Posted on Aug 20, 2022 in Biology, Climate Change, Evolution, Extraterrestrial Life, Fermi Paradox, James Webb Space Telescope, Planet Earth, Science, Science News, Technology
This weekend’s stories include There Could Be 42,777 Intelligent Alien Civilizations In Our Galaxy to Would the ‘Human Evolutionary Niche’ Be Filled If We Go Extinct to Why Earth Just Had Its Shortest Day on Record, and much more.
There Could Be 42,777 Intelligent Alien Civilizations In Our Galaxy, according to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal “sometime in the next 2,000 years. It’s a decent explanation for the Fermi Paradox, which asks why we still haven’t received any messages from other civilizations despite there being a high probability of them existing,” reports Jamie Carter for Forbes.
China now insists the pandemic didn’t start within its borders. Its scientists are publishing a flurry of papers pointing the finger elsewhere, reports Science. “A team of 21 researchers from the country’s leading academic institutions had trapped more than 17,000 bats, from the subtropical south to the frigid northeast, and tested them for relatives of SARS-CoV-2. The number they found: zero.”
Planet of Apes Hypothesis: Would the ‘Human Evolutionary Niche’ Be Filled If We Go Extinct? reports The Daily Galaxy. “A mutation in the brain of a single human being 200,000 years ago turned intellectually able primates into a super-intelligent species that would conquer the world. Homo sapiens appears to be a genetic accident. We failed to build a radio during the first 99% of our 7 million year existence.”
Earth’s Orbital Shifts May Have Triggered Ancient Global Warming –“A new study combining astronomical and geologic data hints at an extraterrestrial cause for extreme climate change 56 million years ago,” reports Scientific American.
New Evidence Points to the Moon Once Being Part of Earth –Gases trapped in lunar meteorites hint that the moon was formed out of material displaced from Earth after a planetary collision, reports Wired.
Scientists are asking the public to name 20 exoplanetary systems observed by the Webb telescope. Here’s how to submit your idea, reports CNN. “The International Astronomical Union, the organization in charge of naming celestial objects, is launching the NameExoWorlds 2022 Competition to give the public a chance to christen some of the first exoplanetary systems to be seen by the telescope.”
The Fermi Paradox Revisited and Resolved? asks The Daily Galaxy. “It’s possible that the Milky Way is partially settled, or intermittently so; maybe explorers visited us in the past, but we don’t remember, and they died out,” says Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his collaborators in a 2019 study that suggests it wouldn’t take as long as thought for a space-faring civilization to planet-hop across the galaxy, because the orbits of stars can help distribute life, offering a new solution to the Fermi paradox.”
Million-Year-Old Ice in Antarctica. “Scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division are getting so close to discovering how to predict the earths climate changes that are coming.”
Oldest Homo sapiens fossil claim rewrites our species’ history, reports Ewen Callaway for Nature. “Remains from Morocco dated to 315,000 years ago push back our species’ origins by 100,000 years — and suggest we didn’t evolve only in East Africa.”
Here’s Why Earth Just Had Its Shortest Day on Record –Earth’s rotation speeds up and slows down, shaving off or adding milliseconds to our 24-hour count. Beyond just being a quirk of a rotating planet, these variations in day length are also affected by ancient ice sheets, powerful winds and the dynamics of our planet’s core, reports Scientific American.
Self-Taught AI Shows Similarities to How the Brain Works–Self-supervised learning allows a neural network to figure out for itself what matters. The process might be what makes our own brains so successful, reports Quanta,
Humans Contribute to Earth’s Wobble, Scientists Say–Droughts, melting ice and rising seas linked to anthropogenic climate change are altering the planet’s motions, reports Scientific American.
Mathematical model of animal growth shows life is defined by biology, not physics. “Despite the fact that living organisms cannot break the laws of physics, evolution has shown itself to be extraordinarily adept at finding loopholes,” said lead study author Professor Craig White, from the Monash University School of Biological Sciences, and the Center for Geometric Biology.”
How Chewing Shaped Human Evolution –An experiment revealed that chomping on slightly tougher material requires markedly more energy. Spending less time on mastication may go hand in hand with human evolution, reports New York Times Science.
Ancient Coin Discovery With An Astronomical Mystery--What does the ancient coin found recently off the shores of Israel depict? reports Universe Today. “It all started with the recent amazing discovery of the ancient Roman coin off the coast of Haifa, Israel in the Mediterranean Sea. The bronze coin depicts the zodiac sign of Cancer, along with the Moon goddess Selene and crescent Moon. The ancient coin would have been part of a set of twelve, depicting the houses of the zodiac.
The Megalodon Was Bigger, Faster and Even Hungrier –A 3-D model developed by researchers suggests that the extinct megashark was fiercer than paleontologists previously imagined reports New York Times Science. “There are other fossilized vertebrae that are 50 percent larger than those used in the model, suggesting a maximum length of 65 feet, which is longer than a modern humpback whale. The model megalodon’s jaws could open wide enough to gobble a 26-foot orca in as few as five bites.”
Sharpest Image Ever of Universe’s Most Massive Known Star –Groundbreaking observation from Gemini Observatory suggests this and possibly other colossal stars are less massive than previously thought, reports NOIR Lab.
Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
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Recent Galaxy Reports:
Unmistakable Signal of Alien Life to What Happens if China Makes First Contact?
Clues to Alien Life to A Galaxy 100 x Size of Milky Way
Cracks in Einstein’s Theory of Gravity to Colossal Shock Wave Bigger than the Milky Way
Monster Comet Arriving from the Oort Cloud to Black Hole Apocalypse
Enigmas of Stephen Hawking’s Blackboard to Why the Universe and Life Exist
Einstein’s Critics to NASA Theologians Prepare for Alien Contact
Mind-Bending New Multiverse Theory to Dark-Matter Asteroids of the Milky Way
Mysterious Expanding Regions of Dark Matter to Are Black Holes Holograms
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