Neanderthals were better hunters than previously thought – and more fashion conscious.

Evidence from a cave in Siegsdorf, Germany, suggests not only were Neanderthals able to kill top predators for food, rather than easier prey such as deer or mammoths, but that they spent considerable time fashioning their pelts into clothes.

The 48,000-year-old remains of a Eurasian cave lion, an extinct species larger than the modern lion, suggest that it was eaten by Neanderthals. Cut marks on its ribs, vertebrae and left thigh bone led researchers to believe the animal had been butchered after it died.

Now however, a team from the University of Tübingen, Germany, has found evidence to support the theory that the big cat was hunted and killed, hit by a flying spear.

A partial puncture wound on the inside of the lion’s third rib is consistent with being struck by a wooden-tipped spear. The puncture is angled, suggesting the spear entered the left side of the lion’s abdomen and went through vital organs before hitting the third rib on the right side.

The puncture resembles those found on deer remains caused by Neanderthal spears, but had previously been misidentified as a wound from another predator.

In addition, Homo sapiens – humans – who were savvy hunters, had not yet established populations in Europe.

Put together, the evidence suggests Neanderthals were not afraid to tackle more fierce beasts when out hunting.

And after the kill, it seems our early relatives made the most of the leftovers. In recent years it has become known that Neanderthals wore animal pelts, perhaps fashioned into capes or simply draped over their shoulders.

However, the bones of three further big cats analysed by the Tübingen team suggest their paws were left attached to the pelt when making the clothes.

The bones, from the toes and lower limbs, were found alone in the cave, not as part of a skeleton. In addition, they show cut marks consistent with those created when an animal is skinned. This suggests they were left attached to the pelt, which was later abandoned in the cave and has long since disappeared. 

While it isn’t known why the Neanderthals did this, the wearing of their pelts, adorned with special features such as these, suggests big cats may have played a culturally meaningful role in Neanderthal society.

The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

MORE : The pros and cons of being a little bit Neanderthal

MORE : Oldest ever Neanderthal carvings unearthed in sealed cave

Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Share your views in the comments below

New ways of treating serious neurological disorders in children – including autism and schizophrenia – could be in the pipeline following a major breakthrough.

American researchers have found that brain inflammation in youngsters may cause the disorders.

The team discovered that inflammation stops some neurons from maturing in the developing brain – a breakthrough which they say could open the door to new treatments.

Severe inflammation in early childhood is a clinically known risk factor for developing autism and schizophrenia.

Now, for the first time, scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have discovered that inflammation alters the development of vulnerable brain cells, and could have links to neurodevelopmental disorders.

Using single-cell genomics to study the brains of children who died from inflammatory conditions – such as bacterial or viral infections or asthma – along with those who died in a sudden accident, the research team found inflammation in early childhood prevents specific neurons in the cerebellum from maturing completely.

The cerebellum is a brain region responsible for motor control and cognitive functions used in language, social skills, and emotional regulation.

Previous research has shown that babies born with abnormalities of the cerebellum often go on to experience neurodevelopmental disorders, and animal models exposed to inflammation before birth also develop the conditions.

‘We looked at the cerebellum because it is one of the first brain regions to begin developing and one of the last to reach its maturity, but it remains understudied,’ said study co-leader Dr Seth Ament, of UMSOM.

‘With the fairly new technology of single nucleus RNA sequencing we could look at the cell level to see changes in the brains.’

Co-leader Professor Margaret McCarthy said: ‘This has never been done before in this age group and in the context of inflammation.

‘The gene expression in the cerebella of children with inflammation were remarkably consistent.’

The research team examined donated post-mortem brain tissues of 17 children who died when they were one to five years old, eight from conditions that involved inflammation and nine from accidents.

None of the donors had been diagnosed with a neurological disorder.

The study found that two specific, yet rare, types of neurons were most vulnerable to brain inflammation – the Golgi and Purkinje neurons.

The researchers explained that, following inflammation, these two types of neurons showed premature disruption of their maturation.

‘Although rare, Purkinje and Golgi neurons have critical functions,’ said Dr Ament.

‘During development, Purkinje neurons form synapses connecting the cerebellum to other brain regions involved in cognition or emotional control, while Golgi neurons coordinate communication between cells within the cerebellum.

‘Disruption of either of these developmental processes could explain how inflammation contributes to conditions like autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.’

He said, as with many diseases, both genetics and the environment – in this case, inflammation – likely contribute to the risk of developing the disorders.

The new study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, is part of a collection of more than 20 papers describing the development and diversity of cell types in the human brain.

MORE : Autism could be diagnosed years earlier with simple test that would change children’s lives

MORE : Breakthrough treatment could save sick children from life of dialysis

Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Share your views in the comments below

Scientists have discovered a wasp in the Amazon rainforest with an enormous head that lays its eggs in unsuspecting insects – which then hatch and eat their way out.

Named Capitojoppa amazonica, it is one of more than a hundred new species identified in Peru’s National Reserve of Allpahuayo-Mishana, famously one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. 

The large wasp, which is part of an entirely new genus, measures up to 1.7cm long.

Female wasps track down potential hosts such as caterpillars, spiders and beetles, before stabbing the victim and laying an egg inside.

‘Once the host is located and mounted, the female will frantically stroke it with her antennae,’ said lead author Brandon Claridge, speaking to LiveScience. ‘If acceptable, the female will deposit a single egg inside the host by piercing it with her ovipositor [a tube-like, egg-laying organ].’

The eggs take only a few days to hatch into larvae, which then feed on the host until they are fully-formed wasps, essentially eating them from the inside out.

Some Capitojoppa species have also been seen to feed on the hosts’ blood-like fluid – often without even laying an egg. 

The bright yellow wasp is also described as having an enlarged head, a large jaw and slightly unequal teeth.  

‘The name Capitojoppa tells scientists a great deal about the characteristics of the newly discovered wasp genus,’ said Mr Claridge, from Utah State University. 

‘The wasps of the genus have a large head, which is reflected in the capito part of the name. It also refers to the barbet bird genus Capito found in South America, which have a large and strong beak. 

‘The joppa part of the name refers to the wasp genus Joppa that the Capitojoppa resembles. The specific species name amazonica refers to the Amazon.’

The study is published in the journal ZooKeys.

Mr Claridge and the team will soon unveil many more species discovered during their work in the Amazon.

MORE : Scientists discover a new species of flying gecko and it has a great smile

MORE : Invasive alien species running rife around Earth at ‘unprecedented rate’

The EU has opened a formal investigation into X, formerly Twitter, regarding the spread of ‘terrorist and violent content’ on the platform relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The move comes two days after the European Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote to X owner Elon Musk expressing his concern over disinformation on the platform, and asking for a report on the company’s crisis measures.

In response, Mr Musk said: ‘Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.

‘Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that that [sic] the public can see them.

‘Merci beaucoup.’

Yesterday X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a more comprehensive reply on the platform further addressing the concerns, and said it had taken down ‘hundreds’ of accounts linked to Hamas.

Misinformation and disinformation remain deep-seated and widespread problems for social media companies, not just X. Mr Breton has also written to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, warning the business had 24 hours to provide details of the measures taken to counteract the spread of disinformation on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

Misinformation – information that is accidentally incorrect or misleading – and disinformation – which is deliberately deceptive – has soared online following the attacks on Israel by Hamas last Saturday. 

Posts circulating on X and Facebook include alleged footage of Israeli helicopters being shot down that is in fact from a video game, a rocket attack reportedly on an airport in Tel Aviv that actually occurred in Syria, and a fake account imitating Brighton & Hove Albion manager Roberto De Zerbi expressing ‘support for the Palestinian cause’ on Instagram.

Following its initial contact, the EU is now requesting X provide information regarding its compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) after ‘indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech’.

X has until October 18 to provide answers to questions related to the ‘activation and functioning of X’s crisis response protocol’, and October 31 for other information.

The Commission can issue fines for ‘incorrect, incomplete or misleading’ information received during the investigation, and failure to reply by X could also result in a financial penalty.

Under the new DSA, X is defined as a ‘very large online platform’, and can be held responsible for content on its platform that is illegal in the EU.

MORE : A #FakeNews war: The dangers of misinformation during the Israel-Hamas conflict laid bare

MORE : Israel is at war with Hamas – here’s what we know about the militant group

Paved roads and landing pads could be built on the Moon using giant lasers to melt lunar soil into a more solid substance, according to a new study.

German researchers say that although their experiments were carried out on Earth using a substitute for lunar dust, the findings show the ‘viability’ of the technique.

And they believe it could be replicated on the Moon.

‘Moon dust poses a significant challenge to lunar rovers as, due to the low levels of gravity, it tends to float around when disturbed and can damage equipment,’ said co-author Professor Miranda Fateri, of Aalen University.

‘Therefore, the infrastructure such as roads and landing pads will be essential to mitigate dust issues and facilitate transport on the Moon.

‘However, transporting materials for construction from Earth is costly, so it will be essential to use the resources available on the Moon.’

The research team melted a fine-grained material called EAC-1A with a carbon dioxide laser to simulate how lunar dust could be melted into a solid substance by focused solar radiation on the Moon.

They experimented with laser beams of different strengths and sizes – up to 12 kilowatts and 100 millimetres across respectively – to create a robust material.

The team, whose findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports, established that criss-crossing or overlapping the laser beam path led to cracking.

They developed a strategy using a 45 millimetre diameter laser beam to produce triangular, hollow-centred geometric shapes around 250 millimetres in size.

‘These could be interlocked to create solid surface across large areas of lunar soil which could serve as roads and landing pads,’ said Professor Fateri.

To reproduce such an approach on the Moon, the research team calculated that a lens of around 2.37 metres squared would need to be transported from Earth to act as a sunlight concentrator in place of the laser.

‘The relatively small size of equipment needed would be an advantage in future Moon missions,’ said Professor Fateri, adding further work may be needed to refine the process.

When it comes to building on the Moon, those planning and constructing will also need to factor in the object’s long moonquakes, which can last for up to an hour.

MORE : Astronomers hate the Moon and want to destroy it

MORE : Nasa reveals exact location Putin’s mission to the Moon crashed

The Moon has been a source of wonder, inspiration, comfort and light throughout humanity’s existence.

Viewed as a goddess by some, a god by others, it is connected to wisdom and intuition by Pagans, to the divine feminine in spirituality.

And astronomers want it gone.

Not all astronomers, but some.

Why? Because it’s too bright. While for many of us a full Moon is a striking addition to the night sky, for astronomers the bright light is a blinding one.

‘I hate the Moon,’ says Dr Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. ‘The Moon is evil, because we complain about how bright all these new satellites are, but the Moon is the brightest satellite of the Earth by far.

‘There’s only one of it, which is good, but it makes us stop ground-based observing of interesting, really faint deep space stuff for half the month, every month.’

In Dr McDowell’s defence, he was speaking on a podcast specifically looking at how to destroy the Moon, but he arrived armed and ready for some massive lunar destruction – and was joined in the mission by Professor Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University,

‘A lot of astronomers are eager to go to the far side of the Moon and put their telescopes there, because then the Moon would actually shield them from the electromagnetics and noise that comes from Earth,’ says Professor Haym, joining Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane on the Dead Planets Society podcast.

‘They’re the other astronomers. The evil astronomers who want to destroy it have a different vision.’

