Trudy Myers's Blog, page 2

New Human Species

Scientists havediscovered a new human species.

Only one species ofhominin exists on the planet today, and that’s Homo sapiens. Butthroughout more geologically recent Earth history, the human family was acomplex tableaux of members. Over the years, scientists have tried to get aclearer picture of that prehistoric story by excavating ancient human sitesaround the world.

Now anthropologists areillustrating a previously unknown chapter of that story with the introductionof a formerly uncatalogued human species, Homo juluensis.

Homo juluensis means“big head”. This species thrived in eastern Asia from about 300,000 years agoto around 50,000 years ago but then died out. According to the researchers,they likely hunted wild horses, fashioned stone tools, and processed animal hidesto survive frigid winters. The breakthrough for discovering this possibly newspecies came when a team began devising a new system for organizing fossilevidence. They did not expect to propose a new human ancestor species and thento organize hominin fossils from Asia into different groups. But their studyclarifies a hominin fossil record that has tended to include anything thatcould not easily be assigned to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, orHomo sapiens.

One possible member ofthe Homo juluensis species isn’t exactly a newcomer. Denisovans werefirst identified in 2010 by way of DNA extracted from a young girl’s fingerbonefound in Siberia, but have not been given a species classification. They couldbelong to this new species.

Homo juluensis may also solve anothermystery of the Xujiayao hominin fossils. These fossils have long perplexedresearchers, as the remains display a mix of Homo erectus and Homosapiens features. These remains have been confused for a variety oftaxonomic representations, but scientists note that differences in the (big)cranium, the teeth, jaws, and a few other features indicate a new species.These fossil remains include Penghu 1 (jawbone), Xiahe (mandible), Xuchang(partial crania), and a variety of Denisova fossils.

Although this is aconvincing argument that these particular specimens belong to a previouslyunknown human species, more research is needed. But since these fossils stilldefy any other species classification, it may only be a matter of time beforethe human tribe increases by at least one species.

 

Giant Alien Planet

Astronomers havedetected a hidden planet by examining the orbits of the known worlds in thestar system known as Kepler-139. The newfound alien planet, Kepler-139f, is agigantic world roughly twice the mass of Neptune and 35 times the mass ofEarth. It takes 355 days to orbit its star. Despite its giant size, Kepler-139fhad evaded detection until now.

NASA’s Kepler spacetelescope discovered nearly 3,000 planets in the nine years it operated. But itrelied on worlds transiting, that is, passing between their star and Earth.When they do that, the resulting dimming of the star allowed astronomers to identifyplanets and calculate their size. But Kepler couldn’t see planets travelingabove or below the wedge of space between it and the star, so any outliersremained unseen.

But when the hiddenworld is part of a multiplanet system, astronomers could maybe find it despiteits inclined orbit. And Kepler-139 has three rocky transiting super-Earths;later a fourth gas giant was discovered. Gaps between their orbits suggested thatother worlds might be present. Precise measurements of the orbits allowed theastronomers to infer the existence of at least one more planet. It seems theproblem is not exactly in finding non-transiting planets, but in findingsituations where they can deduce where the non-transiting planet is located.

After Kepler initiallyidentified a world, observations from the ground often followed. By using aplanet’s radial velocity, astronomers could measure the amount the planettugged on its star, which allowed them to determine the planet’s mass. Radialvelocity measurements could also reveal new worlds, which is what happened withthe outermost gas giant, Kepler-139e.

Each planet is pullednot only by its star but also by other planets in the system, even if thatplanet cannot be seen from Earth. These pulls can affect how swiftly a planettransits, which creates ‘transit timing variations’. Such variations can revealworlds that don’t cross the star.

Scientists looked forgaps in known systems. Then they used both radial velocity and transit timingvariation measurements to hunt for a missing planet. While the radial velocityobservations did not conclusively point toward another planet, when combinedwith the transit timing variations they revealed a fifth planet in the system,Kepler-139f, which was between the outermost super-Earth and the gas giant.

The discovery ofKepler-139f helped answer a question about Kepler-139c, the outermostsuper-Earth. Originally, the reports for 139c showed an unusually large densityfor a sub-Neptune-sized planet. Because the scientists didn’t yet know about139f, they had attributed some of its pull on its star to 139c. But the newdata suggests a more typical density for 139c while leaving the densities for139d and 139b unchanged. These revisions provide indirect evidence for 139f.

