This particular theory is more subdued than the widely accepted theory for how the dinosaurs were wiped off the Earth. You’ve heard of the story many times: a massive asteroid hit the Earth during the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass extinction event and killed all the dinosaurs. What if this theory is not exactly accurate? New research published in Nature Communications suggests that these prehistoric creatures actually died due to a long decline: 

The asteroid may have been a death knell, but dinosaurs were on their way out long before Chicxulub made an appearance on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, the study suggests.

In fact, the decline in dinosaur populations likely began 76 million years ago during the Campanian period — 10 million years before the asteroid hit. The researchers write that two factors may have had the most impact on the dinosaur decline:

A changing climate (including cooling global temperatures)

The declining diversity of herbivorous dinosaurs

The dual blows that killed the dinosaurs were not necessarily the double asteroids, but environmental and population factors that emerged much earlier, the researchers say.

“Further analyses indicate that the global dinosaur decline could have been precipitated by the decline of herbivores,” Condamine explains, adding that herbivores are essential “keystone species” in ecosystems.

His research suggests dinosaurs weren’t able to recover from these dual blows. The rates of new species of dinosaurs emerging could not keep up with the extinction rates, leading to a decline in dinosaur diversity.

In fact, the dinosaur decline was so severe, Condamine and colleagues posit that the T-rex may have only had one species left on planet Earth by the time the asteroid made impact.

Image credit: Stephen Leonardi (Unsplash) 

A new artifact has been found by archaeologists in southwest Finland. The item, a wooden staff with a snake-like carving, was discovered in a wetland, and is believed to be an ancient shaman’s staff. The staff is estimated to be 4,400 years old, and was from a site that revealed a lot of well-preserved artifacts made of wood, bark, and bone: 

The shaman’s staff would have been used in a religious or spiritual ceremony. Perhaps it was even used to communicate with the dead, given that ancient people inhabiting what is now Finland believed in a “Land of the Dead” that was associated with wetlands. Shamans were also believed to be able to transform themselves into snakes, the researchers report, emphasizing the connection between the snake staff and the mystical realm. Other artifacts uncovered by the excavations include a wooden scoop with a bear’s head handle, wooden containers and paddles, fishing tools, pottery, and structural remains.

Organic materials such as wood typically degrade after a long period of time. But the staff was well-preserved because of the environmental conditions at the site where the object was discovered, known as Järvensuo 1. Because it is a wetland, Järvensuo has low oxygen and high humidity, allowing water-logged items to survive.

Image credit: Satu Koivisto

Meet Orland Capote, a 63-year-old Florida man who has refused nearly $1 million worth of offers for his home. His house, which is reminiscent of the home of the main character in Pixar’s Up, is now surrounded by luxury and high-end buildings. His two-bed, two-bath middle class home was purchased by his father in 1989, and contains memories for Capote that have no equivalent monetary value: 

“This was my father’s dream house,” said Capote. “It took 20 years for him to find it. This house is like a hard drive. As I look around and live in it and move through it, I relive a lot of memories that I could not find in another house. The house is my soul. So what good is it to sell your soul for all the money in the world?”

Capote’s home has been engulfed by the commercial Agave Ponce LLC development for years now. Once a quiet residential block, his neighbors will soon consist of office space, stores, condominiums, and 242 luxury hotel rooms.

Despite those high-end prospects — and constant construction noise and debris littering his yard, Capote refuses to leave.

Cherished memories, such as Capote’s father tending to the mango trees in the yard, linger in the homeowner’s mind to this day. And the home’s sentimental value only grew his parents died.

Capote lost his father in 2005, after which he inherited the house. He lived there with his mother until last year, when she died, still fighting the city of Coral Gables over the development. But before she died, Capote’s mother asked that he never sell the “family treasure.”

He still hasn’t. And speaking of the offers he has received to relocate, Capote says he doesn’t want to risk leaving and losing his cherished memories.