That vision includes exploring the idea of using the Moon’s own behaviour against itself.

‘The interior core of the Moon is actually molten like the Earth,’ says Professor Benaroya. ‘A lot of what we know about the Moon started with the Apollo missions, because they put a lot of different instrumentation on the surface and found that it’s seismically active – it has moonquakes.

‘Interestingly, because of the nature of the Moon, these moonquakes last a lot longer than earthquakes. Even though their magnitudes are a lot lower, they can last for up to an hour.

‘So we could fissure a few locations, then wait for a quake to hit, and those fissures might split and break a chunk off.’

However, that won’t help astronomers much, and is also easier said than done.

As can be seen from the ground, the Moon has been repeatedly smashed into by countless asteroids and meteorites for a little over 4.5 billion years. These impacts blast up vast amounts of dust, which over time has settled into all the naturally-forming cracks and crevices of the Moon, meaning the lunar surface is incredibly tough to crack.

To dig into the Moon in any way, whether to destroy it or otherwise, will require drilling – which brings its own problems in the gravity sphere.

‘If you brought a large [digger] from Earth to the Moon, assuming you could afford to, it’ll just push itself off the surface,’ says Professor Benaroya. ‘That’s a real challenge.’

However, if astronomers could crack digging into the Moon, another approach to destroying it could be perforating the equator and dropping bombs in the holes. 

Again, not as simple as it sounds.

‘We’ve blown the Moon into pieces,’ says Dr McDowell. ‘But if we only have just enough energy to break the chemical bonds of the rock, and the little pieces are still in each other’s gravity field, they’ll come back to each other. What happens then is you’ve actually made the world’s biggest ball pit.

‘So that doesn’t cut it. You’ve not only got to explode it enough to smash it into pieces, you’ve got to give enough energy to each of these pieces to have lunar escape velocity and not come back together.’

To do that, Dr McDowell says, would take the force of ten trillion one-megatonne thermonuclear bombs.

‘We already have too many thermonuclear bombs,’ he adds. ‘That would be way too many.’

An alternative would be to try to bounce the Moon out the way by hitting it with a comparatively large object, which would be both difficult to find and manoeuver. 

‘Mercury would do nicely,’ says Dr McDowell. ‘Pluto would work too – everyone’s down on Pluto so let’s get rid of it.’

However, smashing something into the Moon wouldn’t look like a massive Newton’s cradle. 

‘What we know from satellites is that when you smash two things together at hypersonic velocity, a hypersonic shock wave goes through each object and reduces them to shrapnel. Those clouds of shrapnel pass through each other and carry on along pretty much the same trajectories they were already on.’

While for a short while this may create a ring around the Earth – pretty cool – eventually the pieces would again likely group back together. 

But not before potentially wiping out a few million, or maybe billion, people.

‘What you’ve done is shred the Moon, leaving it in the same orbit but adding a random velocity component to each of the pieces,’ says Dr McDowell. ‘Some of those are going to send stuff out into the solar system, but some will re-enter the atmosphere and destroy our cities.’

Bombs may not be the way to go after all. Professor Benaroya considers one more solution. 

A massive laser.

‘Military grade lasers could probably do a lot of damage,’ he says. ‘Perhaps while orbiting it lasers a circumference and eventually works its way down and down, then eventually we could pull it apart.’

Except that this has now created two moons, rather than destroying one. It would also cause some pretty weird effects on the tides.

‘It could play havoc with them,’ says Professor Benaroya. ‘Now you have half the original Moon, so half the effect on tidal forces, but instead of one maximum tide every 12 hours, you’re going to have them whenever each half goes around a certain location.

‘It could make waves larger, tides more erratic – it’s complicated.’

And, hasn’t solved the original problem, which is to help astronomers see deep space.

Luckily for them, the James Webb Space Telescope is still wowing daily with its incredible images, and the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope came online this summer – plus trusty Hubble is still in action.

It seems for everyone’s sake, astronomers should stick to these, and leave the Moon alone.

MORE : Nasa reveals exact location Putin’s mission to the Moon crashed

MORE : Scientists want to turn a drink from your fridge into oxygen on the Moon

The next solar eclipse is just around the corner on Saturday, October 14, and will have a ‘path of annularity’ across multiple US states.

Self-described ‘eclipse chasers’ and those with a curiosity to witness the ‘ring of fire’ will flock to a narrow strip crossing nine US states over which the phenomenon will be visible. 

Saturday’s spectacle is classed as an annular solar eclipse, which occurs when the Moon moves between the Sun and Earth and is at its greatest distance from our planet. The Moon appears smaller than the Sun and does not totally cover it, and that is what causes the ring of fire look. 

This time, the annular solar eclipse will be able to be seen over parts of Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas, and sections of California, Idaho, Colorado and finally Arizona, according to Nasa. 

Portions of multiple states outside of the strip will still be in the 80-90% range and get a partial vista of the eclipse. They include California, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Idaho, according to Nexstar. 

Parts of a handful of states will have a 70-80% view including some of the aforementioned states and Washington, Montana, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The phenomenon will begin to be visible in the US at 9.13am PT in Oregon and be over Texas at 12.03pm CT. The path of annularity will then continue on to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and finishing off in Panama.

While chasing the eclipse, hopeful onlookers should not forget to take safety measures for watching it.

‘The Sun is never completely blocked by the Moon during an annular solar eclipse. Therefore, during an annular eclipse, it is never safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection designed for solar viewing,’ states Nasa.

‘Viewing any part of the bright Sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.’

Types of eclipse

Total solar eclipse This happens when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, completely blocking the face of our star. The Sun’s corona becomes visible around the Moon’s shadow, and the sky will darken similar to dawn or dusk.

Annular solar eclipse The Moon again passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, but at or close to its further point from Earth, meaning it does not entirely block out the Sun. This creates a circle of light around the Moon, often referred to as the ‘ring of fire’.

Partial solar eclipse This happens when the Moon is not in perfect alignment with the Sun, only blocking part of it and creating a crescent shape. People living on either side of the path of a total or annular solar eclipse will be able to see a partial eclipse on Saturday.

Source: Nasa

It is essential to use safe solar viewing glasses, also known as eclipse glasses, which are thousands of times darker than regular sunglasses. Regardless of the brand, the eclipse glasses should comply with the ISO 12312-3 international standard.

‘Always inspect your eclipse glasses or handheld viewer before use; if torn, scratched, or otherwise damaged, discard the device,’ states Nasa.

‘Do NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer — the concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and cause serious eye injury.’

The next major phenomenon, a total solar eclipse, will occur on April 8, 2024. That happens when the Moon travels between the Sun and Earth and completely blocks the Sun and the sky becomes dark. It is the only type of eclipse in which viewers can momentarily take off the protective glasses and gaze at it with the naked eye. 

MORE : Diver found dead in same cave where he broke US record a decade ago

MORE : Boyfriend of hostage paraded in Gaza ‘sent threatening text’ as both feared dead

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Is Bigfoot real? Two train passengers believe so after capturing images alleging to show an apelike creature walking through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

On Sunday, Shannon Parker and her husband Stetson were travelling through the isolated San Juan National Forest when they spotted what appeared to be a large, hairy creature lumbering on two legs through the scrub. 

Some might say in a remarkably human-like fashion.

Nevertheless, a fellow passenger began filming the beast – for a surprisingly short period of time given the potentially monumental find, making little attempt to keep the creature in shot as the train rumbled along.

Shannon has since posted the footage and several pictures on Facebook, where the video was spotted and reposted on X, formerly Twitter, by tourism company OutThere Colorado.

‘It’s story time y’all!’ wrote Shannon. ‘On Sunday, October 8, 2023, Stetson Tyler and I took the Narrow Gauge train ride from Durango to Silverton.

‘After leaving Silverton and heading back to Durango, I asked Stetson to help me look for elk in the mountains. As we are passing by the mountains, Stetson sees something moving and then says “I think it’s Bigfoot”.

‘Brandon, the guy sitting next to Stetson on the train, grabs his phone and starts recording. Meanwhile I am trying to get a photo on my camera.’

The footage shows the creature taking five strides through the scrub before crouching down and alternately looking around the ground and up at the train.  

‘Out of the hundreds of people on the train, three or four of us actually saw, as Stetson says in the video, the ever elusive creature Bigfoot,’ said Shannon.

‘I don’t know about y’all but we believe!’

Unsurprisingly, the posts have attracted a lot of attention, from both those who believe, and others who are more skeptical.

‘That’s pretty good footage, it’s bent over with hunched shoulders, arms are longer than normal,’ wrote one X user. ‘Need more video scrutiny by folks with the software to do so.’

Another said: ‘Was a little skeptical about this, until I saw the length of the arm. The hand was all the way down to the knee. Clearly a bigfoot.’

It was also noted how inaccessible the area was, only reachable – to humans – by canoe or kayak, made more difficult with a costume in tow.

However, most fell into the non-believers camp, noting the human action and, most commonly, the glorious shine of the creature’s hair.

‘Bigfoot needs to share his conditioner secrets for that shiny hair,’ said one user.

Another added: ‘They are elusive because they take their costumes off after you get your shot.’

Speaking to Newsweek, Mrs Parker said some people thought the sighting was staged by the train operator for publicity.

It would not be the first time the public has been caught out by a Bigfoot hoax, but time and again sightings are thoroughly debunked – especially as technology improves.

Modern smartphone footage, even when shot from afar, is of infinitely better quality than the grainy footage of the early days of Bigfoot, while social media allows such sightings to be shared, and analysed, widely.

The myth of Bigfoot has spanned generations and continents. Arizona State Museum suggests the likely origin stems from the Native American story of Tsonoqua, a ‘giant, hair-covered ogre who steals children and food’.

However, Bigfoot, or Sasquatch as it is also known, went mainstream in 1958 after Ray Wallace, a road contractor working in northern California, made plaster casts of huge footprints found near where he was working. 

Mr Wallace reported further sightings and even recorded Bigfoot sounds, helping stitch the myth firmly into modern American history. 

Was it a Gigantopithecus, the last surviving member of an otherwise extinct species of giant ape from southeast Asia? Or a hitherto unknown species of human-like ape?

In this particular case, it was a hoax. After Mr Wallace’s death, relatives found large, wooden cutouts of feet among his belongings, used to create the footprints.

Nevertheless, many still believe Bigfoot wanders the forests of North America – even after the most famous sighting, captured on camera by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in 1967, was thoroughly debunked. 

The video, taken alongside a creek in northern California, appeared to show a large, dark brown or black-haired ape-like creature striding confidently across the landscape.

However, recent analysis of the film which stabilised the shot clearly shows a man in a gorilla costume.

It is not only in North America where such myths and stories circulate. In the Himalayan mountain region tales of the Yeti, or ‘glacier being’ abound, often better known as the Abominable Snowman.

The 2018 film Smallfoot appeared to conflate the two ‘creatures’, playing on the Bigfoot name but starring a family of yetis…

MORE : Doctor insists ‘aliens are real’ after examining corpses of strange creatures

MORE : Josie Gibson launches ‘Bigfoot’ investigation

Scientists have identified two genes linked to a common circulatory condition that affects millions of people across the UK – and with them, a potential treatment.

When a person has Raynaud’s, their blood stops flowing properly to their fingers and toes – which can cause their skin to turn white or appear blue.

