Setswana word kgala or “great thirst”. Until recently, most evidence for early human development in southern Africa has stemmed from…
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Underwater snow gives clues about Europa’s icy shell | HeritageDaily
Below Europa’s thick icy crust is a massive, global ocean where the snow floats upwards onto inverted ice peaks and submerged ravines. The bizarre underwater snow is known to occur below ice shelves on Earth, but a new study shows that the same is likely true for Jupiter’s moon, where it may play a role…