Image credit: CBSMiami

Beaches in South California might look beautiful at first glance, but a dull landscape full of mud covers the  continental shelf a few miles beyond these beaches. The culprits behind the wasteland are cows, according to paleontologist Susan Kidwell. Kidwell and fellow researcher Adam Tomašových stumbled on a lost ecosystem that is absent from the mud-coated shelf today:

Kidwell and Tomašových were perplexed by the stark difference between the shelf’s past and present ecosystem. In a 2017 study, they dated nearly 200 of the fossilized brachiopod shells to reconstruct the demise of these filter-feeders. They predicted this ancient ecosystem gradually declined over thousands of years as California’s sea levels fluctuated. However, the shells told a different story. The population of brachiopods had thrived on the shelf for some 4,000 years before suddenly crashing 150 years ago. “We were completely blown away when we got the results,” Kidwell says. “They survived into the present day only to disappear.”

Then the lightbulb went off for Kidwell. “The only thing it could have been was cows,” she says. According to her research, the arrival of livestock with Spanish missionaries in the 1770s represented the biggest change to Southern California’s coastal ecosystem prior to urbanization. Left to roam free, cattle and horse populations exploded like microbes across a petri dish. By the mid-19th century, the legions of livestock were compacting the soil as they overgrazed native vegetation. Coupled with a general lack of knowledge about soil conservation and Southern California’s semi-arid climate, where dry periods are punctuated by heavy rains that maximize runoff, the conditions led to what Kidwell calls a “perfect storm” for enormous amounts of sediment washing into the ocean.

Image credit:docentjoyce, CC BY 2.0/flickr

This adorable photo looks like it was straight from a Disney film. It’s not, it was taken in real life! Johnny Kääpä earned the trust of some squirrels who approached his camera and pose for some good photos. The Swedish photographer spent years befriending red squirrels to capture their candid moments, as My Modern Met details: 

Taken throughout the seasons, Kääpä’s photos reveal the intimate lives of squirrels all-year-round. From foraging nuts to climbing trees, these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed squirrels are certainly busy. However, they have plenty of time for play, too. Kääpä’s photos show how inquisitive they are when it comes to his camera. They come right up and peer straight into his lens, resulting in brilliant portraits that capture their expressive faces in detail.

Squirrels are also extremely agile creatures, and love to jump around between the trees. One of Kääpä’s images in particular captures this characteristic in the most hilarious way. Titled Super Hero, the image shows a squirrel who looks like it just made a landing akin to Superman. The worthy snapshot was one of the finalists in The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, and is sure to bring a smile to your face. In fact, that’s exactly what Kääpä hopes for. He told My Modern Met, “I have a bit of a following on social media and I once calculated that if I make my follower smile for just one second, it's a smile that lasts for three hours, every day.”

Image credit: Johnny Kääpä

Meet the golden snub-nosed monkey, a now endangered species home to the mountainous forests of southwester China. Sadly, only 15,000 of the species remain. Thanks to deforestation and hunters taking their pelts for profits, their population has dwindled over the last 40 years. These monkeys exhibit unique characteristics:

Among primates, golden snub-nosed monkeys exhibit some of the most unique behavioral characteristics. They are known to make 18 varying kinds of vocalizations, from joy and amazement to warnings and alarm. And females have even been known to nurse the young of others.

Moreover, their endangerment threatens a delicate ecosystem — their diet and resulting seed dispersal revitalizes the very forests where they live.

Now, experts estimate only 8,000 to 15,000 remain in the wild. Learn more about these remarkable creatures.

Image credit: Flickr/su neko

White Motorcycle Concepts’ new WMC250EV (now that’s quite a mouthful) is now giving other speedy motorcycles a run for their money. The new hydraulically hub-steered electric motorcycle is claimed to be capable of more than 250 mph (402 km/h). The motorcycle has been specifically designed around Rob White, who has worked on numerous Formula One, Le Mans Prototype, V8 supercar and World Endurance Championship race teams over the last 25-odd years:

Going super fast ends up being much more about aerodynamics than horsepower; the air becomes a ferocious adversary as you move past two or three times highway speed. Motorcycles are aerodynamically ugly without big, streamlined fairings, chiefly because of the big, funny-shaped human on the back.

The WMC250EV has been specifically designed around its rider, none other than Rob White himself. The team laser-scanned White's leather-and-helmet-clad body in an extreme racing crouch, and designed the bike's bodywork such that it matches his personal contours almost to the millimeter.