Symptoms of pain, numbness or pins and needles can last from a few minutes to a few hours.

In more serious cases, it can cause severe pain or ulcers.

It is most likely to occur when an affected person is cold, anxious or stressed, according to the NHS website.

Despite Raynaud’s being a common condition – charity Scleroderma and Raynaud’s UK estimates that it affects up to 10 million people in the UK alone – scientists said that it is under-investigated and that little was known about the genetics behind the condition.

In response, academics from Queen Mary University of London’s Precision Healthcare Research Institute (PHURI) and the Berlin Institute of Health set out to examine whether they could find genetic differences between people who have the condition and those who do not.

The team of researchers examined data from the UK Biobank study – a long term study which has the genetic and health information on more than half a million UK adults.

They compared genetic data from 5,147 people with Raynaud’s to more than 400,000 people who do not have the condition.

Scientists said found two genes linked Raynaud’s phenomenon. The first, known as ADRA2A, is a ‘classic stress receptor’ that causes small blood vessels to contract. The second IRX1, may regulate the ability of blood vessels to dilate.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, also identified that low blood sugar levels may have a ‘detrimental effect’ on people with Raynaud’s.

The researchers also replicated some of their findings using data from participants of British Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin from Queen Mary’s Genes and Health study.

The team said that their finding could help lead to the first effective treatment for people with Raynaud’s.

In the paper they suggest that a widely-used antidepressant called mirtazapine, which inhibits the function of ADRA2A, could be repurposed and tested as a potential treatment.

Commenting on the study, Dr Emma Blamont, head of research for Scleroderma and Raynaud’s UK, said: ‘Raynaud’s is a painful, chronic condition that affects around one in six people in the UK.

‘We know that attacks can be brought on by certain triggers like cold and stress, but relatively little is known about why some people experience Raynaud’s and others don’t.

‘For the millions of people living with this condition, simple everyday tasks can be a challenge, so research like this, which significantly advances our understanding of Raynaud’s and the role that genetics may play in causing it, is crucial.

‘The next step is to confirm these important findings in more diverse population groups and validate the results through functional studies.

‘If successful, these findings could help us unlock more new therapeutic avenues for Raynaud’s leading to better, more targeted and kinder treatments.’

MORE : When my fingers turn white, heated gloves help me cope with painful Raynaud’s flare ups

MORE : I have Raynaud’s Disease and am having to spend £450 a month on heating to keep warm

Nasa has unveiled the results of their OSIRIS-REx mission, which uncovered water, carbon, and other compounds that may have seeded life on Earth.

The spacecraft recently returned from a mission to Bennu, a so-called ‘near-Earth’ asteroid about 75million miles away.

OSIRIS-REx was launched in 2016, and began its return flight to earth in 2021 after collecting a sample of material from the asteroid.

Carbonaceous asteroids like Bennu are leftover material from the early days of formation of the Solar System, and potentially hold the ‘building blocks of life’ on our own planet.

Speaking at a conference at Nasa’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, the space agency unveiled the first photos of the asteroid sample as well as their incredible preliminary findings.

The new sample ‘will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come,’ said Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson.

Nelson praised the Nasa scientists who brought the OSIRIS-REx craft down in Utah last month, calling it a ‘picture-perfect mission’ and a ‘feat of engineering.’

Nelson then unveiled never before seen photos of the sample collected by the spacecraft, which appeared like dark rocks and fine, black dust particles.

Analysis showed that the rocks contained carbon, minerals, organic molecules, and ‘abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals,’ Nelson said.

The entire sample is about 5% carbon.

‘Far exceeding our goal of 60 grams, this is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever return to Earth,’ Nelson said. ‘The carbon and water molecules are exactly the kinds of material that we wanted to find.’

Using an electron microscope, Nasa scientists were able to determine the rocks brought back from Bennu contained what might be the ‘building blocks of life on Earth.’

‘They have water locked inside their crystal structure,’ said Dr Dante Lauretta, the OSIRIS-REx principal investigator. ‘That water – that is how we think water got to the earth.’

Lauretta also showed photos of sulfides, which he called ‘critical for biology,’ as well as iron oxide molecules that might be important for organic evolution.

Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.

A chance social media post by an eagle-eyed amateur astronomer sparked the discovery of an explosive collision between two massive planets.

The two ice giant exoplanets collided around a sun-like star, creating a blaze of light and plumes of dust in a distant space system 1,800 light-years away from Earth.

An international team of astronomers was formed after an enthusiast viewed the light curve of the star and noticed something strange.

It showed the system doubled in brightness at infrared wavelengths some three years before the star started to fade as the result dust cloud blocked its light.

‘To be honest, this observation was a complete surprise to me,’ said co-lead author Dr Matthew Kenworthy, from Leiden University, the Netherlands.

‘When we originally shared the visible light curve of this star with other astronomers, we started watching it with a network of other telescopes.

‘An astronomer on social media pointed out that the star brightened up in the infrared over a thousand days before the optical fading. I knew then this was an unusual event.’

The network of professional and amateur astronomers studied the star intensively, including monitoring changes in its brightness over the next two years.

The star was named ASASSN-21qj after the network of telescopes that first detected the fading of the star at visible wavelengths.

The researchers concluded the most likely explanation is that two ice giant exoplanets collided, producing the infrared glow detected by Nasa’s Neowise mission, which uses a space telescope to hunt for asteroids and comets.

‘Our calculations and computer models indicate the temperature and size of the glowing material, as well as the amount of time the glow has lasted, is consistent with the collision of two ice giant exoplanets,’ said co-lead author Dr Simon Lock, from the University of Bristol.

The resultant expanding debris cloud from the impact then travelled in front of the star some three years later, causing the star to dim in brightness at visible wavelengths.

Over the next few years, the cloud of dust is expected to start smearing out along the orbit of the collision remnant, and a tell-tale scattering of light from this cloud could be detected with both ground-based telescopes and Nasa’s largest telescope in space, known as JWST.

The astronomers plan on watching closely what happens next in this system.

‘It will be fascinating to observe further developments,’ said co-author Dr Zoe Leinhardt, from the University of Bristol. ‘Ultimately, the mass of material around the remnant may condense to form a retinue of moons that will orbit around this new planet.’

The study is published in the journal Nature.

MORE : Dozens of planets the size of Jupiter have just been found ‘roaming the universe’

MORE : Astronomers believe second Earth-like planet is hiding in our solar system

A recent study found that people with Neanderthal DNA are more sensitive to certain types of pain.

Curiously, the effects were most marked after scientists rubbed mustard oil onto the skin, something that has traditionally been known for its painkilling properties.

Nevertheless, the team from University College London found that three ‘Neanderthal variants’ of a particular gene involved in the nervous system left individuals with a lower pain threshold for pin pricks – but not for heat or pressure.

So if you’re not a fan of needles, does that mean you’re a little bit Neanderthal?

Not necessarily, and the only true way to find out is through a DNA test.

Modern-day humans can have up to 4% DNA in their genes, more commonly those of European origin.

And as scientists’ understanding of the ancient genome increases, more and more modern traits are being traced back to the time when early humans, Homo sapiens, paired up with their cousins.

For instance, nose length. 

It’s not a common descriptor, the length of a nose rather than general size. However, it seems longer noses from top to bottom were advantageous for Neanderthals living in the colder climates of Europe a hundred thousand years ago, helping warm the frigid air before it reached the lungs.

And speaking of lungs, one less positive trait that has come to the fore in recent years is the risk of more severe Covid-19 infections in those with Neanderthal DNA, from a gene carried by around 16% of people in Europe.

It works both ways however, with some ancient genes giving modern humans increased resistance to other infections caused by bacteria, fungi and parasites. Unfortunately, this is also thought to have left some people more prone to allergies, which happen when the immune system overreacts to everyday substances, such as dust or pollen.

Who were the Neanderthals?

The Neanderthals, or Homo neanderthalensis, lived from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago.

Our closest human relatives, they evolved across Europe and Asia while modern humans were still evolving in Africa.

Neanderthal populations were adaptable, living in colder environments across modern-day England and Siberia, ranging down to the warmer regions of Spain and Italy.

Smaller than the average human, they ranged in height from around 4’11” to 5’8″, but were broader and more stocky. Their strong facial features included a large nose and strong brow ridge.

We know from DNA analysis that the Neanderthals mated with early humans– Homo sapiens – resulting in the continuation of their DNA, but exactly why the species disappeared is still unknown.

One theory is they were out-competed for food and resources by incoming Homo sapiens, or may have simply been replaced by them.

Alternatively, rapid climate change may have been to blame.

Whatever the reason, our closest relatives suddenly went extinct around 40,000 years ago, but a little bit of them lives on.

Source: Natural History Museum

Back to a positive. Everyone wants luscious, thick hair don’t they? Well Neanderthal DNA makes that more likely, along with strong nails and skin. 

Less good is the fact that Neanderthal DNA can leave individuals predisposed to developing skin lesions called keratoses, which are dry, scaly patches of skin caused by sun damage. Although not usually serious, there is a risk of the patches turning cancerous.

Other disorders linked to the presence of Neanderthal DNA include diabetes, lupus and Crohn’s disease.

But before you start wondering how on Earth our ancestors even survived as long as they did when plagued by this litany of health defects, remember the chances are that they did not have these particular diseases. The genes associated with them were likely behind a useful function at the time, but 100,000 or so years later, in the 21st century, they do not serve the same purpose.

A case in point: Neanderthal DNA is linked to a higher risk of tobacco addiction in modern humans, but given its use only became widespread 400 years ago, it’s highly unlikely our ancestors were big smokers.

And a final one. Not only were Neanderthals strong and healthy, they were smarter than often given credit for – and one of the genes that contributed, microcephalin, is thought to have contributed to Homo sapiens’ massive brains.

Result.

MORE : Oldest ever Neanderthal carvings unearthed in sealed cave

MORE : Michaela Strachan: ‘I’m 2% Neanderthal – that’s why I’ve got a big forehead!’

Beavers have returned to west London for the first time in 400 years following the release of a family of five in Ealing.

The Eurasian beavers will make their home in Paradise Fields, Horsenden Hill, after being relocated from Scotland.

Once prolific across Britain, beavers were hunted to extinction in the 16th century. However, following rewilding projects across the country, colonies have now been established in Kent, Cornwall, Devon, Derbyshire and Oxfordshire, with a family of four also recently released in Northumberland.

Beavers are keystone species and ecological engineers, transforming the landscape around them. Dams create new habitat for species such as water voles, dragonflies, amphibians, birds, reptiles and fish, while the dead wood used to make them is a flourishing micro-ecosystem itself.

In addition, wetlands help prevent flooding downstream during high rainfall by slowing the flow, and not only act as a water filter, but also absorb and store atmospheric carbon.

The UK is in the bottom 10% of countries worldwide in terms of remaining, intact biodiversity. The project, supported by the Mayor’s Rewild London Fund and Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund, aims to help reverse this in the capital.

‘I am delighted to welcome back beavers to West London for the first time in 400 years, with the support of my Rewild London Fund,’ said London mayor Sadiq Khan. 

‘We are facing climate and ecological emergencies worldwide, but we have the power to make a difference, and I am committed to ensuring that London is at the forefront of reversing the trends of declining biodiversity and the destruction of nature.’

