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CraigD

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Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread


Please enjoy!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Scientists Detect Signs of a Hidden Structure Inside Earth's Core

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While most of us take the ground beneath our feet for granted, written within its complex layers, like pages of a book, is Earth's history. Our history.

Now researchers have found more evidence for a whole new chapter deep within Earth's past - Earth's inner core appears to have another even more inner core within it.

"Traditionally we've been taught the Earth has four main layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core," explained Australian National University geophysicist Joanne Stephenson.

Our knowledge of what lies beneath Earth's crust has been inferred mostly from what volcanoes have divulged and seismic waves have whispered. From these indirect observations scientists have calculated that the scorchingly hot inner core, with temperatures surpassing 5,000 degrees Celsius (9,000 Fahrenheit), makes up only one percent of Earth's total volume.

Now Stephenson and colleagues have found more evidence Earth's inner core may have two distinct layers.

"It's very exciting - and might mean we have to re-write the textbooks!" she added.

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-...hints-at-an-even-more-dramatic-planet-history

This research was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
 
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Wikipedia maintained high-quality COVID-19 coverage during first pandemic wave

Researchers in Israel have demonstrated that Wikipedia's coverage of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continued to be based on respected media and academic sources, despite a surge in coverage as the pandemic grew during the first wave.

The team's analysis found that Wikipedia's articles continued to reference trusted media sources and high-quality academic research.

The study also revealed how pre-existing articles on key topics related to COVID-19 created a framework or "scientific infrastructure" that helped provide context and regulate the influx of new information.

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the bioRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer review.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...D-19-coverage-during-first-pandemic-wave.aspx
 
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A super-Earth just discovered in our cosmic backyard might contain an atmosphere
Astronomers, studying the star over a four-year period between 2016 and 2020, noticed periodic dips in its brightness -- the telltale signs of an orbiting exoplanet. In a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, researchers detail the discovery of the planet, dubbed Gliese 486 b. It's the third-closest exoplanet discovered with this method. Thousands of planets have now been discovered in our galaxy, but Gliese 486 b is particularly noteworthy because astronomers believe we may be able to study whether the planet has an atmosphere.

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The rocky world is slightly larger than Earth but three times more massive (a so-called "super-Earth") and makes a full orbit of its parent star in less than 1.5 days. Data from two exoplanet-hunting missions, NASA's TESS, a space telescope, and the Carmenes survey, by Spain's Calar Alto observatory, which specifically looks for planets around red dwarfs, was obtained to study the newly discovered planet.

Though we've found a ton of exoplanets, they're not easy to see. Planets don't reflect a lot of light, so you have to find them indirectly. One way to do that is to look for dips in the brightness of a star, the "transit" method, which signifies a planet moving in front of the star. Another is to assess how a star's radial velocity changes, which happens when a planet is tugging on the star and it appears to "wobble" when observed. For Gliese 486 b, both methods were used -- giving researchers a powerful tool to define more of the planet's characteristics.

 
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Organic materials essential for life on Earth are found for the first time on the surface of an asteroid

organicmater.jpg


New research from Royal Holloway, has found water and organic matter on the surface of an asteroid sample returned from the inner Solar System. This is the first time that organic materials, which could have provided chemical precursors for the origin of life on Earth, have been found on an asteroid.

The single grain sample was returned to Earth from asteroid Itokawa by JAXA's first Hayabusa mission in 2010. The sample shows that water and organic matter that originate from the asteroid itself have evolved chemically through time.

The research paper suggests that Itokawa has been constantly evolving over billions of years by incorporating water and organic materials from foreign extra-terrestrial material, just like the Earth. In the past, the asteroid will have gone through extreme heating, dehydration and shattering due to catastrophic impact. However, despite this, the asteroid came back together from the shattered fragments and rehydrated itself with water that was delivered via the in fall of dust or carbon-rich meteorites.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-materials-essential-life-earth-surface.html
 
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AN EYELESS WORM HAS UPENDED SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF COLOR

f7a83443-5c2a-4706-aa6e-68042a6d063f-gettyimages-1128676676.jpg


THE MICROSCOPIC ROUNDWORM, Caenorhabditis elegans, might be Earth's secret superhero. These tube-shaped creatures, which thrive on rotting vegetation, may seem unremarkable at first glance. But this simple animal has benefited humanity in numerous ways.