It is possible thatthere may be other hidden worlds around Kepler-139. For instance, there is aprominent gap between 139b and 139c.

Both Kepler and NASA’smore recent exoplanet hunting mission (the Transiting Exoplanet SurveySatellite) were sensitive to planets orbiting close to their star. Inner worldsmade more transits, which allowed scientists to confirm the planet’s existence.But transiting planets with wider orbits made fewer passes in front of theirsun, so they were harder to observe and confirm.

In addition, the radialvelocity method tends to find larger planets, because massive worlds tugstronger on their stars. Also, the closer a planet is to its sun, the strongerits tug. That’s why so many of the discovered exoplanets were Jupiter-sizedworlds whose orbit only took a few days.

All of these factorsmean it’s harder to discover smaller planets that are farther away, especiallyif they don’t transit their star. But by combining various methods, astronomerscan find smaller worlds orbiting farther from their star.

And soon it will beharder for those planets to hide. In 2026, the European Space Agency willlaunch the Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars (PLATO) mission. Itwill conduct its own survey of transiting planets, as well as revisit Kepler’sfield. By providing additional transit times for planets detected by Keplermore than a decade earlier, PLATO will enable the discovery of more misalignedworlds.

 

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FOUND: the Universe’s Missing Matter

There are two kinds ofmatter in the universe. There is dark matter, which is invisible to us. It isknown only because of its gravitational effects on a grand scale. And there isordinary matter, which we are all familiar with; it makes up gases, dust,stars, planets, and earthly things like cake batter and camping gear.

Scientists haveestimated that ordinary matter makes up only 15% of all matter. But they havestruggled to document where all of the matter is located, since only about halfof it is accounted for. Now, with the help of powerful bursts of radio wavesemanating from 69 locations in the cosmos, researchers have found the “missing”matter.

It was primarily hidingas thinly distributed gas spread out in the vast expanses between galaxies andwas detected because of the effect the matter has on the radio waves travelingthrough space. This tenuous gas is the intergalactic medium, a sort of fogbetween galaxies.

Scientists hadpreviously determined the total amount of ordinary matter using a calculationinvolving light observed that was left over from the Big Bang. But they couldnot actually find half of this matter.

Researchers found thata smaller slice of the missing matter resides in the halos of diffuse materialsurrounding galaxies, including our Milky Way.

Ordinary matter iscomposed of baryons, which are the subatomic particles needed by protons andneutrons to build atoms. Dark matter, on the other hand, is a mysterioussubstance. Scientists do not know what new particle or substance makes up darkmatter.

How did so muchordinary matter end up in the middle of nowhere? Vast amounts of gas areejected from galaxies when massive stars explode as supernovas of whensupermassive black holes inside galaxies “burp,” expelling material afterconsuming stars or gas.

If the universe were amore boring place, or the laws of physics were different, ordinary matter wouldall fall into galaxies, cool down and form stars until every proton and neutronwere a part of a star.

Thus, these violentprocesses throw ordinary matter across immense distances and consign it to thecosmic wilderness. This gas is not in its usual state; it is in the form ofplasma, with its electrons and protons separated.

The missing ordinarymatter was detected and measured by using phenomena called fast radio bursts,or FRBs. These are powerful pulses of radio waves emanating from faraway pointsin the universe. Their exact cause remains mysterious, but a leading hypothesisis that they are produced by highly magnetized neutron stars, which are compactstellar embers left over after a massive star dies in a supernova explosion.

As light in the radiowave frequencies travels from the source to Earth, it becomes dispersed intodifferent wavelengths, just like a prism turns sunlight into a rainbow. Thedegree of dispersion depends on how much matter is in the light’s path. Thisprovides the mechanism for pinpointing and measuring matter where it otherwisewould remain unfound.

Scientists used radiowaves traveling from 69 FRBs. Of these, 39 were discovered using a network of110 telescopes located at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory near Bishop,California, which is called the Deep Synoptic Array. The remaining 30 FRBs werediscovered using other telescopes.

