Dogs were traded across the Maya territory centuries earlier than had previously been believed, according to a new archaeological analysis of isotopes from ancient bones in Guatemala. The minute neutron differences in atoms of strontium, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen show how certain animals were domesticated as pets – or potentially for sacrifice or food purposes. Read more.
For crucial space missions, NASA will very rarely create a power source from plutonium-238, which it has only a limited supply of. This, for the uninitiated, is a very rare radioactive metal — so rare that NASA banned the use of radioisotope thermoelectric generators for scientists who want to submit proposals for space missions.
Until now, that is. Read more.
Banded mongooses cooperate closely but are also prone to violence - both between groups and within them - and competition for food increases as a group grows. To get round this, individual mongooses find a dietary “niche,” according to researchers from the universities of Exeter and Roehampton. Group living has advantages and disadvantages, and the findings suggest specialisation is one way to prevent groups being torn apart by fighting. Read more.
“You are what you eat” is the guiding principle behind a new study comparing the diet of birds today with that of birds dead for more than a century. The results show large changes in the diets of aerial insectivores, or birds such as swallows, swifts, martins and whip-poor-wills that consume insects while in mid-flight. Read more.
In a multidisciplinary study, an international team of researchers combined archaeological, genetic and stable isotope data to encapsulate 4000 years of Iberian biomolecular prehistory. The team analyzed human remains of 13 individuals from the north and south of Spain, including the rich archaeological site of El Portalón, which forms part of the well-known site of Atapuerca in Burgos and in itself harbors 4 millennia of Iberian prehistory. The study also involved important sites like Cueva de los Murciélagos in Andalusia, from which the genome of a 7,245-year-old Neolithic farmer was sequenced, making it the oldest sequenced genome in southern Iberia representing the Neolithic Almagra Pottery Culture - the early agriculturalists of southern Spain. Read more.