A study published Thursday in the journal Science finds C. elegans can discriminate between colors despite the fact that they don't have eyes or opsins — a colorless protein that reacts to light. The research was conducted by scientists at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Abstract:

Color detection is used by animals of diverse phyla to navigate colorful natural environments and is thought to require evolutionarily conserved opsin photoreceptor genes. We report that Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms can discriminate between colors despite the fact that they lack eyes and opsins.

Specifically, we found that white light guides C. elegans foraging decisions away from a blue-pigment toxin secreted by harmful bacteria. These foraging decisions are guided by specific blue-to-amber ratios of light. The color specificity of color-dependent foraging varies notably among wild C. elegans strains, which indicates that color discrimination is ecologically important. We identified two evolutionarily conserved cellular stress response genes required for opsin-independent, color-dependent foraging byC. elegans, and we speculate that cellular stress response pathways can mediate spectral discrimination by photosensitive cells and organisms—even by those lacking opsins.

https://www.inverse.com/science/eyeless-worms-can-still-see-color-study
 
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Dozens of earthquakes rock New Zealand as thousands flee tidal surges




Shocking footage of a huge wave surge hitting New Zealand’s coast has emerged after four earthquakes rocked the nation’s north


A magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck off the Kermadec Islands, 1000km northeast of New Zealand, at 8.28am local time (6.28am AEDT).

Late this morning there has been a fourth aftershock at the Kermadec Islands. This one has been measured as 6.2 in magnitude and struck at a depth of 10km at 12:12pm local time.

“People near coast from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei, from Matata to Tolaga Bay, and Great Barrier Island must move immediately to nearest high ground, out of all tsunami evacuation zones, or as far inland as possible,” the National Emergency Management Agency alerted at 8.45am (7.45am).


https://www.news.com.au/technology/...d/news-story/7eda4f4d568165320b6c817646df2007

Stay safe Bro's!
 
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8 crew members are wanted for the first civilian lunar orbital mission, dearMoon.

mainVisual_pc_langEN.jpg


copy_pc_langEN.jpg


When Mr Maezawa first booked out all the seats on the SpaceX flight in 2018, his vision was to take along eight artists, but he has expanded that criteria to anyone who is good at what they do.

The two prerequisites are that you have the potential to benefit society through your expertise or skills, and be willing to work as part of a team.


Pre-registrations by March 14.

Sign up here: https://dearmoon.earth/
 
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Microsoft Launches Mesh For Remote Collaboration And Shared Mixed Reality Experiences

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Alex Kipman took the virtual stage at Ignite 2021 and announced Microsoft Mesh, a mixed reality, cross-device remote collaboration platform.

At the opening keynote for Microsoft Ignite—the company’s first such experience designed for mixed reality—Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman announced Mesh, a mixed reality platform built on Azure. He did so through both avatar and holoportation (wherein he was volumetrically captured live in 3D and broadcast into the virtual scene)—joined at various points by filmmaker James Cameron (Dir. Avatar, Titanic, Terminator), Niantic CEO John Hanke, and Cirque du Soleil Cofounder Guy Laliberté.

Mesh is designed for immersive and holographic copresence across devices ranging from smartphones to PCs to virtual and augmented reality headsets. Through Mesh-enabled apps, users can appear in space together to collaborate in real time, regardless of where they happen to be geographically. In addition, they will be able to work with 3D models in real time.