He added the project aimed to reconnect people with nature, ‘building a greener, fairer city for all Londoners’.

The project will examine how people in urban areas can co-exist with beavers, and aims to offer ‘beaver safaris’ once the family has settled in.

‘It’s unbelievably exciting that after a lot of hard work and volunteer effort to make this happen, we’re welcoming beavers back to Ealing,’ said Dr Sean McCormack, a vet and chair of the Ealing Wildlife Group which helped spearhead the campaign. ‘We’re excited to show they can have benefits in the urban landscape, not only for wildlife but for people too. 

‘Their activities here over the coming years should provide some serious nature based solutions to urban problems such as flooding. We’re also excited to see the wildlife that shows up on site and the effects that having nature on your doorstep can have for urban communities.’

The Eurasian beaver

Beavers are large, semi-aquatic rodents around 70-100cm long. They have webbed toes and a flat, hairless tail about 30-40cm long.

More than 85% of Eurasian beavers are found in Europe, having previously been widespread across Asia as well.

Beavers typically live in freshwater habitats surrounded by woodland, where they cut down trees to create dams and lodges.

They can swim at up to five miles an hour – more than double the average human – and dive for up to 15 minutes at a time.

Source: WWF

A coalition of wildlife groups, including Citizen Zoo and Friends of Horsenden Hill, helped the project come to fruition.

Last month a beaver rewilding project in Ealing, north London, celebrated the arrival of its first baby beaver – also known as a kit.

MORE : Beavers go wild up north to help Geordies fight climate change

MORE : Baby beaver boom in Forest of Dean as new arrivals take a dip

In 2023, information – and misinformation – moves at lightning speed online, and never more so than during times of conflict.

Since Hamas launched its assault on Israel last week, sparking a conflict in which at least 1,200 people have now been killed, videos alleging to show further attacks, military fighting and support for the conflict have been widely circulated.

However, in many cases, the footage is mislabelled – either accidentally or deliberately – as stemming from recent days, when in fact it is either old, unrelated, or completely fake.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton has also raised concerns about misinformation circulating online, with a particular focus on X, formerly Twitter, who said on Tuesday that the platform was being used to disseminate ‘manifestly false or misleading information’.

In a letter to the platform’s owner Elon Musk, he asked that X ensure its systems for tackling the risks to public security and civic discourse stemming from disinformation are effective, and that Mr Musk report on its crisis measures to the EC.

Replying on X, Mr Musk wrote: ‘Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.

‘Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that that [sic] the public can see them.

‘Merci beaucoup.’

However, it is not only on X that misinformation has been spreading.

‘Misinformation moves fast, and we have already seen social media platforms flooded with false information about the current situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip,’ says Pippa Allen-Kinross, news and online editor at Full Fact. 

‘On Facebook, Instagram, X and Tik Tok, videos falsely claiming to show current events are spreading quickly.

‘We’ve seen footage of events that took place years ago being shared as if they are happening now, clips from video games being spread as if they show real conflict and false quotes being attributed to public figures.

‘Misinformation thrives in times of conflict. It can create a false impression of current events, and damage trust in accurate reporting. People should try to verify the information they see before they share it on social media.’

Users can also refer to reputable sources of information, such as newspapers and reliable broadcasters.

Here are five examples of misinformation circulating about the Israel-Hamas conflict, debunked by Full Fact.

Video does not show a rocket attack on Israeli airport

A video purporting to show Hamas firing rockets at Ben Gurion International Airport, often known as Tel Aviv airport, was first shared online on February 3, 2020. The incident is an alleged rocket attack in Syria.

On the same date, it was shared online by Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, which said the video was ‘footage from local sources’ and depicted Turkish armed forces ‘retaliat[ing] against the Assad regime attack’ in Idlib, northwest Syria.

However, in recent days it has been shared on both Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, claiming to show Hamas attacking Israel.

Facebook has flagged the post as false information a number of times, and users have added context to at least one post on X, but it has still been widely shared.

Footage of helicopters being shot down is from a video game

Footage appearing to show Israeli helicopters being shot down over Gaza is actually from the video game Arma 3, and first appeared on YouTube on October 3, several days before the current escalation of conflict began in Israel and Gaza.

The clip has been shared hundreds of times across Facebook and X, and while some posts are flagged as misinformation, others have not.

Scenes from Arma 3 have previously been circulated online alongside claims it shows real-world events, including fighting in Ukraine.

Video supposedly showing ‘new air assault’ on Israel actually dates from 2021

This video, which claims to show a ‘new air assault’ on Israel, dates from a separate incident in May 2021.

The footage, which shows rockets fired into the sky near tall buildings, has been shared on both Facebook and Twitter with captions featuring the word ‘BREAKING’ and claims that ‘Hamas militants’ have started ‘a new air assault’ on Israel. 

Facebook has flagged a number of posts as false information, while X users have added context to at least one post, but the video has still been viewed thousands of times.

Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi did not share Instagram story expressing ‘support for the Palestinian cause’

An Instagram story that appeared to show Roberto De Zerbi expressing his ‘support for the Palestinian cause’ was not from the Brighton & Hove Albion football club manager.

The club confirmed the account that posed the story is not associated with Mr De De Zerbi, and appears to have since been deleted or removed.

The screenshot circulated on Facebook and X showing an Instagram story posted by an apparently verified account with the username @robtzerbi, which reads: ‘I support the Palestinian cause, and I hope that it will return to what it was, and I hope that Sudan will return to what it was, and that peace will prevail on the lands of Sudan, and I hope that peace will last throughout the Arab and Muslim countries.’

Facebook has since removed at least one post sharing the image, while X users have provided added context.

Full Fact has contacted Meta to ask whether and why this account was verified.

Video of ‘pro-Palestine’ march in Chicago is from 2021

A video circulating on social media alleges to show a ‘pro-Palestine’ march that appears to be a response to recent events. However, the video predates last weekend and seems to come from a march in 2021. 

The video shows thousands of people marching through the streets of Chicago with a Palestinian flag visible in the crowd. It has been shared many times on Facebook, X and TikTok in recent days, following the outbreak of conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip over the weekend. 

Many posts have the caption: ‘Pro Palestine March in Chicago now… THIS IS GETTING REAL FOLKS… Stay awake!!…’. Another post says: ‘Palestinian Americans gathered Sunday at the Israeli consulate for a rally and march.’

However, the video does not show a recent protest and was posted online with the caption: ‘#Chicago for #Gaza and #Palestine” on 17 May 2021. Large crowds reportedly gathered in Chicago on a number of occasions in May 2021 to support Palestians amid what was reported to be the worst fighting in the region since 2014.’  

Facebook has provided additional context but posts on X and TikTok offer no further information.

MORE : What weapons do Israel and Hamas’s military have? The war explained

MORE : Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least 140 children, health ministry says

North Korea has said its spy satellite programme is essential to counter a ‘preemptive nuclear attack’ by the US as the country tries to secure ‘world domination’, according to state media KCNA.

Ri Song Jin, described by the organisation as a researcher at the National Aerospace Technology Administration, accused the US of seeking greater military dominance in Asia by expanding its space force, writing in an article titled ‘US space force deployment aimed at preemptive aggression war’.

Mr Ri highlighted a recent visit by the US Space Force commander to Tokyo, and the deployment of a Space Force component in South Korea, where its members took part in joint military drills for the first time this year.

He said the moves were ‘nothing but a camouflaged curtain to cover up the scenario for preemptive attack on the anti-US and independent countries’, including North Korea, China and Russia.

‘Now that the US is getting hell-bent on space militarisation, with a preemptive nuclear attack as its ultimate target by massively introducing space force into the Korean peninsula and its vicinity, space development, including a military reconnaissance satellite, is an indispensable strategic option for guaranteeing the security interests and right to existence of the DPRK,’ said Mr Ri, referring to the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The country already has intercontinental ballistic missiles, but has twice tried and failed to launch a spy satellite this year. 

The first, in May, took off from the country’s Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on board a Chollima-1 rocket, a three stage vehicle. The rocket plunged into the sea after losing thrust following the separation of its first and second stages.

A second launch in August also failed after the rocket booster experienced a problem with its third stage – but not before it had sparked Japan’s emergency warning system, which told residents of the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa to take cover.

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said parts of the rocket had fallen into the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Pacific Ocean – and along with it, the Malligyong-1 satellite.

Last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Vladimir Putin at Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in the east of the country. The pair discussed military capabilities, with Kim pledging to support Russia’s war in Ukraine and Putin offering Pyongyang help to launch satellites in return.

Since the meeting there has been a sharp increase in rail traffic across the border between the two nations.

Russia has a long and illustrious history in space, putting both the first satellite in orbit and the first man in space. However it has become increasingly isolated in recent years, more so since the invasion in Ukraine. 

In August an attempt to land on the Moon for the first time in almost half a century ended in failure when its Luna-25 landed crashed into the surface while manoeuvering for landing.

MORE : North Korean spy satellite plunges into the sea… again

MORE : North Korea to expel US soldier who crossed border into the country

The bloody conflict between Israel and militant group Hamas that escalated dramatically on Saturday has served to highlight the discrepancy between the two sides’ military capabilities.

Hamas, which launched a barrage of rockets into Israel last week and defeated the country’s famed Iron Dome air defence system, is thought to number just 20,000 to 25,000 guerilla fighters.

Over the border, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) is an advanced military body numbering hundreds of thousands.

Follow our live blog for latest updates on the Israel-Hamas war

‘The standing army is significant, around 170,000, and they’re reportedly calling up around 450,000 reservists,’ said Dr Josh Andresen, associate professor of national security and foreign relations law at the University of Surrey.

‘There are reports they’re literally going around the world, chartering military planes and ships to bring back reservists who are abroad at the moment – there are vast numbers of dual citizens in the US, UK, France and elsewhere.’

The vast army requires significant hardware and munitions.

Tanks

Since 2004 the IDF has used Merkava tanks, and last month unveiled the latest iteration, the fifth generation ‘lightning’ Merkava.

The diesel-powered vehicles have six wheels either side within the tank track.

The main armament is a 120mm gun, plus two machine guns and a breech-loaded mortar. 

Planes

A third of the IDF’s personnel are assigned to the Israeli Air Force. 

The air force currently uses a mix of F-35 Lightning II jets, procured from the US, and Israeli-built F-21 Kfir fighter jets.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II has two external weapon stations for air-to-surface strikes including bombs and cluster munitions. Internal stations carry air-to-air missiles.

The F-21 Kfir is a single-seat fighter that carries guns, cannons, missiles, bombs and rockets. 

Helicopters

In late 2021 the IDF agreed to buy a consignment of 12 CH-53K helicopters from the US, but these will not be delivered until 2025 at the earliest.

At present it has a wide range of vehicles, including AH-64 Apache and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, both of which are four-blade, twin engine helicopters.

The Black Hawk carries a combination of fixed- forward guns, rockets and air-to-ground missiles.

The Apache has a 30mm cannon, rockets and Hellfire missiles.

Drones

Israel is one of the largest operators of drones in the region, and a net exporter of the technology. However, much of the fleet is unarmed, used instead for surveillance.

Armed drones are the Heron TP UAV, Hermes 450 UAV and Hermes 900 UAV, all of which carry anti-tank missiles.

Munitions

‘The IDF has more or less anything and everything a very highly advanced military would have, including precision munitions,’ said Dr Andresen. ‘Although there are reports they may be running low.

