A theory this exotic is bound to be popular. Archaeologist and anthropologist Anna Goldfield assesses the evidence. She points out that Neanderthals generally didn’t live in the areas where they’d be most affected … (more)
Geology
Casey Luskin is back, after years in the field!
Why he left (the non-conspiracy version): My PhD project focused on the “Pongola Supergroup,” a major section of supracrustal rocks in southeastern South Africa (Kwazulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces) and southern Swaziland, aged ~2.8 – 3.0 billion years old.
Suffice to say, this project involved months and even years of fieldwork, lab work, data analysis, and writeup. Like most PhDs, mine had its ups and downs, complete with excitement, fun, blood, sweat, tears, near-madness, sheer terror, and utter boredom.
The Privileged Planet, Redux
We’ve all heard about the fine-tuning of physical constants–just change them ever so slightly and a different kind of universe emerges. Then, there’s simply our location in our galaxy that allows us to see outwards to the galaxy itself, and beyond. Now, even the radioactivity in the earth’s core seems to be conducive to life. Read More…
Sabine Hossenfelder: Flat Earthers are wrong but not stupid
Hossenfelder: It is not possible for each and every one of us to redo all experiments in the history of science. It therefore becomes increasingly important that scientists provide evidence for how science works, so that people who cannot follow the research itself can instead rely on evidence that the system produces correct and useful descriptions of nature.
Paper: Earth’s magnetic field can change ten times faster than thought
If this holds up, perhaps it will play a role one day in unraveling some mysteries.
New radiocarbon dating may shift historical ages
Expect more dating controversies in archaeology, some of which impinge on events that people care about.
Two mysterious blobs of hot rock at the edge of Earth’s core are “massive anomalies”
At Quanta, it’s suggested they might be linked to extinction events.
NASA says the moon is shaking, shrinking
Moonquakes happen, and they are shaking up lunar geology, Also, SkyNet reveals, “NASA announced earlier this year that it wants to send the first woman, and the next man, to the moon by 2024.” They can call in at the Chinese lunar base for tea… ;
Earth’s core hardened just in time to prevent magnetic field collapse
Around 565 million years ago, just when life was getting seriously underway: The finding, reported online January 28 in Nature Geoscience, supports an idea previously proposed by simulations that Earth’s inner core is relatively young. It also provides insight into how, and how quickly, Earth has been losing heat since its formation 4.54 billion years ago Read More…
Researchers: Standard explanation for how Earth’s core formed is not possible
From Brandon Spektor at LiveScience: Earth’s Inner Core Shouldn’t Technically Exist In the paper, the researchers argued that the standard model of how the Earth’s core formed is missing a crucial detail about how metals crystallize: a mandatory, massive drop in temperature that would be extremely difficult to achieve at core pressures. Weirder still, the Read More…
Water forms superionic ice, a “new” metal-like state with H+ ions as charge carriers
Water is of central interest to ID and to many other fields of study relevant to the cosmos and in the world of life. Accordingly, the recent experimental discovery of a predicted metal-like state with a grid of O atoms and with H+ ions flowing through, is significant news. As NY Times reports: >>This new Read More…
An Earth sciences outsider, not a recognized expert, put Pangaea together
The critical problem is that rejection of competing ideas is not necessarily based on the correctness of the mainstream idea. Often, it is based on control of money, status, and power, rampant egos, and endless politics. This animated short tells the story of Alfred Wegener, a German astronomer and atmospheric scientist, who came up with Read More…
The eighth continent?
No, not Atlantis, which has contributed so much to world fantasy literature. There is, in fact, a sort of lost continent, Zealandia. From Tia Ghose at LiveScience: The lost continent, which is mostly submerged, with all of New Zealand and a few islands peeking out from the water, is about half the size of Australia. Read More…
Extinct bird may change geological theories
From ScienceDaily: A University of Adelaide study into New Zealand’s acanthisittid wrens has provided compelling evidence that, contrary to some suggestions, New Zealand was not completely submerged under the ocean around 21 to 25 million years ago. “Most surprisingly, we found that some of the wren species were only distantly related to each other, potentially Read More…
Physicist Rob Sheldon on Earth, comets, and water
Comets have never melted, never electrolyzed, never gone through the phase changes that are sensitive to weight.