As outlined in an official blog post today, the company foresees distributed teams using Mesh to “conduct virtual design sessions, assist others, learn together and host virtual social meetups.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessed...-mixed-reality-experiences-and-collaboration/




More information:

Microsoft Mesh enables presence and shared experiences from anywhere – on any device – through mixed reality applications. Mesh allows for connections with new depth and dimension. As digital intelligence comes to the real world, we’re now able to see, share, and collaborate on content that persists. This common understanding ignites ideas, sparks creativity, and forms powerful bonds.


https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/microsoft-mesh/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh
 
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Physicists Just Found 4 New Subatomic Particles That May Test The Laws of Nature

This month is a time to celebrate. CERN has just announced the discovery of four brand new particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.

This means that the LHC has now found a total of 59 new particles, in addition to the Nobel prize-winning Higgs boson, since it started colliding protons – particles that make up the atomic nucleus along with neutrons – in 2009.


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The LHC's goal is to explore the structure of matter at the shortest distances and highest energies ever probed in the lab – testing our current best theory of nature: the Standard Model of Particle Physics. And the LHC has delivered the goods – it enabled scientists to discover the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the model. That said, the theory is still far from being fully understood.

One of its most troublesome features is its description of the strong force which holds the atomic nucleus together. The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, which are in turn each composed of three tiny particles called quarks (there are six different kinds of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom).

StandardModelParticlePhysicsLogo21.jpg

 
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Walker 'stunned' to see ship hovering high above sea off Cornwall

David Morris, who captured the extraordinary sight on camera, declared himself “stunned” when he noticed a giant tanker evidently floating above the water as he looked out to sea from a hamlet near Falmouth in Cornwall.

2000.jpg


The effect is an example of an optical illusion known as a superior mirage. Such illusions are reasonably common in the Arctic but can also happen in UK winters when the atmospheric conditions are right, though they are very rare.




 
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NASA’s Perseverance Drives on Mars’ Terrain for First Time

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NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on Mars March 4, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian landscape. The drive served as a mobility test that marks just one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance. Once the rover begins pursuing its science goals, regular commutes extending 656 feet (200 meters) or more are expected.

“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This was our first chance to ‘kick the tires’ and take Perseverance out for a spin. The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

The drive, which lasted about 33 minutes, propelled the rover forward 13 feet (4 meters), where it then turned in place 150 degrees to the left and backed up 8 feet (2.5 meters) into its new temporary parking space. To help better understand the dynamics of a retrorocket landing on the Red Planet, engineers used Perseverance’s Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Cameras to image the spot where Perseverance touched down, dispersing Martian dust with plumes from its engines.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-drives-on-mars-terrain-for-first-time
 
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Abandoned Arctic military bases face questionable future

In 1959 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century beneath the surface of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet. There they studied the feasibility of deploying ballistic missiles within the ice sheet. The base and its wastes were abandoned with minimal decommissioning in 1967, under the assumption they would be preserved for eternity by perpetually accumulating snowfall.

Upon its abandonment only the reaction chamber of the nuclear generator was taken. 9,200 tons of physical waste (building infrastructure), 200,000 liters of diesel fuel, 24,000,000 liters of biological waste, and 1,200,000,000 Bq (unit of radioactivity) of radioactive material were left at Camp Century. Aside from diesel fuel that was stored in rigid containers, which have most likely been compromised, liquid waste was stored in unlined sumps. Experts believe that the continued degradation of ice sheets will create conditions where this liquid waste will be able to permeate deeper into the ice, possibly into aquifers within the ice sheet, and even the sea.


https://www.history.com/news/project-iceworm-cold-war-nuclear-weapons-greenland


If the waste left at Camp Century were to permeate deeper into the ice shelf it could have grave environmental consequences. Not only would it contaminate a large swath of centuries old ice that holds a plethora of scientific data, it would also pose the risk of making its way out to sea and contaminating a diverse ecosystem.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL069688


http://ippsr.msu.edu/research/abandoned-ice-sheet-base-camp-century-greenland-warming-climate
 
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Engineering marvel: Sixth mirror cast for Giant Magellan Telescope

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The Giant Magellan Telescope announces fabrication of the sixth of seven of the world's largest monolithic mirrors. These mirrors will allow astronomers to see farther into the universe with more detail than any other optical telescope before. The sixth 8.4-meter (27.5 feet) mirror—about two stories high when standing on edge—is being fabricated at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab and will take nearly four years to complete. The mirror casting is considered a marvel of modern engineering and is usually celebrated with a large in-person event with attendees from all over the world. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, work on the sixth mirror began behind closed doors to protect the health of the 10-person mirror casting team at the lab.