‘There are also reports that the US is flying in more weapons of various stripes, and there’s speculation that may include high-intensity bunker-busting bombs.’

Does Israel have nuclear weapons?

Israel is a nuclear-armed nation, but would not deploy them in fighting against Hamas due to the proximity. 

It initially developed nuclear weapons in response to threats from neighbouring Middle Eastern nations including Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, and more recently Iran.

Where does Hamas get its weapons?

While there is no current evidence to suggest Iran was involved in Saturday’s attack, historically the country has provided Hamas with both financial support and weapons for its continued campaigns against Israel.

MORE : Israeli city warned it has less than half an hour to evacuate before Hamas attack

MORE : Nearly 200,000 people made homeless in Gaza by Israel’s bombing revenge

Do you know which blood type you are? A? B? O?

It’s thought more than half of us aren’t sure – but besides the four main groups, A, B, AB or O, there is a further distinction. Negative and positive.

And if you’re negative, it could mean you’re descended from aliens.

Well no actually, it couldn’t, but that’s what a little corner of the internet would like you to believe. The question is, why? 

Blood type is classified by the type of antigens, or protein molecules, found on the surface of red blood cells. These can be either A or B. Some people have one, some have both – AB type – and some have none – O.

Also roaming the blood are antibodies, proteins that are part of the body’s immune system designed to track down and destroy foreign invaders. These are also A and B types. A person with blood type A has B antibodies, and vice versa. Those with O type blood have both A and B antibodies, and people with AB have no A or B antibodies – but don’t worry, there are plenty of other types.

These pairings are why getting the right blood transfusion is so important. If a person with A type blood receives type B blood, the A antibodies in the plasma will attack and destroy the blood cells.

However, in 1940, scientists Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener discovered that in some cases a blood transfusion of the same type could still cause a severe reaction. This was found to be due to another antigen, D, or the rhesus (Rh) factor. 

Most people have this antigen, and are classed as Rh positive – so named after the macaques the scientists tested to make their discovery. Figures vary depending on country and race, but roughly 93% of the population is either A+, B+, AB+ or O+, and can receive either Rh positive or negative transfusions.

That leaves 7% of the population whose blood type is Rh negative, and can only receive exactly the same blood in a transfusion.

But here’s where the science starts to mingle with science fiction. While the main blood types can be traced back to specific regions of the planet, nobody is quite sure where or how rhesus negative blood types evolved. 

Online, this knowledge gap has been ably filled by the theory that, perhaps millennia ago, aliens landed and bred with humans, mixing their DNA with ours.

One popular strand of ‘evidence’ for this is the case of haemolytic anaemia, or rhesus disease, in unborn babies. Here, the rhesus negative mother’s immune system destroys the rhesus positive baby’s blood cells, possibly faster than they can be replaced, causing severe illness or even death.

Conspiracy theorists argue the mother is rejecting the baby because they are different species, when in fact it is just a tragic accident of nature.

In addition, they suggest that people with Rh negative blood are more likely to possess an extra vertebrae – a real phenomenon but not scientifically linked to blood type – and are more prone to low blood pressure, which is also not backed up by any research.

And while people hailing from the Basque region of southern Europe are much more likely to be rh negative than the general population, again, the evidence is severely lacking to suggest this is of extraterrestrial origin, rather than a regular case of genetic isolation.

Now it is true that many humans have DNA from another species embedded within them, but that species isn’t an alien one. Or a reptilian one, as is often put forward as another explanation for Rh negative blood.

It is the Neanderthals. Humans, or Homo sapiens, are well known to have intermingled with our ancient cousins, and today, depending on where you live, you could have up to 4% Neanderthal DNA in your cells – most likely those living in Europe or Asia.

The Neanderthals, wiped out tens of thousands of years ago, do not appear to be behind the emergence of Rh negative, and are most certainly not aliens.

For now, where this rare blood type originated remains a mystery, but will surely one day be solved – with a no doubt distinctly Earthly origin.

Until then, if you want to know your blood type, there is an easy way to find out. Give blood.

MORE : I’ve saved 450 lives in the last 47 years – you could do it too

MORE : Doctor insists ‘aliens are real’ after examining corpses of strange creatures

In 2020, Oxford-based philosopher Toby Ord published a book called The Precipice about the risk of human extinction.

He put the chances of ‘existential catastrophe’ for our species during the next century at one in six.

It’s quite a specific number, and an alarming one. The claim drew headlines at the time, and has been influential since – most recently brought up by Australian politician Andrew Leigh during a speech in Melbourne.

It’s hard to disagree with the idea we face troubling prospects over the coming decades, from climate change, nuclear weapons and bio-engineered pathogens (all big issues in my view), to rogue AI and large asteroids (which I would see as less concerning).

But what about that number? Where does it come from? And what does it really mean?

Coin flips and weather forecasts

To answer those questions, we have to answer another first: what is probability?

The most traditional view of probability is called frequentism, and derives its name from its heritage in games of dice and cards. On this view, we know there is a one in six chance a fair die will come up with a three (for example) by observing the frequency of threes in a large number of rolls.

Or consider the more complicated case of weather forecasts. What does it mean when a weatherperson tells us there is a one in six (or 17%) chance of rain tomorrow?

It’s hard to believe the weatherperson means us to imagine a large collection of ‘tomorrows’, of which some proportion will experience precipitation. Instead, we need to look at a large number of such predictions and see what happened after them.

If the forecaster is good at their job, we should see that when they said ‘one in six chance of rain tomorrow’, it did in fact rain on the following day one time in every six.

So, traditional probability depends on observations and procedure. To calculate it, we need to have a collection of repeated events on which to base our estimate.

Can we learn from the Moon?

So what does this mean for the probability of human extinction? Well, such an event would be a one-off: after it happened, there would be no room for repeats.

Instead, we might find some parallel events to learn from. Indeed, in Ord’s book, he discusses a number of potential extinction events, some of which can potentially be examined in light of a history.

For example, we can estimate the chances of an extinction-sized asteroid hitting Earth by examining how many such space rocks have hit the Moon over its history. A French scientist named Jean-Marc Salotti did this in 2022, calculating the odds of an extinction-level hit in the next century at around one in 300 million.

Of course, such an estimate is fraught with uncertainty, but it is backed by something approaching an appropriate frequency calculation. Ord, by contrast, estimates the risk of extinction by asteroid at one in a million, though he does note a considerable degree of uncertainty.

A ranking system for outcomes

There is another way to think about probability, called Bayesianism after the English statistician Thomas Bayes. It focuses less on events themselves and more on what we know, expect and believe about them.

In very simple terms, we can say Bayesians see probabilities as a kind of ranking system. In this view, the specific number attached to a probability shouldn’t be taken directly, but rather compared to other probabilities to understand which outcomes are more and less likely.

Ord’s book, for example, contains a table of potential extinction events and his personal estimates of their probability. From a Bayesian perspective, we can view these values as relative ranks. Ord thinks extinction from an asteroid strike (one in a million) is much less likely than extinction from climate change (one in a thousand), and both are far less likely than extinction from what he calls ‘unaligned artificial intelligence’ (one in ten).

The difficulty here is that initial estimates of Bayesian probabilities (often called ‘priors’) are rather subjective (for instance, I would rank the chance of AI-based extinction much lower). Traditional Bayesian reasoning moves from ‘priors’ to ‘posteriors’ by again incorporating observational evidence of relevant outcomes to ‘update’ probability values.

And once again, outcomes relevant to the probability of human extinction are thin on the ground.

Subjective estimates

There are two ways to think about the accuracy and usefulness of probability calculations: calibration and discrimination.

Calibration is the correctness of the actual values of the probabilities. We can’t determine this without appropriate observational information. Discrimination, on the other hand, simply refers to the relative rankings.

We don’t have a basis to think Ord’s values are properly calibrated. Of course, this is not likely to be his intent. He himself indicates they are mostly designed to give ‘order of magnitude’ indications.

Even so, without any related observational confirmation, most of these estimates simply remain in the subjective domain of prior probabilities.

Not well calibrated – but perhaps still useful

So what are we to make of ‘one in six’? Experience suggests most people have a less than perfect understanding of probability (as evidenced by, among other things, the ongoing volume of lottery ticket sales). In this environment, if you’re making an argument in public, an estimate of ‘probability’ doesn’t necessarily need to be well calibrated – it just needs to have the right sort of psychological impact.

From this perspective, I’d say ‘one in six’ fits the bill nicely. ‘One in 100’ might feel small enough to ignore, while ‘one in three’ might drive panic or be dismissed as apocalyptic raving.

As a person concerned about the future, I hope risks like climate change and nuclear proliferation get the attention they deserve. But as a data scientist, I hope the careless use of probability gets left by the wayside and is replaced by widespread education on its true meaning and appropriate usage.

Steven Stern, Professor of Data Science, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article

MORE : Artificial intelligence poses ‘risk of extinction’, experts warn

MORE : A huge asteroid is heading for Earth – one way or another

Migratory birds who rely on Earth’s magnetic field to navigate become lost during space weather events such as solar flares, a new study reveals.

Nocturnally migratory birds – such as geese and swans, sandpipers and thrushes – use Earth’s magnetic field as a natural sat nav to guide them during their long seasonal migrations.

But when space weather disrupts the magnetic field, fewer birds choose to fly, the findings show. Those that do often end up disorientated or lost due to the disruptions to their navigation.

The new findings were based on large, long-term datasets that demonstrate for the first time the previously unknown relationship between nocturnal bird migration and geomagnetic disturbances.

Our planet’s magnetic field is regularly impacted by solar outbursts which can trigger colourful auroras and sometimes disrupt satellite communications, human navigational systems and power grids.

However, little is still known about how these disturbances affect animals which depend on Earth’s magnetic field for migratory navigation and orientation.

Previous studies have shown strong evidence that some birds and sea turtles tune into small changes in magnetic inclination, intensity and declination when orientating themselves and developing navigational maps.

One recent study even found geomagnetic disturbances to be associated with increased migratory bird ‘vagrancy’ – birds becoming lost during migration.

But most previous studies were narrowly focused in geographic extent, duration and the number of species examined.

This most recent study, however, used a 23-year dataset of bird migration across the United States’ Great Plains – a huge plateau running the length of the country east of the Rocky Mountains – to provide fresh insights.

The researchers, from the University of Michigan used images collected at 37 radar stations in the central flyway of the US Great Plains, a major migratory corridor.

The Plains extend over more than a thousand miles down the centre of the country, stretching from Texas in the south to North Dakota near the Canadian border.

The final datasets for the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, included 1.7 million radar scans from the autumn and 1.4 million from the spring.

Communities of nocturnally migrating birds in this region primarily consist of a diverse set comprised of 73% perching birds such as thrushes and warblers, 12% shorebirds including sandpipers and plovers and 9% waterfowl such as ducks, geese and swans.

The researchers matched data from each radar station with a customised index of geomagnetic disturbance representing the maximum hourly change from background magnetic conditions.

The team’s data trove was fed into two complementary statistical models to measure the effects of magnetic disturbances on bird migration. The models controlled for the known effects of weather, temporal variables such as time of night and geographic variables such as longitude and latitude.

The findings revealed that fewer birds migrate during space weather disturbances.

