chichen itza, maya, new discoveries, palenque, sak tzi

Ancient Maya Kingdom Unearthed in a Backyard In Mexico

Associate professor of anthropology Charles Golden and his colleagues have found the long-lost capital of an ancient Maya kingdom in the backyard of a Mexican cattle rancher. Golden, in collaboration with Brown University bioarchaeologist Andrew Scherer and a team of researchers from Mexico, Canada, and the United States, began excavating the site in June 2018. ...

Troy Oakes

Maya hieroglyphs.

Mercury’s 400°C Heat May Help It Make Its Own Ice

It is already hard to believe that there is ice on Mercury, where daytime temperatures reach 400°C, or 750°F. Now, an upcoming study says that the Vulcan heat on the planet closest to the S°un likely helps make some of that ice. As with Earth, asteroids delivered most of Mercury’s water, the scientific consensus holds. ...

Troy Oakes

Satellite orbiting Mercury.

Earth’s Mantle May Have Generated Planet’s Early Magnetic Field

New research lends credence to an unorthodox retelling of the story of early Earth that a geophysicist first proposed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, regarding Earth’s mantle. In a study appearing in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, researchers Dave Stegman, Leah Ziegler, and Nicolas Blanc provide new estimates ...

Troy Oakes

The Earth in space.

Building Blocks for Life on Earth Arrived Later Than We Thought

Ancient rocks from Greenland have shown that the building blocks necessary for the evolution of life did not come to Earth until very late in the planet’s formation — much later than previously thought. An international team of geologists — led by the University of Cologne and involving UNSW scientists — have published important new ...

Troy Oakes

The rocks the team analysed are the oldest preserved mantle rocks.

What Causes Ice Ages to End?

New University of Melbourne research has revealed that ice ages over the last million years ended when the tilt angle of the Earth’s axis was approaching higher values. During these times, longer and stronger summers melted the large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, propelling the Earth’s climate into a warm “interglacial” state, like the one we’ve ...

Troy Oakes

Trees covered in snow and frost.

Dimming Betelgeuse Likely Isn’t Cold, Just Dusty

Late last year, news broke that the star Betelgeuse was fading significantly, ultimately dropping to around 40 percent of its usual brightness. The activity fueled popular speculation that the red supergiant would soon explode as a massive supernova. But astronomers have more benign theories to explain the star’s dimming behavior. And scientists at the University of ...

Troy Oakes

Images of Betelgeuse dimming.

Evidence That a Cosmic Impact Caused the Destruction of Early Settlements

Before the Taqba Dam impounded the Euphrates River in northern Syria in the 1970s, an archaeological site known as Abu Hureyra bore witness to the moment ancient nomadic people first settled down and started cultivating crops. A large mound marks the settlement, which now lies under Lake Assad. But before the lake formed, archaeologists were ...

Troy Oakes

Organic Molecules Discovered, Consistent With Early Life on Mars

Organic compounds called thiophenes are found on Earth in coal, crude oil, and oddly enough, in white truffles, the mushroom beloved by epicureans and wild pigs. Thiophenes were also recently discovered on Mars, and Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze‑Makuch thinks the presence of organic molecules would be consistent with the presence of early life ...

Troy Oakes

Mars, the red planet.

Smallest Homo Erectus Cranium in Africa and Diverse Stone Tools Found

An international research team, led by scientists from the U.S. and Spain, including a University of Michigan geologist, has discovered a nearly complete cranium of an early Homo erectus human ancestor. It is estimated to be about 1.5 million years old, and a partial cranium dated to about 1.26 million years ago, from the Gona ...

Troy Oakes

The DAN5 Homo erectus cranium.

Hunter-Gatherer Networks Accelerated Human Evolution

As early as the Stone Age, mankind started to develop a complex culture. This was triggered by interactions between different groups of hunters and gatherers, as a UZH study confirms. The researchers mapped the social network of modern hunters and gatherers in the Philippines, thereby simulating the invention of a cure. Around 300,000 years ago, ...

Troy Oakes

The development of new drugs.