The FRBs were locatedat distances up to 9.1 billion light-years from Earth, which is the farthest ofthese on record. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year (5.9trillion miles/9.5 trillion km).

With all the ordinarymatter accounted for, researchers were able to determine its distribution.About 76% resides in intergalactic space, approximately 15% in galaxy halos,with the remaining 9% concentrated within galaxies as stars or gas.

Now they can move on toother mysteries regarding ordinary matter. And beyond that, they still don’tknow the nature of dark matter.

 

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Mythical or Real? Part 5

 This week, we visit anancient trading center and a Biblical pool.

8. Steinkjer, Norway -

Norse sagas tell of anancient trading center that was, briefly, the largest in the Viking world, butno one knew where or if it had actually existed. In 2013, archaeologists foundsome intriguing evidence during an archaeological investigation conducted nearSteinkjer. Researchers uncovered two separate boat graves associated with awide variety of high-status trade goods, such as a silver button, a set ofbalance scales, imported jewelry, and amber beads.

These findings add tothe area’s rich archaeological record, which includes twenty-two examples of aspecial trade-related Viking-age sword. Taken together, these artifacts suggestthat Steinkjer was the major trading city described in the Norse sagas, andthat its center was likely where its modern church stands today.

 

9. Pool of Siloam,Jerusalem – 700 BCE

In the New Testament,Jesus returns sight to a blind man at the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem.Christians searched for the site for centuries before repair work on a waterpipe south of the Temple Mount in 2004 revealed two ancient stone steps.

During the archaeologicalinvestigation that followed this find, researchers discovered a 2,000-year-old,225-foot-long trapezoidal pool, which they believe to be the site where Jesusconducted his miracle. In addition to being an important part of earlyJerusalem’s water system, the architectural feature was also likely a ritualbath used by visiting pilgrims.

Careful extraction andrestoration work over the past twenty years have preserved the ancient Pool ofSiloam. It was opened to the public as part of the City of David National Park.

 

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Mythical or Real? Part 4

This week, we look intoa famous temple and an infamous labyrinth.

6. Ain Dara (Solomon’sTemple), Syria – 1000 BCE

Armed conflictdestroyed Ain Dara in northwestern Syria in 2018. In the 1980s, somearchaeologists had identified it as the 3,000-year-old temple mentioned asSolomon’s Temple in the Bible. The ancient site shared more features with thetemple described in the Book of Kings than any site uncovered before or since.It included walls carved in reliefs of lions and cherubs, a courtyard paved inflagstones, a monumental staircase guarded by sphinxes, and a multistoryhallway. Even its location—on a raised platform overlooking a city—echoes thetemple’s depiction in the Bible.

Although the bombingand plundering of the site prevents archaeologists from finding any moreevidence of its history, some of its most important artifacts can be seen atthe National Museum of Aleppo.

 

7. Kastelli (Minotaur’sLabyrinth), Greece – 2000 BCE

While building a newairport on the island of Crete, workers uncovered something unexpected. With acentral circular building surrounded by eight stone rings intersected by walls,the site resembled the style of tomb constructed by the Minoan civilizationaround 2000 to 1700 BCE. But to anyone familiar with Greek mythology, it alsolooked like the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

The Minotaur was aferocious creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man who wastrapped in a maze built by the Greek architect Daedalus. Every seven years,Athens sacrificed seven young men and seven young women to the monster untilTheseus, a prince of the city, volunteered to kill the creature. Marking hisroute with a ball of thread, Theseus made his way through the labyrinth,murdered the beast, rescued the not-yet-dead victims, then followed the threadback to safety.

Although archaeologistsare still studying Kastelli, its architectural similarities to the mythicalmaze, combined with evidence of ceremonial offerings and communal feasting thatwas found at the site, suggest that it was part of the story’s origin.

Kastelli is not open tothe public, but Knossos, the ancient palace that was previously believed to bethe site of the Minotaur’s labyrinth, is.

Mythical or Real? Part 3

 This week, we explorean abandoned Norse settlement in North America and a ‘Lake of Gold’ in SouthAmerica.