"The most important part of a telescope is its light-collecting mirror," said James Fanson, Project Manager of the Giant Magellan Telescope. "The larger the mirror, the deeper we can see into the universe and the more detail we can observe. The Giant Magellan Telescope's unique primary mirror design consists of seven of the world's largest mirrors. Casting the sixth mirror is a major step toward completion. Once operational, the Giant Magellan Telescope will produce images ten times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. The discoveries these mirrors will make will transform our understanding of the universe."

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-marvel-sixth-mirror-giant-magellan.html
 
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8 crew members are wanted for the first civilian lunar orbital mission, dearMoon.

mainVisual_pc_langEN.jpg


copy_pc_langEN.jpg


When Mr Maezawa first booked out all the seats on the SpaceX flight in 2018, his vision was to take along eight artists, but he has expanded that criteria to anyone who is good at what they do.

The two prerequisites are that you have the potential to benefit society through your expertise or skills, and be willing to work as part of a team.


Pre-registrations by March 14.

Sign up here: https://dearmoon.earth/
If it ends like the last Starship SN10 landing, don't count on me :xf.grin:
 
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Andromeda’s and the Milky Way’s black holes will collide. Here’s how it may play out

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/andromeda-milky-way-galaxy-black-hole-collision-simulation

"The supermassive black holes at the centers of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are doomed to e
ngulf each other in an ill-fated cosmological dance.

The galaxies will coalesce into one giant elliptical galaxy — dubbed “Milkomeda” — in about 10 billion years. Then, the central black holes will begin orbiting one another and finally collide less than 17 million years later, researchers propose February 22 at arXiv.org and in an earlier paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Just before the black holes smash into each other, they’ll radiate gravitational waves with the power of 10 quintillion suns (SN: 2/11/16). Any civilization within 3.25 million light-years from us that has gravitational wave–sensing technology on par with our current abilities would be able to detect the collision, the researchers estimate.

The latest data suggest Andromeda is approaching us at about 116 kilometers per second, says Riccardo Schiavi, an astrophysicist at the Sapienza University of Rome."
 
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Humans Evolved to Be the Water-Saving Ape

When you think about what separates humans from chimpanzees and other apes, you might think of our big brains, or the fact that we get around on two legs rather than four. But we have another distinguishing feature: water efficiency.

That’s the take-home of a new study that, for the first time, measures precisely how much water humans lose and replace each day compared with our closest living animal relatives.

Our bodies are constantly losing water: when we sweat, go to the bathroom, even when we breathe. That water needs to be replenished to keep blood volume and other body fluids within normal ranges.

thirsty-man.jpg



And yet, research published March 5 in the journal Current Biology shows that the human body uses 30% to 50% less water per day than our closest animal cousins. In other words, among primates, humans evolved to be the low-flow model.

An ancient shift in our body’s ability to conserve water may have enabled our hunter-gatherer ancestors to venture farther from streams and watering holes in search of food, said lead author Herman Pontzer, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University.
 
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Walker 'stunned' to see ship hovering high above sea off Cornwall

David Morris, who captured the extraordinary sight on camera, declared himself “stunned” when he noticed a giant tanker evidently floating above the water as he looked out to sea from a hamlet near Falmouth in Cornwall.

2000.jpg


The effect is an example of an optical illusion known as a superior mirage. Such illusions are reasonably common in the Arctic but can also happen in UK winters when the atmospheric conditions are right, though they are very rare.




