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**From willow bark to aspirin: The evolution of modern medicine, through the rise and fall of ancient and medieval empires**

"_There is a lot to learn from ancient medical treatises and scholars, not to only discover potential novel treatments, but also to learn the history of modern medicine, and appreciate the work that has been done thousands of years ago._"

oxsci.org/from-willow-bark-to-

@science

**The most ancient human genome yet has been sequenced—and it’s a Denisovan’s**

"_200,000-year-old DNA from Siberian cave shows our elusive, extinct cousins mated repeatedly with Neanderthals_"

science.org/content/article/mo

@science

**Conspiracy Beliefs and Consumption: The Role of Scientific Literacy**

"_We also propose and find evidence via both measurement (study 2A) and manipulation (via short video interventions; studies 2B and 2C) for the role of each dimension of scientific literacy—scientific knowledge and reasoning—and their impact on evidence evaluation and conspiracy beliefs._"

Nathan Allred, Lisa E Bolton, Conspiracy Beliefs and Consumption: The Role of Scientific Literacy, Journal of Consumer Research, 2024;, ucae024, doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucae024

@science

**Peak global population and other key findings from the 2024 UN World Population Prospects**

"_Although the global population is expected to increase for many more decades, the population growth rate is slowing rapidly._

_This is driven by a dramatic reduction in fertility rates, which measure the average number of children per woman. The global fertility rate has more than halved since the 1960s, from over 5 children per woman to 2.3._"

Hannah Ritchie and Lucas Rodés-Guirao (2024) - “Peak global population and other key findings from the 2024 UN World Population Prospects” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'ourworldindata.org/un-populati' [Online Resource]

🎥**This Video is About Electroadhesion.**

"_..a new discovery called “hard-soft electroadhesion” enables chemists to stick almost any hydrogel to almost any metal, using nothing but an electric current._"

length: fourteen minutes and four seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=62BjIysFDh

@science @chemistry

**Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers**

"_These results demonstrate that the Neolithic plague was prevalent and potentially lethal. Together with the fact that these plague cases are found in one of the last populations with Neolithic Farmer ancestry observed in Scandinavia, we believe that plague could have been a contributing factor to the Neolithic decline._"

Seersholm, F.V., Sjögren, KG., Koelman, J. et al. Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers. Nature (2024). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-076

@archaeodons @science @biology

**What’s another word for ‘neuronal map-maker’?**

"_Researchers discover microscopic ‘brain thesaurus’ that lets neurons derive meaning from spoken words_"

news.harvard.edu/gazette/story

@science

**Diverting the Gulf Stream**

"_A brief look at a US senator's proposal to divert the Gulf Stream away from Europe._"

🎥 length: fifty three seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=J2li3AGjiE

@histodon @histodons

**The genetic structure of Norway** 🇳🇴

"_The main finding of this study is that despite Norway’s long maritime history and as a former Danish territory, the region closest to mainland Europe in the south appears to have been an isolated region in Norway, highlighting the open sea as a barrier to gene flow into Norway._"

Mattingsdal, M., Ebenesersdóttir, S.S., Moore, K.H.S. et al. The genetic structure of Norway. Eur J Hum Genet 29, 1710–1718 (2021). doi.org/10.1038/s41431-021-008

@science @biology @anthropology

**Song melodies have become simpler since 1950s – study**

"_An analysis of hundreds of chart hits from the past 70 years has shown “a significant decline” in the complexity of rhythm and pitch in song melodies, UK researchers said._"

independent.co.uk/news/science

@science

<strong>Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia</strong>

"_The directly dated cut-marked bones of ungulates indicate the presence of AMHs in inland Iberia during the early and mid-Upper Paleolithic. The paleoecological inferences suggest that human populations occupied Malia when climatic and ecological conditions were not particularly severe in terms of aridity and temperature._"

Nohemi Sala et al., Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia. Sci. Adv.10, eado3807 (2024). DOI: doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado3807

@anthropology @archaeodons @science

<strong>Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth</strong>

"_Some members of the French Academy of Sciences interpreted measurements taken in Paris by scientists including Jacques Cassini as supporting the idea that the Earth was elongated at the poles, resembling a lemon or a melon._

_By contrast, Isaac Newton had proposed that the centrifugal force caused by the Earth’s rotation would result in the planet being flattened at its poles, thus having a similar shape to an orange._"

theguardian.com/science/articl

@science

<strong>Ancient Egyptian scribes and specific skeletal occupational risk markers (Abusir, Old Kingdom)</strong>

"_Our research reveals that remaining in a cross-legged sitting or kneeling position for extended periods, and the repetitive tasks related to writing and the adjusting of the rush pens during scribal activity, caused the extreme overloading of the jaw, neck and shoulder regions._"

Brukner Havelková, P., Dulíková, V., Bejdová, Š. et al. Ancient Egyptian scribes and specific skeletal occupational risk markers (Abusir, Old Kingdom). Sci Rep 14, 13317 (2024). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-635

@science @archaeodons @anthropology

<strong>Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines</strong>

"_Our analysis suggests that this genetic distinction is due to a European-related gene flow introduced in Ashkelon during either the end of the Bronze Age or the beginning of the Iron Age. This timing is in accord with estimates of the Philistines arrival to the coast of the Levant, based on archeological and textual records (2–4)._"

Michal Feldman et al., Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines. Sci. Adv.5, eaax0061 (2019). DOI: doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0061

@science @anthropology @archaeodons

<strong>Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations</strong>

"_The Arabian Peninsula was the initial site of the out-of-Africa migrations that occurred between 125,000 and 60,000 yr ago, leading to the hypothesis that the first Eurasian populations were established on the Peninsula and that contemporary indigenous Arabs are direct descendants of these ancient peoples._"

Rodriguez-Flores, J.L. et al. (2016) 'Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations,' Genome Research, 26(2), pp. 151–162. doi.org/10.1101/gr.191478.115.

@science

<strong>How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number</strong>

"_Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined._"

quantamagazine.org/how-the-squ

@science

<strong>Five of the best books about maths</strong>

"_Since the Egyptian scribe Ahmes put pen to papyrus some time around 1550BC to explain how to calculate the slope of a pyramid, we’ve had over three millennia of maths literature. So within some level of statistical confidence: here are a subset of the best ever maths books._"

theguardian.com/books/article/

@bookstodon

<strong>Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome</strong>

"_To conclude, our study of a Late Neolithic burial enables direct, quasi–real-time observation of the trimodal admixture processes in Europe between 3300 and 2600 cal BCE as steppe ancestry people dispersed and mixed with local Neo-ancestry groups or individuals. The generalization of the results obtained from our data suggests that this genomic transformation took place during a period of profound cultural change._"

Oğuzhan Parasayan et al., Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome. Sci. Adv.10, eadl2468(2024). DOI: doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adl2468

@science @archaeodons

<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

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