4. L'Anse Aux Meadows(Vinland), Newfoundland – 1000 CE

For a long time,explorers searched for evidence of Vinland, a place described in the 13thcentury Greenlanders’ Saga as having lush meadows, teeming salmon and wildgrapes. If the legend was true, the site was briefly settled by Leif Eriksonand his crew around 1000 CE. That would make it the first place “discovered” byEuropeans in the New World. That settlement preceded the arrival of ChristopherColumbus by almost 500 years. When they found evidence of Norse-designedsod-walled buildings on the far north coast of Newfoundland in Canada in the1960s, archaeologists were hopeful that, at long last, Vinland had been found.

Soon, they identifiedEuropean artifacts; a bronze cloak pin, a spindle whorl, a gilded fragment ofbrass, and a place for smelting and working iron. Scholars were convinced thatthey’d stumbled upon the fabled Vinland. They still continue to study the long-heldsecrets of this site today. It is called the L’Anse aux Meadows NationalHistoric Site, and it includes reconstructions of the original dwellings whereVikings lived (on-and-off) for about twenty years.

 

5. Lake Guatavita (ElDorado), Colombia – 1541 CE

Spanish conquistadorsfirst described a mythical South American kingdom of unfathomable riches ruledby El Rey Dorado in 1541. According to what they said, this chief’s initiationrites included covering himself in gold dust and ceremonially dropping treasureinto the center of a sacred lake. In the centuries that followed, explorerssearched for the kingdom of “El Dorado” throughout Colombia, Venezuela, Guyanaand Brazil, but never found it. Eventually, they gave up.

But that doesn’t meanthe story is completely false. Juan Pablo Quintero-Guzman, an archaeologist andthe curator at Colombia’s Museum of Gold, says that “All lakes in the Muiscaterritory were places of offering.” He believes that similar rituals werecarried out in some lakes but that Lake Guatavita was, from 600 to 1600 CE, theplace where this ritual was performed the most often.

For the past 400 years,numerous artifacts have been pulled from Lake Guatavita. These artifactsinclude tumbaga (an alloy of gold and copper), emeralds, human-like clayvessels, hair, cotton, and animal skulls. Quintero-Guzman has evidence thatrituals were taking place at the water’s edge, possibly at a temple or aceremonial site intended for making offerings. His findings do not definitivelyprove that Lake Guatavita was the site spoken of by the conquistadors, but theydo not contradict the possibility, either. At least for now, the chiefdom ofGuatavita seems to be the most likely origin of the myth.

 

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Mythical or Real? Part 2

This week, we have acave and a castle to explore.

2. Gorham’s Cave(Medusa’s Cave), Gibraltar – 600 BCE

As far as ancientmariners knew, Gorham’s Cave, a natural cavern at the base of the Pillars ofHercules in the Strait of Gibraltar, was the edge of the known world. But astudy published in 2021 suggests that the cave may have played an even greaterrole in Greek mythology. Deep inside the cave, archaeologists found fragmentsfrom the head of a large, ceramic Gorgon dating to about the sixth century BCE.According to legends, the Gorgons were three monstrous sisters who terrorizedGreek sailors by turning them to stone with a single look. Their lair wassupposed to be near the Rock of Gibraltar. It was in their lair that Perseusbeheaded the snake-haired Medusa—the most evil of the siblings—while she slept.

Other Medusa figureshave been found in the region, but this was the first to be discovered inside acave. By combining archaeological evidence, historical accounts, geography, andmyth, researchers have concluded that Gorham’s Cave was likely the site thatearly seafarers believed to have been the home of the Gorgons, and the site ofMedusa’s defeat. Visitors can examine the cave’s entrance on biweekly summertours offered at the British territory of Gibraltar’s Gorham’s Cave ComplexWorld Heritage Site, a limestone ridge off the southern tip of Spain.

Now, it’s myunderstanding that a cave in Gibraltar—possibly Gorham’s Cave—was inhabited byNeanderthals during the last ice age, and that stone tools, human and animalremains had been found in the cave.