Amazing image!

Here's an interesting page describing the various types of optical illusions in the landscape.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/mirage.html

loomingsailboat.jpg


Such superior mirages are sometimes referred to as "looming" mirages or as fata morganas.

This probably accounts for stories of Flying Dutchman and some UFO sightings.
 
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I'm thinking the same thing. As much as I would love to ride a rocket into space, the only platform I think I would feel safe trusting my life to would be the russian Soyuz rocket, with over 1,700 flights to date since 1966.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(rocket_family)
The Soyuz rocket follows the "Keep it simple" saying.

"The production of Soyuz launchers reached a peak of 60 per year in the early 1980s. It has become the world's most used space launcher, flying over 1700 times, far more than any other rocket. Despite its age and perhaps thanks to its simplicity, this rocket family has been notable for its low cost and high reliability."
 
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The Soyuz rocket follows the "Keep it simple" saying.

"The production of Soyuz launchers reached a peak of 60 per year in the early 1980s. It has become the world's most used space launcher, flying over 1700 times, far more than any other rocket. Despite its age and perhaps thanks to its simplicity, this rocket family has been notable for its low cost and high reliability."

And cheap!

Although SpaceX and others are trying to compete on the cost per Kg, I think Soyuz will likely remain the most affordable and reliable launch platform for the foreseeable future.

Oct 2018:

The basic price to launch Russia’s Soyuz-2.1 carrier rocket with the Fregat booster will stand at about $48.5 million, the Russian launch service provider, Glavkosmos Launch Services, has said.

The launch of the Soyuz-2.1 without the Fregat booster would cost about $35 million.

"Therefore, the delivery of 1 kg of cargo by a Soyuz-2 rocket will cost $20,000-30,000… which is below the average market price," the statement reads."


https://tass.com/science/1024055

I realise that I'm comparing apples and oranges, but STS Shuttle launches were costing around $450 million per launch to Low Earth Orbit where the ISS is stationed.

Artemis SLS launches to the Moon are expected to cost between $800 million to $1.6 billion depending on the configuration and the number built.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/09/tech/nasa-sls-price-cost-artemis-moon-rocket-scn/index.html

I've heard that adjusted for inflation, the Apollo Program's Saturn-V cost about ten times that back in the 60-70's?
 
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Sesame Seed Shell Byproduct Sesaminol is a Parkinson’s Disease’s Surprise Medicine

Summary: Sesaminol, a chemical byproduct of sesame seed shells, has neuroprotective properties against Parkinson’s disease.

Source: Osaka City University

Sesame seed oil, used by many for its nutty aroma and high burn-point, is made by extracting the fatty oils from sesame seeds, with the empty shells thrown out as waste. In a literal instantiation of the age-old adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, researchers discovered that a chemical called sesaminol, abundant in this waste, has protective effects against Parkinson’s disease.


sesaminol-parkinsons-neuroscinces.jpeg



“Currently there is no preventive medicine for Parkinson’s disease”, states OCU Associate Professor Akiko Kojima-Yuasa, “we only have coping treatments”. Associate Professor Kojima-Yuasa led her research group through a series of experiments to understand the effects of sesaminol on in vitro and in vivo Parkinson’s disease models.


Open Sesame!
 
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Mammoths Co-Existed with Early Americans in New England, Study Suggests

The so-called Mount Holly mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) lived approximately 12,800 years ago in what is now New England, a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States, and potentially overlapped with the first human settlers of the region, according to new research from Dartmouth College.

The Mount Holly mammoth discovered during railroad construction in the summer of 1848 is the most complete and best documented set of proboscidean remains from Vermont, but remained undated.

OIF.KOA5TAmRltZOwIfbmuCQ9A



One molar, two tusks, and an unknown number of bones were excavated from a hilltop bog near Mount Holly.



They took a 3D scan of the material prior to taking a small (one gram) sample from the broken end of the rib bone.

They then sent the sample to the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia for radiocarbon dating and a stable istotopic analysis.

