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<strong>The big idea: can you inherit memories from your ancestors?</strong>

"Scientists working in the emerging field of epigenetics have discovered the mechanism that allows lived experience and acquired knowledge to be passed on within one generation, by altering the shape of a particular gene. This means that an individual’s life experience doesn’t die with them but endures in genetic form."

theguardian.com/books/article/

@science @biology

<strong>The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes</strong>

"_For a process that’s anything but exotic, ice nucleation remains surprisingly mysterious. Chemists can’t reliably predict the effect of a given impurity or surface, let alone design one to hinder or promote ice formation. But they’re chipping away at the problem._"

quantamagazine.org/the-endurin

@science @physics @chemistry

<strong>Science of Naples: Making knowledge in Italy’s Pre-Eminent City, 1500–1800</strong>

"_Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to debates within the Republic of Letters that continued until deep into the nineteenth century. They also show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters yielded unique insights that contributed to the development of fields such as medicine and earth sciences._"

uclpress.co.uk/collections/cat

@science @histodon @histodons
@earlymodern @bookstodon (84)

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<strong>The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review</strong>

"_The questions of who the first postglacial peoples, or pioneers, were and where they came from therefore remain unanswered. Previous palaeogenomic analyses from remains from adjacent regions have suggested that two main routes into Sweden could have been taken by the pioneers, one from the SW through modern-day Denmark and Norway, and one from the east via Finland. However, no direct genetic evidence from the pioneers of northern Sweden exists._"

Johnson, E., Regnéll, C., Heintzman, P.D. and Linderholm, A. (2024), The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review. Boreas. doi.org/10.1111/bor.12660

@science

<strong>A glass that builds and heals itself</strong>

"_...a team of researchers discovered that a certain peptide will develop unusual bonds with water, allowing it to form into a glass-like structure. What’s more, the unique properties of this peptide glass allow it to self heal if cracked, and act as a strong adhesive between water-loving surfaces._"

length: three minutes and thirty four seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=g5SaghcgK4

@science

<strong>Did the Condemnation of 1277 Create Modern Science?</strong>

"_The purpose of the Condemnation of 1277 was to stomp out any thought not strictly in accord with Church doctrine, including its various miracles such as the transformation in the Eucharist. To the extent that this condemnation was actually followed, it would have led to complete intellectual stagnation._"

seileronscience.substack.com/p

@histodon @histodons @science

<strong>Archaeologists have traced the origin of the horse and why humans ride them</strong>

"_Researchers believe the very earliest horse ancestors arose in North America, then sauntered across the Bering Strait into Asia around a million years ago. They flourished in Asia, but went extinct in the Americas._"

independent.co.uk/news/science

@science @archaeodons

🇳🇴 <strong>Inside the Extreme Plan to Refreeze the Arctic | WSJ Future of Everything</strong>

"_A method normally used to create ice-skating rinks is now coming to the rescue of melting sea ice in the Arctic. Since satellite records began in 1979, summer Arctic sea ice has shrunk by around 13% per decade. Could making more ice be a potential solution to this issue?_"

length: eight minutes and eighteen seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=7ebVUj2lh9

@science @climatechange @environment

🇳🇴 <strong>Norwegian farmer finds 1,000-year-old Viking sword on family farm</strong>

"_X-ray scans of the sword revealed outlines of rare inscriptions with a cross pattern and the likely presence of letters on the blade._

_Based on these inscriptions, scientists said it could be a so-called Vlfberht sword, produced during the Viking Age or the early Middle Ages between 900 and 1050AD._"

independent.co.uk/news/science

@science @archaeodons

<strong>The Ancestors of Today's Poles with the Haplogroup R1a</strong>

"_Genetic studies proved the autochthonic theory of Polish origin to be true at least as by the 2nd century BCE or possibly about 2000 BCE. The Polish nobility’s myth was its Sarmatian origin, a myth that proved to be true partially culturally and partially genetically. The Scythian and Slavic peoples grow out of the same Indo-European genetic trunk, or
rather, they are branches of the same thicker limb._"

Wojciech J. Cynarski (2021). The Ancestors of Today's Poles with the Haplogroup R1a. Sociology and Anthropology, 9(2), 19-25. DOI: doi.org/10.13189/sa.2021.09020

@science @sociology @anthropology

<strong>Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe</strong>

"_The historical and archaeological record leave no doubt that the development of culture and population in southwestern Germany was temporarily characterized by profound discontinuities, particularly during the third to first century BCE. The definitive end of the 2,000 years of relative genetic continuity from the Bronze throughout the Iron Age in southern Germany is marked by a sudden, sharp increase of Steppe-related ancestry during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages._"

Gretzinger, J., Schmitt, F., Mötsch, A. et al. Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe. Nat Hum Behav (2024). doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-018

@science @archaeodons @anthropology @histodon @histodons

Currently ....

"<strong>Galileo: Decisive Innovator (Cambridge Science Biographies)</strong>

by Michael Sharratt"

What non-fiction book are you currently reading?

@bookstodon

<strong>Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang</strong>

"_Researchers already knew that in a universe with so-called dark energy, but without matter, the start of inflation identified in the BGV theorem is a coordinate singularity that can be eliminated. But the real universe has matter, of course. Might mathematical tricks also make it possible to get around its singularity? The researchers showed that if the amount of matter is negligible compared to the amount of dark energy, then the singularity can be eliminated._"

quantamagazine.org/mathematici

@science @physics

<strong>Earliest, most distant galaxy discovered with James Webb Space Telescope </strong>

"_The two earliest and most distant galaxies yet confirmed, dating back to only 300 million years after the Big Bang, have been discovered using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers today announced._"

cam.ac.uk/research/news/earlie

@science @astronomy

<strong>Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere</strong>

"_When you say there aren’t enough jobs, it’s because we’re training so many Ph.D.’s and convincing them all that the only way to remain a scientist is to stay in academia. It’s not, and that hasn’t been true for a long time._"

nymag.com/intelligencer/articl

@science

<strong>Fossil viruses hidden in our DNA thousands of years ago could be the cause of depression, study finds</strong>

"Ancient DNA present in humans may be linked to major psychiatric disorders like depression, researchers have said.

DNA sequences originating from ancient infections are found in the brain, with some contributing to susceptibility for conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression, a study found"

independent.co.uk/news/science

@science

<strong>Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans</strong>

"_Outside the Tibetan Plateau, the western Tibetan Plateau populations interacted with both South and Central Asian populations at least 2,000 years ago, and the South Asian-related genetic influence, despite being very limited, was from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) migrants in Central Asia instead of the IVC populations from the Indus Valley._"

'Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans' (2024) ScienceDirect. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.04..

@science @anthropology

<strong>When Fake Archaeology Uses Fake Science </strong>

"_Dr. M discusses common pseudoscientific arguments used to support pseudo archaeology._"

length: twenty one minutes and forty three seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=j0OMxE_D1p

@archaeodons @science

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