They also found that those that do still migrate drift with the wind more frequently during geomagnetic disturbances in the autumn, instead of expending great effort to battle crosswinds.

‘Our results suggest that fewer birds migrate during strong geomagnetic disturbances and that migrating birds may experience more difficulty navigating, especially under overcast conditions in autumn,’ said lead author Eric Gulson-Castillo, a doctoral student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

‘As a result, they may spend less effort actively navigating in flight and consequently fly in greater alignment with the wind.’

The results showed that ‘effort flying’ against the wind was reduced by a quarter under cloudy skies during strong solar storms during the autumn, suggesting a combination of obscured celestial cues and magnetic disruption may hinder the navigation of the birds.

‘Our findings highlight how animal decisions are dependent on environmental conditions – including those that we as humans cannot perceive, such as geomagnetic disturbances – and that these behaviors influence population-level patterns of animal movement,’ said Mr Gulson-Castillo.

MORE : A massive solar storm blasted Earth. The next one could be catastrophic

MORE : Birds take revenge on humans with clever new trick

Humanity is ‘staring down the barrel’ of potentially losing up to half of its future medicines because so many plant species face extinction, scientists have warned.

Nearly half of all those that flower are threatened, amounting to over 100,000, while it is believed that around 77% of all those as yet undescribed by science are at risk.

In some cases plants are going extinct between the time of first discovery and when they are catalogued, which takes around 16 years on average.

The main cause of these extinctions is habitat loss, such as deforestation or the construction of dams which flood river areas further upstream.

Climate change is ‘certainly on the horizon’, said conservation analyst Dr Matilda Brown, but it is much harder to measure it as a threat.

She is among the researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who have published these findings in its latest State of the World’s Plants and Fungi report.

Together, they are calling for all newly described species to be treated as threatened unless proven otherwise.

‘We’re looking at more than 100,000 species that are threatened,’ said Dr Brown. ‘That’s more than the total number of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, all of our vertebrates put together.

‘And when we consider that nine out of 10 of our medicines come from plants, what we’re potentially staring down the barrel of is losing up to half of all of our future medicines.

‘So this isn’t just a big number if you’re a plant. It’s a big number in terms of potential impacts for humanity.’

Many newly described species are vulnerable to extinction because they are specific to just one region, or they are in areas heavily marked by humans.

Numerous knowledge ‘dark spots’ exist across the Amazon, India, China, tropical South East Asia and parts of the Middle East where conflict, difficult terrain and lack of funding have made it difficult for exploring botanists.

More than 200 scientists from 102 institutions in 30 countries across the world contributed to Kew’s report, which includes the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, the most complete record of known plant species, containing over 350,000 names.

Rafeal Govaerts, who has spent 35 years compiling the list, said he was following Charles Darwin’s dream of seeing every plant species on Earth recorded.

It will need to be continually updated as around 2,500 new species are formally described each year – and this excludes fungi, one of the least-understood parts of the natural world.

Mycologists – those who study fungi – estimate there are around 2.5 million species, in total of which 155,000 have been catalogued.

Professor Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Kew, said: ‘We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about fungi on this planet.’

At the current rate of scientific description, it would take 750-1,000 years to catalogue all fungal species, researchers said, who believe DNA sequencing and studying molecular data could help speed this up.

Since the pandemic in 2020, scientists have described 10,200 new fungal species and more than 8,600 species of plants, as lockdowns gave them more time to work through the backlog of found but unclassified examples.

Professor Antonelli said he hopes the research will encourage policy makers to take plants and fungi into account when choosing areas to protect as part of the international goal to protect 30% of the planet by 2030, and not focus only on animals.

He said: ‘Because plants and fungi provide the cornerstone of all ecosystems of human life, we absolutely think that they have to be part of that process of identifying the 30×30 – the areas which are most important for plant and fungal diversity.

MORE : This plant stinks of rotting corpses – but it still needs saving from extinction

MORE : Snapshot: Stunning images of the animals we risk sending to extinction

Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Share your views in the comments below

One of Britain’s top young scientists has died aged just 29 from a rare form of heart cancer originally diagnosed as a pulled muscle.

Kirsty Smitten was diagnosed with cardiac angiosarcoma in November last year and given just months to live. The cancer is so rare her surgeon had never seen it before, and only two people a year in the UK receive a diagnosis.

She died in hospital with her family beside her on Wednesday, having spent the past seven weeks in Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

‘Kirsty fought to the very end but this was such an aggressive cancer she couldn’t beat it,’ said her sister-in-law Sukhi Smitten, who is married to Kirsty’s older brother Matt.

Speaking to MailOnline, she added: ‘She kept saying how much she had to live for – her brother, Dan, is getting married in November and Matt and I are expecting a baby in February. She would have been the most wonderful auntie. We’re all heartbroken.’

Named a Forbes 30 under 30 scientist, Kirsty was poised to potentially save millions of lives having developed two new antibiotics, helping fight the global threat of drug resistance. In February she was also crowned FSB’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

She set up a company, MetalloBio, to develop the drugs for commercial use, and continued her vital work during chemotherapy.

Kirsty, from Solihull, West Midlands, first attended hospital last November, where doctors thought she’d just pulled a muscle. At the time she was playing football and hockey daily.

However, she insisted something was wrong and waited 11 hours before a CT scan revealed a cancerous tumour in her right atrium, one of the heart’s two smaller, upper chambers.

The diagnosis was terminal, and she was given just months to live.

Speaking to MailOnline in March, Kirsty said:

‘To get any kind of growth in your heart is very rare because your heart cells don’t replicate after a certain age.

‘I work in med-tech, and no one wants to fund something that only one person in 36 million is going to use, so there are no new developments.’

She added that the diagnosis had shed new light on her own work.

‘I now see how important my work is, because if I get an infection I have about an hour to get IV antibiotics before it becomes fatal – with chemo, I don’t have an immune system at the moment.

‘If we get the new drugs on the market it will potentially save tens of millions of lives.

‘A new class of antibiotics hasn’t reached clinics in over 30 years, and by 2050 antibiotic microbial resistance is expected to kill 10 million people, which is a death every three seconds per year. We would be able to prevent that.’

Kirsty was also dealing with the loss of her father, Kevin, after the seemingly healthy 61-year-old died from a heart attack in October last year.

The family is keen her legacy continues after her death, and work continues on the new class of antibiotics.

MORE : Up to a dozen Grenfell firefighters ‘diagnosed with rare cancers’

MORE : Super Bowl champ dies at 31 after battle with rare cancer

A hoard of coins believed to have belonged to a clan chief who was murdered in the Glencoe Massacre have been discovered hidden under a fireplace.

The 17th century hoard of 36 coins included international currency, and was hidden beneath the remains of a grand stone fireplace at a site which was believed to have been a hunting lodge or feasting hall.

The site was associated with Alasdair Ruadh ‘Maclain’ MacDonald of Glencoe, clan chief from 1646-1692, who was a victim of the Glencoe Massacre along with members of his family.

The MacDonalds took part in the first Jacobite rising of 1689, and were targeted in retribution with an estimated 38 clan members slaughtered on February 13 1692, including Maclain and his wife.

Artefacts discovered at ‘the summerhouse of Maclain’ include European pottery and silver and bronze coins dating from the 1500s to 1680s, discovered during a University of Glasgow dig in August.

Currency from the reigns of Elizabeth I, James VI and I, Charles I, the Cromwellian Commonwealth, and Charles II – as well as France and the Spanish Netherlands and the Papal States – was found.

Historians believe whoever buried the coins may have been killed in the massacre, as they did not return for them.

Other finds from the structure include musket and fowling shot, a gun flint and a powder measure, as well as pottery from England, Germany and the Netherlands and the remains of a grand slab floor.

Archaeology student Lucy Ankers, who found the hoard, said: ‘As a first experience of a dig, Glencoe was amazing. I wasn’t expecting such an exciting find as one of my firsts.

‘I don’t think I will ever beat the feeling of seeing the coins peeking out of the dirt in the pot.’

The Glencoe Massacre happened during the Jacobite bid to restore a Catholic king to the throne, backed by the MacDonalds, who supported King James VII of Scotland and II of England after he fled to France.

In late January 1692, approximately 120 men from the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot arrived in Glencoe from Invergarry, led by Robert Campbell of Glenlyon.

Historians speculated the coins may have been buried on the morning of the massacre two weeks later.

Survivors ran up a side glen during a blizzard, and may have encountered the property.

‘These exciting finds give us a rare glimpse of a single, dramatic event,’ said Dr Michael Given, co-director of the University of Glasgow’s archaeological project in Glencoe.

‘Here’s what seems an ordinary rural house, but it has a grand fireplace, impressive floor slabs, and exotic pottery imported from the Netherlands and Germany. And they’ve gathered up an amazing collection of coins in a little pot and buried them under the fireplace.

‘What’s really exciting is that these coins are no later than the 1680s, so were they buried in a rush as the Massacre started first thing in the morning of February 13, 1692?

‘We know some of the survivors ran through the blizzard and escaped up the side glens, including this one.

‘Were these coins witnesses to this dramatic story? It’s a real privilege to hold in our hands these objects that were so much part of people’s lives.’

Edward Stewart, excavations director, added: ‘The scale of this structure and the wealth of artefacts uncovered within suggest this was a place where the MacDonald chiefs could entertain with feasting, gambling, hunting and libations. The discovery of this coin hoard adds an exciting dimension.

‘Ordinary and everyday finds within this structure such as spindle whorls for making thread, a pitch fork, and a dress pin, speak to the everyday lives of those who lived here, worked the land and minded the cattle, allowing us to tell their stories.’

MORE : These are the rarest coins from Queen Elizabeth II’s reign

MORE : Mystery as missing Roman hoard coins replaced by more valuable artefacts

Evidence of the biggest ever solar storm 14,300 years ago has been found in ancient tree rings.

Such a massive storm today on the scale of the newly discovered one would be ‘catastrophic’ for modern technology, say scientists.

It would potentially wipe out telecommunications and satellite systems, cause massive electricity grid blackouts, and cost the global economy billions of pounds. 

The research team say it is vitally important to understand the Sun’s extreme behaviour and the risks it poses to Earth.

A huge spike in radiocarbon levels was identified by an international team of scientists who analysed ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps.  

‘Extreme solar storms could have huge impacts on Earth,’ said Professor Tim Heaton, of the University of Leeds. ‘Such super storms could permanently damage the transformers in our electricity grids, resulting in huge and widespread blackouts lasting months.

‘They could also result in permanent damage to the satellites that we all rely on for navigation and telecommunication, leaving them unusable.

‘They would also create severe radiation risks to astronauts.’

Nine such extreme solar storms – known as Miyake Events – have now been identified as having occurred over the last 15,000 years.

The most recent confirmed Miyake Events occurred in 993 CE and 774 CE.

The newly-identified 14,300-year-old storm is, however, the largest that has ever been found – roughly twice the size of the two in the Middle Ages.

Scientists say the exact nature of those storms remains very poorly understood as they have never been directly observed instrumentally.

‘We do not know what causes such extreme solar storms to occur, how frequently they might occur, or if we can somehow predict them,’ said Professor Tim Heaton.

The research team measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees preserved within the eroded banks of the Drouzet River, near Gap, in the Southern French Alps.   