 

3. Tintagel Castle(King Arthur’s Castle), England – 1203 CE

Writer Geoffrey ofMonmouth described Tintagel Castle as the place of King Arthur’s conception.Since then, the 13th-century fortress on the rocky coast ofCornwall, England, has been associated with Arthur’s legend. But untilrecently, no one knew that beneath the ruins of Tintagel Castle lay an evenolder settlement with features that could correspond to the legendary leader.It appears that the older settlement was an exceptional place, with goods andluxury commodities arriving from the Mediterranean world in great numbers.Although archaeologists can’t say for sure who ruled the earlier site, KingArthur fits the profile.

Whether he was actuallythere or not, King Arthur has very much become a part of the story that’s beenhanded down over generations. Tintagel Castle was built around 1203 CE byRichard, the Earl of Cornwall. It had no military value, but was constructed,in part, at least, to draw a connection between his authority and the legendaryKing Arthur.

Arthur’s myth is notthe only one that haunts Tintagel Castle. There’s also a Celtic legend retoldin the 12th century as a story of forbidden love in which the knightTristan fell in love with Princess Isolde even though she was set to marry KingMark of Cornwall. There are several places around Cornwall that are associatedwith King Mark, Tristan, and Isolde. Their story was circulating around Europeat the same time as King Arthur’s. But somehow, the ruins of Tintagel Castlebecame known at King Arthur’s home.

Mythical or Real? Part 1

This will be acontinuing series for a while. I want to explore nine mythical places thatarchaeologists think may have actually existed.

History is rife withmythical lands, from the homes of legendary kings to the earthly abodes of godsand monsters. Past civilizations have dreamed of extraordinary places hiding inplain sight.

But while many peoplebelieve it unlikely that either Atlantis or Shangri-La was real, other mythsmay have more truth to them than anyone realized. A growing body of archaeologicalresearch suggests certain places—the Minotaur’s maze from Greek mythology;Vinland, the first North American Viking settlement mentioned in Norse sagas;Solomon’s Temple described in the Bible; and others—could have been more thanfables.

From western Turkey toJerusalem, and from coastal England to the Colombian Andes, evidence indicatesthat these nine mythical places may have really existed.

Let’s look at the firstone today.

1. Troy, Turkey – 1200 BCE

The city of Troy was atthe heart of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. It is one of themost legendary sites of classical Greek mythology. Fantastic details are woveninto the tales such as; the interference of the gods in the Trojan War, thehalf-divine heritage of the Spartan hero Achilles, and the gift of a woodenhorse filled with Greek soldiers. But these days, archaeologists believe someaspects of the stories were true.

Nearly 150 years ofexcavations at the site of Troy in modern Turkey have revealed that it wasoccupied for 4,000 years. Also, during the Late Bronze Age (when Homer’s TrojanWar allegedly took place), the Trojans began to prepare for an insurgence fromoutside.

Researchers are stilllooking for proof of the battle that raged outside the city’s walls for tenyears. If it’s there, it’s buried under 65 feet of sediment, which built upalongside the shifting Scamander (now the Karamenderes) River. It’s the mouthof that river that makes Troy so important in the first place. Troy was settledover and over again because if you controlled the harbor, you controlled theMediterranean and Aegean Seas.

Troy isn’t the onlymythological site discovered in the region. Apollon Smintheion is an imposingtemple built for the god Apollo on top of a settlement from the sixth centuryBCE. Antandros was an ancient shipbuilding settlement. These and the sacredforests of Mount Ida are all historical sites that correspond to placesmentioned in the Ilied and Aeneid. Together, they now make upTurkey’s Aeneas Route, a tourist corridor following the epic journey taken byAeneas, the father of Rome, after he escaped Troy’s sacking by the Greeks.

Proofreading

I reached a pointearlier this year where I needed to make some extra money, in order to pay offsome bills. The local fast-food restaurants were hiring, but I did that as ateenager, and I didn’t want to go backwards. I retired from my day job in 2011,and I was used to staying home, or going out to run errands, whenever I wanted.I wanted something part-time that I could do at home.

After looking around atvarious possibilities, I decided to take some training on how to proofreadother people’s work. I felt I was halfway there already, since a typo ormisplaced word always made me stop reading to figure out what was amiss.

I worked my way throughthe lessons, and the quizzes at the end of each lesson. Most of the lessons Iwas familiar with, but I even mastered the quizzes having to do withpunctuating dependent clauses and participial phrases, when one or the other was all I had to worry about. I got through all the lessonsand then downloaded 40 practice essays to proofread and 2 worksheets to do.These are to be done before I take the final exam. I have worked my way throughhalf of them so far.