“The Mount Holly mammoth was one of the last known occurring mammoths in the Northeast,” Dr. DeSilva said.

“The radiocarbon date for the fossil of 12,800 years old overlaps with the accepted age of when humans may have initially settled in the region, which is thought to have occurred during the start of the Younger Dryas.”
 
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Mammoths Co-Existed with Early Americans in New England, Study Suggests

The so-called Mount Holly mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) lived approximately 12,800 years ago in what is now New England, a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States, and potentially overlapped with the first human settlers of the region, according to new research from Dartmouth College.

The Mount Holly mammoth discovered during railroad construction in the summer of 1848 is the most complete and best documented set of proboscidean remains from Vermont, but remained undated.

OIF.KOA5TAmRltZOwIfbmuCQ9A



One molar, two tusks, and an unknown number of bones were excavated from a hilltop bog near Mount Holly.



They took a 3D scan of the material prior to taking a small (one gram) sample from the broken end of the rib bone.

They then sent the sample to the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia for radiocarbon dating and a stable istotopic analysis.

“The Mount Holly mammoth was one of the last known occurring mammoths in the Northeast,” Dr. DeSilva said.

“The radiocarbon date for the fossil of 12,800 years old overlaps with the accepted age of when humans may have initially settled in the region, which is thought to have occurred during the start of the Younger Dryas.”

Impressive beasts!

Now we just need to find fossils of these guys... ;)

 
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Mammoths Co-Existed with Early Americans in New England, Study Suggests

The so-called Mount Holly mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) lived approximately 12,800 years ago in what is now New England, a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States, and potentially overlapped with the first human settlers of the region, according to new research from Dartmouth College.

Asteroid collision likely caused a global reset

Recent crater discoveries in Greenland, declining pollen and platinum in dust samples suggest that a catastrophic asteroid collision around 12,800 years ago caused many large mammals to become extinct in North America, South America, and Europe. This period is usually referred to as the Younger Dryas.

Some extraordinary species of large animals also became extinct in South Africa, not necessarily exactly 12 800 years ago, but near that period. This megafauna extinction includes a giant African buffalo, a large zebra, and a very large wildebeest.

The Younger Dryas period is the return to glacial conditions, which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum around 20,000 BP.

https://curiosmos.com/global-reset-...find-evidence-of-mass-extinction-by-asteroid/
 
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Asteroid collision likely caused a global reset

Recent crater discoveries in Greenland, declining pollen and platinum in dust samples suggest that a catastrophic asteroid collision around 12,800 years ago caused many large mammals to become extinct in North America, South America, and Europe. This period is usually referred to as the Younger Dryas.

Some extraordinary species of large animals also became extinct in South Africa, not necessarily exactly 12 800 years ago, but near that period. This megafauna extinction includes a giant African buffalo, a large zebra, and a very large wildebeest.

The Younger Dryas period is the return to glacial conditions, which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum around 20,000 BP.

https://curiosmos.com/global-reset-...find-evidence-of-mass-extinction-by-asteroid/

I've been searching for studies of a platinum spike in Australia's geological record at that time but can't find much. I suspect Australia is too far away from Greenland for the impact to have left a signature.

It's debatable, but Australia may have got off to an early start with human induced extinction events. Megafauna became extinct roughly 50,000 years ago when the earliest humans first arrived in Australia.

Some Dreamtime oral stories can be tied to human memories of ancient megafauna.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna

Edit.

Quaternary extinction
The earliest casualties were incurred at 130,000 BCE (the start of the Late Pleistocene), in Australia ~ 60,000 years ago, in Americas ~ 15 000 years ago, coinciding in time with the early human migrations.[1][2] However, the great majority of extinctions in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas occurred during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch (13,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE). This extinction wave did not stop at the end of the Pleistocene, continuing, especially on isolated islands, in human-caused extinctions, although there is debate as to whether these should be considered separate events or part of the same event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction
 
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