Lead author Professor Edouard Bard, of the Collège de France, said: ‘Radiocarbon is constantly being produced in the upper atmosphere through a chain of reactions initiated by cosmic rays.

‘Recently, scientists have found that extreme solar events, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections, can also create short-term bursts of energetic particles which are preserved as huge spikes in radiocarbon production occurring over the course of just a single year.’

The tree trunks, which are subfossils – remains in which the fossilisation process is not complete – were sliced into tiny single tree-rings.

Analysis of the individual rings identified the ‘unprecedented’ spike in radiocarbon levels occurring precisely 14,300 years ago.

By comparing the spike with measurements of beryllium, a chemical element found in Greenland ice cores, the team suggest that the spike was caused by a massive solar storm that would have ejected ‘huge’ volumes of energetic particles into Earth’s atmosphere. 

‘Direct instrumental measurements of solar activity only began in the 17th Century with the counting of sunspots,’ said Professor Bard.

‘Nowadays, we also obtain detailed records using ground-based observatories, space probes, and satellites. However, all these short-term instrumental records are insufficient for a complete understanding of the Sun.

‘Radiocarbon measured in tree-rings, used alongside beryllium in polar ice cores, provide the best way to understand the Sun’s behaviour further back into the past.’

‘Finding such a collection of preserved trees was truly exceptional,’ said Professor Cécile Miramont,,of Aix-en-Provence University in France.

‘By comparing the widths of the individual tree rings in the multiple tree trunks, we then carefully pieced together the separate trees to create a longer timeline using a method called dendrochronology.

‘This allowed us to discover invaluable information on past environmental changes and measure radiocarbon over an uncharted period of solar activity.’ 

The largest directly-observed solar storm occurred in 1859, and is known as the Carrington Event.

It caused massive disruption on Earth – destroying telegraph machines and creating a night-time aurora so bright that birds began to sing, believing the Sun had begun to rise.

The Sun is currently nearing the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, resulting in a number of powerful solar storms have been fired towards Earth – including a number that caused radio blackouts.

The findings were published in The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering.

MORE : What is going on with the Sun right now?

MORE : Earth hit by massive solar flare knocking out radio across US – and it won’t be the last

To most people, complex technologies separate modern humans from their ancestors who lived in the Stone Age, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

In today’s fast changing world, older technologies, even those from a few years ago, are often described dismissively as ‘Stone Age’.

Such terms serve to disconnect us from our ancient relatives, who were much more sophisticated than we sometimes think they were.

A team led by archaeologist Larry Barham at the University of Liverpool recently published robust and well dated evidence for the earliest known use of wood technology. The wooden structure, along with artefacts, date to 476,000 years ago and have been excavated from waterlogged deposits at Kalambo Falls, Zambia.

This archaeological site is famous for producing traces of human cultural development dating to hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The remarkably well preserved evidence found by Barham and colleagues include, among other things, a wedge (a type of wooden tool), a digging stick, a log cut with the help of tools and a branch with a notch cut into it.

But why, in the age of AI and robotics, should wood technology from nearly half a million years ago generate so much interest from both scientists and the public?

The evidence from Kalambo Falls demonstrates a remarkable ability by early hominins (ancient human relatives) to source wood and shape it with tools. They were able to produce, not only an assortment of other tools, but also sophisticated wooden structures.

We don’t know exactly what species made the structure, but Homo heidelbergensis or a species similar to Homo naledi might be candidates, among others.

These results have far reaching implications for our understanding of how sustainable materials were used in the Early Stone Age. It also sheds light on the capabilities of early hominins.

Archaeology is the study of deep and recent history using the remains of things left by people who came before us. However, these histories are biased in favour of things that have either survived the passage of time or decayed but left traces.

Humans lived in the era known as the Stone Age for nearly 99% of human history. The Early Stone Age is considered the earliest and perhaps longest ‘technological age’, stretching from nearly four million years ago to 300,000 years ago.

We know more about stone tools during this early phase of human development, in part because inorganic materials such as rocks are nearly indestructible compared to those made of perishable materials like wood.

Indeed, wood is very scarce in deposits belonging to the Early Stone Age, requiring exceptional conditions of preservation to avoid decaying. It survives only in extremely dry environments such as deserts, or extremely wet conditions – as was the case at Kalambo Falls.

Given the scarcity of evidence, direct proof of the intentional use of wood from more than 400,000 years ago sharply transforms our understanding of the antiquity of wood as a technology – and how long hominins have been interacting with this versatile material. They used it to make tools, to build shelters, to obtain food and perhaps even for fuel as they went about their daily lives.

Although researchers had suspected that wood technology was widely used by early hominins, without hard, direct evidence, we could not accept that as fact. Archaeology is a discovery and evidence-based field of study –- seeing is believing. The Kalambo Falls discovery transformed speculation into fact, changing our understanding of the history of technology.

However, part of the challenge comes from concepts of human history which could be described as progressivist or linear – that envisage history as an inevitable advance towards modernity through scientific and technological achievement.

In the past, some scientists considered the minds of early hominins to have been more limited compared to those of modern humans. They believed technology and culture improved in sophistication as human brain size increased, moving from a ‘simple’ state to the complex, algorithm-dominated world we live in today.

Despite the fact that brain sizes have increased over time, and that technology has changed, it is possible that those who came before us had an impressive understanding of the materials around them and cared for their surroundings.

The intentionally-shaped wood construction from Kalambo Falls is an illustration of design, technology and creativity – using what in today’s world we would call a green technology.

Notions of ‘progress’ are quite deeply embedded in culture. This can also be a proxy for the exceptionalism of modern humans (Homo sapiens) – the belief that there is something unique or exemplary about our species compared with earlier hominins. If we put these notions aside, we can recognise that so called ‘backward technologies’ can greatly benefit the environment and the planet.

The fact that wood is perishable makes it a more sustainable material, unlike some modern construction materials that are nearly indestructible, and leave conspicuous ruins. Manufacturing these modern materials also emits greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Of course, there are risks associated with using wood as a construction material, such as fire and decay. But in appropriate situations, we should continue our long tradition of building in wood. Perhaps the ancients were not so backward, but more progressive than us when it came to looking after the planet through sound decision making.

In summary, the Kalambo Falls evidence suggests that, at least sometimes, early hominins were able to take advantage of materials other than stone for their everyday needs, including tool-making and shelter. They might also have been able to use the resources in their environment for fuel and medicine.

However, we need more direct evidence, going back to the beginnings of the Stone Age to demonstrate how those who came before us used and worked with wood. More discoveries like this might even lead us to rename the mighty Stone Age as the Wood Age.

Shadreck Chirikure, Prof of Archaeological Science & British Academy Global Professor, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article

MORE : Random scraps of wood prove our ancestors were way smarter than we thought

MORE : Prehistoric discovery changes our understanding of Stone Age society

In our tech-saturated lives, it can be hard to focus on a single task without multiple notifications tugging at our attention every other second.

While digital detoxes have been around for a while now, ‘monk mode’ is the latest buzzword that’s gaining traction among the digitally overwhelmed.

Monk mode is a productivity hack popular among CEOs and entrepreneurs that involves focusing on one task and avoiding distractions.

With more than 78 million views on TikTok, the hashtag #Monkmode has gained popularity as an effective productivity hack.

And unlike a digital detox, in which people shin tech entirely, people are now using it to cut out distractions and help them stay on track with their tasks.

Here are some apps that can help you get into ‘monk mode’.

1. One Sec

A true mindfulness app, One Sec forces you to take a deep breath whenever you open distracting apps.

Its premise is simple: ‘You will reduce your social media usage just by becoming aware of it.’

Targeting mindless social media doomscrolling, One Sec is designed to change your habits on a long-term basis by making users aware of them, forcing you to stop and think for a moment before diving into an app.

It’s available to download for free for both Android and Apple users.

2. Headspace

Arguably, one of the most popular mindfulness apps, Headspace was actually created by a monk so it had to be on the list.

Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk, co-founded Headspace – a guided meditation app that boasts 3.3 million paid subscribers around the world as of last year.

The app has been downloaded over 70 million times since 2016 so it’s a good bet to start your journey to monk mode.

Alongside meditations, mindfulness practice and help sleeping, Headspace offers articles on how best to reduce your social media use and deal with any negative feelings it causes.

Most recently, Headspace has even ventured into the metaverse by launching mindfulness experiences that help you transition out of Virtual Reality (VR) and back to the real world.

A monthly subscription will cost you £9.99 a month or £49.99 for a year with a free trial option. It also offers a family plan with six accounts for £74.99 a year, and a student plan for £7.99 a year. 

3. Freedom

The basis of achieving monk mode is removing distractions and Freedom promises to do just that.

This app blocks distracting apps across devices on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, or Chrome.

The app uses a timer to record sessions which you can either set up on the fly or schedule for it to be activated automatically.

So if you find yourself checking your social media on your browser even if you’ve put your phone away, this app might be for you.

4. Cold Turkey

Calling itself the ‘toughest website blocker on the internet’, Cold Turkey is on the extreme side of cutting out distractions.

This website blocker, designed for studying or focusing on work, blocks distractions like social media, games, apps, Youtube or even the entire Internet.

So once you set the timer, you have no choice but to get on with your work – or face staring blankly at the empty screen. 

You can either pay the one-time fee of £29 to gain full access to all the features, or use the free version that gives you the basic timed website blocking functions.

5. Forest

Another app with a novel approach to productivity, Forest turns staying focused into a game by letting you plant a cedar or an oak and watch it grow while you work.

Whenever you want to enter monk mode, you plant a tree on the app. Your tree will grow while you focus on your work – but leaving the app halfway to check other apps will result in your tree dying.

The more consistent you are in staying focused daily, you will eventually end up with a lush forest to show for it.

Great for people who work better with visual cues, it’s a rewarding app that even lets you plant real trees with virtual coins you can buy on the app.

Forest is available to download for free on the Google Play Store and on the Apple App Store for £3.99.

MORE : Need an escape from work calls and burnout? Try a digital detox trip

MORE : What is Shadow Work, the new mental health trend popular on TikTok?

Today is the day. At 3.19pm Nasa will launch its Psyche spacecraft, bound for an asteroid worth more than you can possibly imagine.

Or maybe you can, if you have an idea of what $10,000 quadrillion, or £7,700 quadrillion, would buy – but given that’s more than the entire global economy by quite a bit, it might be a struggle. Combined GDP is currently a comparatively measly $105 trillion.

That’s pocket change for the asteroid which, scientists hope, has a core of iron, nickel and gold – making it a literal flying gold mine.

Named 16 Psyche, it was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis – becoming the 16th known asteroid in the solar system. The astronomer named it after Psyche, the Greek goddess of the soul.

Now, around 170 years later, Nasa is sending a spacecraft to study the rock as it orbits the Sun along the asteroid belt, a stellar highway between Mars and Jupiter. 

This afternoon, after two days of delays due to bad weather, the Psyche craft will be launched into space atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida – broadcast on YouTube as it happens.

From here, it will take six years to reach its destination more than 235 million miles away.

Psyche takes five Earth years to complete one orbit of the Sun, but only four hours to rotate once on its own axis, a Psyche ‘day’.

In Nasa’s own words, the asteroid has an ‘irregular, potato-like shape’, and measures 173 miles by 144 miles. Those massive dimensions make it so big, it is technically classed as one of the solar system’s minor planets. In fact, it is thought to contain about 1% of the entire mass of the asteroid belt.