The actual proofreadingis not as easy as I thought it would be, even though I can (and should) do asmuch research as I need to do. I always have the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS),a dictionary, and Google open and ready on my computer when I start toproofread. And still I make mistakes.

First, CMOS is not theeasiest manual to figure out. Sometimes I can’t find anything on the problem I’mlooking for, possibly because I don’t know what kind of sentence I’m lookingat. Is one of the clauses dependent? Is one of these clauses actually aparticipial phrase? I’ve decided to go back and restudy the lessons on thesesentence parts before I attempt to proofread any more practice essays.

Second, some of thesubject matter (like music), I don’t know anything about, and that makes ithard to catch misspelled words. In another essay, it mentioned a Japanesemanagement method, and it capitalized the name. The name wasn’t in thedictionary, but Google knew what it was, and it capitalized the name everytime, even in the middle of a sentence. So I didn’t correct it, only to be toldthat it should have been uncapped and italicized, as a foreign word.

Third, there are a lotof times when I don’t think 2 words should be joined as one word, but thedictionary says they are. I catch some of them, but frequently, I don’t catchthem all. I have to be more diligent in looking up 2 words that might be joinedinto one word.

No, it’s not as easy asI thought it would be. I always go through these essays 3 and 4 times, tryingto catch all the mistakes. But that just means that once I start proofreadingfor real, I will earn every penny I charge.

On the upside, I dugout my old college textbook from my English class. I started a ‘cheat sheet’ onparts of sentences to help me figure out if I’m looking at a clause or just aphrase, and how to punctuate it. I read that cheat sheet every day to remindmyself what’s on it, and it has become another resource I have ready and athand when I’m proofing. My number of mistakes has gone down, and they arerarely mistakes about where to put a comma. So I’m making progress.

Humans reach southern South America

DNA from 139 Indigenousgroups reveal that humans reached southern South America by 14,500 years ago.

A new genetic analysisreveals that humans crossing from Asia along the Bering Land Bridge during thelast ice age underwent three major population splits as they traveled throughthe Americas. This journey has been identified as the longest human migrationout of Africa. Eventually, a group settled in the southern part of SouthAmerica some 14,500 years ago.

An international teamof scientists analyzed 1,537 genomes of people from 139 different ethnic groupsto identify genetic characteristics of the earliest Americans.

The GenomeAsia 100Kconsortium collected the genetic material, including some from Asianpopulations whose ancestors made early migrations into the Americas. Thescientists were able to identify the genetic background of indigenous peoplethroughout the Americas. They pinpointed three key time periods when thelong-distance travelers split up.

The first populationsplit occurred between 26,800 and 19,300 years ago during the Last GlacialMaximum. This was when Indigenous Americans split from North Eurasian people.These dates are consistent with a Native American presence at White Sands inNew Mexico, as evidenced by ancient footprints and vehicle drag marks dated to23,000 to 21,000 years ago.

The next majorpopulation split happened between 17,500 and 14,600 years ago. The indigenouspopulation in North America split, and some made their way south. ThisMesoamerican group then split rapidly into four native genetic lineages around13,900 years ago. These groups were ancestral Pueblo peoples in the southwestUS, as well as Amazonians, Andeans and Patagonians in South America.

This estimationactually fits well with the archaeological records, which indicate that peoplewere living in the furthest southern reaches of the South American continent byabout 14,500 years ago.

As people made theirway into the new land tens of thousands of years ago, they experienced areduction in their genetic diversity. First it was because of geographicbarriers. Later, the populations were decimated after the arrival of Europeancolonists.

One key loss was in thevariation in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes. A high diversity of HLA genesis important for immune system health. In regions such as Southeast Asia with ahigh number of disease-causing organisms, previous studies found a highdiversity of HLA genes. But in the Indigenous South American genomes, there wassignificantly lower diversity in the HLA genes. This may have led to thesepeople being more vulnerable to novel pathogens.

One of the researchers’aims is to emphasize the special medical needs of contemporary Indigenouspeoples. Some have gene variants associated with problems like adverse drugreactions.

 

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