All Posts Tagged as 'Ecology'
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Earliest Evidence of Our Human Ancestors Outside of Africa Found
Our ancient human relatives got around more than scientists previously thought. Researchers in China excavated stone tools that were likely made by our human ancestors some 2.12 million years ago — the earliest evidence ever discovered of the human lineage outside of Africa.
"It suggests a way earlier migration out of Africa than we ever would have imagined," said Michael Petraglia, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, who was not involved with the study. "It's very exciting."
Live Science
Scientist challenges 'out of Africa' theory with new origin for modern humans
Bone fragments of oldest known human face in western Europe found in Spain
Inside the vigilante group of New Yorkers who hunt rats at night
Rats aren't only a part of New York City’s underground — they're an inseparable part of its pop culture. There’s Master Splinter from the Ninja Turtles, Pizza Rat, and even Cannibal Rat. But for every celebrity rat, there’s another 250,000 to 2 million anonymous rodents living in the city — and the city health department is fighting to bring down.
Last year, three people in a Bronx city block made the news for contracting leptospirosis through rat urine. Only two survived.
Inside the vigilante group
Wildlife experts urge Americans to catch, cook and EAT rat-like rodents terrorizing the nation
Lawmakers approve use of deadly force against bears
The hotly debated legislation stopped short of calling for a culling of the bear population through hunting.
Lawmakers
...video of children chanting with dead animals emerges
Alligator kills 69-year-old woman
Boy, 6, fatally mauled by dog on Fourth of July
Tootie Pootie is mauled to death by pit bull
Man kicked cat like ‘a football then doused it with gas and lit on fire
Hiker, 47, killed by grizzly bear while out jogging
At least 30 dead dogs found at animal rescue
Animal shelters quickly filling up amid rise in pet abandonments
XL bully dogs to be banned from end of this year
Streetlights are making caterpillars grow up faster—and that’s a bad thing
To gather caterpillars from hedges, “you basically stick drain piping or any kind of open surface under the hedge, and then you basically whack the hedge with a stick five times. Which causes all of the caterpillars to fall out of the hedge and into your receptacles. So that was quite fun.”
In the grass, it’s a bit easier. “The caterpillars spend the day at the base of these grasses, and climb up the stems at night. So you just go along with a sweep net and just sweep through the vegetation.”
The differences were stark: lighted hedges contained just half the caterpillars of their dark counterparts. Grass had one third fewer.
Streetlights are making caterpillars grow
Sick of Mosquitoes?
Should we penalize parents for having ‘extra kids’?
Bill Nye “the Science Guy” did exactly what scientists are supposed to do this week — ask questions — and people are blasting him for it.
The engineer-turned-comedian-turned-TV host has sparked widespread outrage on social media thanks to an idea he proposed Tuesday on his new Netflix series, “Bill Nye Saves the World.”
During a panel discussion, the 61-year-old Cornell grad asked: “Should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?”
Travis Rieder, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, said he believed it was a good idea.
“I do think that we should at least consider it,” he told Nye.
Should we penalize parents for having ‘extra kids’?
The Y chromosome is disappearing – so what will happen to men?
The Y chromosome may be a symbol of masculinity, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is anything but strong and enduring. Although it carries the “master switch” gene, SRY, that determines whether an embryo will develop as male (XY) or female (XX), it contains very few other genes and is the only chromosome not necessary for life. Women, after all, manage just fine without one.
What’s more, the Y chromosome has degenerated rapidly, leaving females with two perfectly normal X chromosomes, but males with an X and a shrivelled Y. If the same rate of degeneration continues, the Y chromosome has just 4.6m years left before it disappears completely. This may sound like a long time, but it isn’t when you consider that life has existed on Earth for 3.5 billion years.
The Conversation
It Turns Out Your Love of Glitter Is Actually Bad for the Environment
From glitter bombs, beards, makeup and sparkly protest signs, glitter is a mainstay of modern LGBTQ culture. But U.K. scientists are urging the government to ban it because it’s apparently very bad for the environment.
If you’ve ever spilled glitter or used any on your body, than you understand that it never really completely goes away. (That’s part of the reason that glitter is sometimes called “raver scabies.”) It’s non-biodegradable and even when it’s thrown away or washed down the drain, it still ends up in our soil and water supply where it creates even more problems.
The issue, according to Josh Gabbatiss of The Independent, is that most glitter contains a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (or PET). The PET contained in glitter is microplastic, a word that refers to any small bits of plastic that are smaller than a fifth of an inch.
Hornet
Autumn isn’t cold enough to kill bugs anymore—find out what pests will persist in your region
The cooler temperatures of autumn may not be a cause for celebration if you prefer lounging on the beach to cuddling by the fire, but at least they provide a reprieve from summer’s most pernicious irritant—bugs.
Thanks to climate change, the country is experiencing wave after wave of abnormally hot, distinctly un-fall like temperatures. And according to the latest Bug Barometer by the National Pest Management Association, that means the buggers aren’t budging this year. We’re stuck with them.
Popular Science
Climate change's impact on human health is already here — and is 'potentially irreversible,' report says
Climate change is already having an extraordinary impact on human health worldwide — affecting the spread of infectious diseases, exposing millions to air pollution and heat waves and dramatically reducing labor productivity, according to a report released Monday.
"The human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible," the report by the British medical journal The Lancet says, and the situation is so serious that significant gains by modern medicine and technology are being undercut.
"The delayed response to climate change over the past 25 years has jeopardized human life and livelihoods," the report says.
USA Today
2 Arizona Counties Are Seeing Signs of the Plague. It Isn’t the First Time
There's some troubling public health news out of Arizona this week. The Navajo and Coconino counties of the state have warned that fleas in the area tested positive for bubonic plague.
To be clear, no deaths or illnesses have been reported in the region so far. But the highly infectious and deadly pathogen—which claimed millions of lives in the Middle Ages and is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis—is concerning enough that health officials have issued public warnings over the fleas, urging residents to stay away from animals that might contract the infection.
Fortune
Turns out we may all be made of stardust, scientists say
If you were looking to space for extra-terrestrial life, maybe it's time to look in the mirror. A new study claims we might all be part-alien.
Supercomputer simulations conducted by a team of astrophysicists at Northwestern University suggest that each of us -- and everything in our galaxy -- may have been expelled vast distances across the universe by exploding supernovas.
Thrown into space with such force, streams of charged atoms are blasted away from their original galaxy's gravitational pull and carried to our Milky Way on "powerful galactic winds."
Daniel Angles-Alcazar, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern in Illinois who led the study, told CNN that the team created intricate 3-D models which allowed the team to explore the evolution of galaxies over time.
CNN