One of Nasa’s aims is to determine whether it may have been the core of a planetesimal, part of an early planet, helping scientists better understand the formation of Earth.

‘We know a good deal about Earth’s core, but we can’t study it directly because of its depth below the crust and mantle,’ said Brad Zavodsky, Psyche mission manager.

‘Investigating Psyche is perhaps the closest we can come. Studying its composition and structure is an exciting opportunity to learn more about such objects in space – and perhaps a little something about our own planet as well.’

Psyche is also an M-type asteroid, because of the high volume of metal it is predicted to contain.

But Nasa isn’t planning on bringing any of that precious metal home – nor is anyone else, yet.

The cost and logistics of mining asteroids mean the process is some way off, but many believe it will become a reality one day. 

If – or when – it does, the next gold rush will be very different from the last.

MORE : This asteroid is worth $10,000 quadrillion – more than the entire global economy

MORE : Did an asteroid wipe out the dinosaurs? Computer says no

The debate over just how old the oldest fossilised human footprints found in North America really are has been settled, according to new research.

The beautifully-preserved footprints belonging to adults and children are more than 20,000 years old, upending previous theories about when humans first arrived on the continent.

Previous estimates suggest the original inhabitants, known as the Clovis people, arrived about 13,000 years ago.

Now however, two new lines of evidence support the 21,000 to 23,000-year-old estimate of the prints made two years ago – confirming humans were present in North America when ice sheet and glacier coverage on Earth’s surface peaked, known as the Last Glacial Maximum.

The original 2021 results kicked off a global conversation among the science community as to the accuracy of the ages.

Co-lead author of the new study, Dr Jeff Pigati, said the latest findings confirm the age of the White Sands footprints, found in New Mexico.

Dr Pigati, of the US Geological Survey (USGS), said: ‘The immediate reaction in some circles of the archaeological community was that the accuracy of our dating was insufficient to make the extraordinary claim that humans were present in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum.

‘But our targeted methodology in this current research really paid off.’

The controversy centred on the accuracy of the original ages, which were obtained by radiocarbon dating.

The age of the White Sands footprints was initially determined by dating seeds of the common aquatic plant Ruppia cirrhosa that were found in the fossilised impressions.

But aquatic plants can acquire carbon from dissolved carbon atoms in the water rather than ambient air, which can potentially cause the measured ages to be too old.

‘Even as the original work was being published, we were forging ahead to test our results with multiple lines of evidence,’ said Kathleen Springer, USGS research geologist and co-lead author of the new paper.

‘We were confident in our original ages, as well as the strong geologic, hydrologic, and stratigraphic evidence, but we knew that independent chronologic control was critical.’

For the follow-up study, published in the journal Science, the research team focused on radiocarbon dating of conifer pollen, because it comes from terrestrial plants and therefore avoids potential issues that arise when dating aquatic plants such as Ruppia.

The team used painstaking procedures to isolate around 75,000 pollen grains for each sample they dated.

The pollen samples were collected from the exact same layers as the original seeds, so a direct comparison could be made.

In each case, the pollen age was statistically identical to the corresponding seed age.

‘Pollen samples also helped us understand the broader environmental context at the time the footprints were made,’ said study co-author Dr David Wahl, a USGS research geographer.

‘The pollen in the samples came from plants typically found in cold and wet glacial conditions, in stark contrast with pollen from the modern playa [flat, dried land] which reflects the desert vegetation found there today.’

The USGS team also used a different type of dating called optically stimulated luminescence, which dates the last time quartz grains were exposed to sunlight.

Using that method, they found that quartz samples collected within the footprint-bearing layers had a minimum age of around 21,500 years, providing further support to the radiocarbon results.

MORE : Inside the 2,500,000-year-old prehistoric caves dubbed ‘Britain’s oldest home’

MORE : Ball found in 2,000-year-old shop ruins shows Romans loved hot pink eyeshadow

A ‘malnourished and dehydrated’ turtle that washed up on a beach in Scotland last year more than a thousand miles from her natural habitat has been restored to good health and released back into the wild.

Iona was not expected to make it through the night after she was found in 10C water off the Scottish island of Iona – after which she was named – in January 2022.

The animal was found cold-stunned and dehydrated and became the smallest live stranded loggerhead turtle recorded in the UK.

She was spotted by a passerby before the team at the British Divers Marine Life Rescue contacted Sea Life in Loch Lomond to bring her in for rehabilitation.

Iona was relocated to Sea Life in Scarborough in May last year for further care before making her long journey from Scarborough to the Azores in Portugal this month – a voyage of nearly 1,700 miles.

Todd German, animal care curator at Sea Life Scarborough, said she was ‘lucky’ to have been discovered.

‘She was found by a passerby in the bleak midwinter, which is just incredibly lucky,’ said Mr German.

‘It was really touch and go whether or not she would pull through.’

He added that her release back into the wild was ‘surreal’ but hopes Sea Life can continue giving turtles a ‘chance of survival’.

‘It’s quite surreal because she’s been with us for a long time,’ said Mr German. ‘It was really strange in the fact that this was the end of my part in her journey and it was a really lovely feeling to see her go off into the big blue.

‘Sea turtles around the world are really facing challenges, and I dread to say, they’re human-faced challenges. That’s through climate change and also our interaction with the natural environment and turtles themselves.

‘We, as Sea Life, as aquariums, want to play our part in contributing back to the wild and hopefully giving the sea species and turtles the chance of survival for millions of years to come.’

Robin Hunter, display supervisor at Sea Life Loch Lomond and part of Iona’s care team, said it was his first time rehabilitating a turtle.

‘It was obviously not the best experience that you’d want for the turtle, but to be part of something like that is pretty spectacular. You really feel like you’re making a difference,’ said Mr Hunter.

‘To be able to see her now go and live the way she’s supposed to be living, that is a phenomenal feeling.

‘There’s a small percentage of worry because you never know. It’s the wild at the end of the day, but she is a fighter.’

He added that Iona was not in good condition when she was first discovered but said her recovery has been ‘remarkable’.

‘When she first arrived, she wasn’t in great condition and she was very dehydrated, very malnourished. We really didn’t expect her to make the night,’ said Mr Hunter.

‘Bit by bit, with a lot of work from the care team, we were able to slowly raise her temperature.

‘It was remarkable. It was like a totally different turtle.’

Mr Hunter said it was ‘a very slow process’ restoring Iona to a healthy weight. She gradually increased to 21kg, which is 10 times the weight when she was found.

The loggerhead turtle has been fitted with a satellite tag to allow researchers to monitor her behaviour in the wild.

Andrea Herguedes, a research assistant at the Institute for Research in Marine Sciences and Costa project, said: ‘We are wondering if she will behave the same as a wild turtle after one year of rehab.’

There is a chance Iona could migrate as far as North America in search of a nesting beach.

Ms Herguedes said she is confident that Iona will thrive again in the wild, describing her species as ‘super resilient’.

MORE : 6-million-year-old sea turtle fossil reveals rare DNA discovery

MORE : Turtles are thriving in Cyprus thanks to the British Armed Forces

Scientists have made a big leap in discovering the origins of ginger hair – in 10 million-year-old frogs.

Palaeontologists at University College Cork found the earliest evidence of pheomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration, in the ancient specimens.

The study marks a breakthrough in the molecular analysis of fossils, which will help reconstruct the original colours of extinct species.

‘This finding is so exciting because it puts palaeontologists in a better place to detect different melanin pigments in many more fossils,’ said Dr Tiffany Slater, who led the study alongside Professor Maria McNamara. 

‘This will paint a more accurate picture of ancient animal colour and will answer important questions about the evolution of colours in animals. Scientists still don’t know how – or why – phaeomelanin evolved because it is toxic to animals, but the fossil record might just unlock the mystery.’

Pheomelanin is one of two forms of melanin found in vertebrates such as mammals, birds and reptiles. The more common form, eumelanin, has a wide range of positive functions, including protecting cells when exposed to UV light. 

However, pheomelanin is phototoxic, and when exposed to light can amplify the processes involved in sun-induced DNA damage. It also uses up a key antioxidant.

Beyond being involved in colour patterns that may help with camouflage, the reasons behind pheomelanin’s evolution remain a mystery.

In humans it remains very rare – less than 2% of the world’ population has red hair.

Now however, having discovered traces of the pigment much earlier in the fossil record, its origins may be better understood.

‘Fossils are invariably altered by the ravages of heat and pressure during burial, but that doesn’t mean that we lose all original biomolecular information,’ said Professor McNamara.

‘Our fossilisation experiments were the key to understanding the chemistry of the fossils, and prove that traces of biomolecules can survive being cooked during the fossilisation process.’

The team performed laboratory experiments on black, ginger, and white feathers to track how phaeomelanin pigments degrade during the fossilisation process, backing up their interpretations of the fossil chemistry. 

‘There is huge potential to explore the biochemical evolution of animals using the fossil record, when we account for chemical changes during fossilisation.’

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

MORE : Weird and wonderful Welsh fossils reveal marine life from 462,000,000 years ago

MORE : Prehistoric bird believed to be extinct returns to the wild

People who have suffered a recent respiratory infection may be susceptible to ‘long colds’ similar to long Covid, according to a new study. 

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London suggest there could be long-lasting health impacts following colds, influenza or pneumonia, but that they are currently unrecognised.

Common symptoms of a ‘long cold’ include coughing, stomach pain and diarrhea more than four weeks after the initial infection. 

The team said that while the severity of an illness appears to be a key driver of risk of long-term symptoms, more research is being carried out to establish why some people continue to suffer but others do not.

However, the results do not suggest that long colds have the same severity or duration as long Covid, which can last more than three months and lead to depression, anxiety and brain fog alongside extreme fatigue and shortness of breath.

The study analysed data from more than 10,000 UK adults, comparing the recovery of those with Covid versus a non-Covid acute respiratory infection.

While those with Covid were more likely to experience light-headedness or dizziness and problems with taste and smell, the study highlighted the secondary effects of other, similar infections.

‘Our findings shine a light not only on the impact of long Covid on people’s lives, but also other respiratory infections,’ said lead author Giulia Vivaldi. ‘A lack of awareness – or even the lack of a common term – prevents both reporting and diagnosis of these conditions.

‘As research into long Covid continues, we need to take the opportunity to investigate and consider the lasting effects of other acute respiratory infections.

‘These “long” infections are so difficult to diagnose and treat primarily because of a lack of diagnostic tests and there being so many possible symptoms. There have been more than 200 investigated for long Covid alone.’

The study was part of the Covidence UK project, and funded by Barts Charity.

‘Our findings may chime with the experience of people who have struggled with prolonged symptoms after having a respiratory infection despite testing negative for Covid on a nose or throat swab,’ said Professor Adrian Martineau, Covidence UK chief investigator.

‘Ongoing research into the long-term effects of Covid and other acute respiratory infections is important because it can help us to get to the root of why some people experience more prolonged symptoms than others. 

‘Ultimately this could help us to identify the most appropriate form of treatment and care for affected people.’

The study is published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine.

MORE : What Covid rules are still in place for 2023 as Pirola variant sparks concern?

MORE : Long Covid can cause long-term damage to major organs, new study finds

MORE : Scientists identify troubling new long Covid symptom

Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Share your views in the comments below