It's also got a big freakin' hole in it. We've seen plenty of Venturi tunnels on high-end hypercars, but this is the first time we've seen something so extreme attempted on a motorcycle. The entire bike is designed around a cavernous carbon tunnel that punches a huge hole in the bike's frontal aerodynamic profile right where a headlight would normally sit.

WMC has tested this bike, Rob included, at the Horiba MIRA facility near Hinckley, and says the concept reduces drag by an enormous 69 percent compared against "the world leading motorcycle," with a drag coefficient of just 0.118. That's absolutely nuts. Even the mighty SSC Tuatara, currently the world's fastest production car at 282.9 mph (455.3 km/h), can only manage a drag coefficient of 0.279.

Image credit: White Motorcycle Concepts

You don’t need to really know the context of this snippet from the end of the webseries Critical Role’s second campaign. Just watch as voice actor and the campaign’s current dungeon master, Matthew Mercer, scare the living shit out of his fellow DnD players with his voice. Before you claim that's an edit, it’s not, he actually performed it live. It’s just amazing that he did it without any post-processing help at all! 

People have varying ways of coping during the pandemic (may I remind you that there’s still a pandemic so please stay safe out there), from playing games to watching tv shows and movies to taking up hobbies, all are valid and are a great way to deal with anxiety and stress. Another good method has popped up: gratitude. While an additional dose of kindness in any situation is always welcome, a rise in thanking people for their efforts is evident. Shondaland’s Gina Hamadey shares her experience of how showing gratitude made her life slightly better:  

That heart-slowing sensation was real, even if I didn’t know it at the time. A 2017 study by the Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul examined the effects of gratitude and resentment on mental well-being, using heart rate as one indicator. The average heart rate was significantly lower while the participants were spending four minutes thinking grateful thoughts about their mothers, compared with spending those four minutes focused on moments or people who made them angry.

Each month of my gratitude year was dedicated to a different group of recipients, such as friends, family members, parenting helpers, career mentors, and favorite authors. The eight notes I wrote to my mother-in-law throughout the year changed the dynamic of our relationship: I became more aware of how much she does for our family, and she was touched by how much I noticed.

Among the many gratitude benefits, I experienced was a heightened sense of resilience. Writing the notes not only offered me a short-term feeling of calm, it made it easier to channel positive emotions in general. “Sitting with any feeling, whether positive, neutral, or negative, has the potential to rewire our neural connections due to our neuroplastic brains,” explains Bret Stetka, author of A History of the Human Brain. “When we use any brain network—whether for riding a bike or playing a guitar—those neuronal connections are strengthened and more easily called upon. Expressing gratitude and sitting with your positive feelings towards others bolsters these networks, making it easier for the brain to access that warmth.”

Image credit: Gina Hamadey

A site in Syria has led archaeologists to hypothesize that it may be the world’s first military memorial. The site, known as the White Monument, contained partial skeletons of adults and teens buried with ammo or animals needed for battle. The monument, experts propose, likely held soldiers, who were buried with co-combatants, as Smithsonian details:  

Such a massive memorial for battle-dead suggests the town had a standing army: “people who identify as soldiers, as opposed to people who go out and fight in the offseason or when someone’s attacking,” says Stephanie Selover, an archaeologist at the University of Washington who studies ancient warfare in nearby Anatolia, but was not involved in the study.

“The possibility of standing armies that are so controlled and centralized you’re even able to make a monument… There’s nothing else like this,” in the Early Bronze Age, she adds.

The monument would have served as a conspicuous reminder that leaders had the means to maintain and memorialize an army—a message that would have been received by locals as well as outside foreigners. “Burying these people in the sort of function that they would have had in a military is really a statement of power at that point, both locally and externally, because this thing was really visible for miles,” says University of Toronto archaeologist Anne Porter, lead author of the Antiquity study.

Image credit: the Euphrates Salvage Project

The Internet (well, a specific portion of it) was on its toes during the E3 week, waiting and hoping for announcements about the games they want to play in the future. While a lot of surprises definitely made people lose their marbles, personally, Nintendo announcing a reboot of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp was the one that made their Nintendo Direct a success for me. Sure, there’s Metroid Dread, there’s also the new trailer for the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but the shock that went through me was different when the Advance Wars reboot was announced. So what is Advance Wars anyway? Simply put, the game is a turn-based tactical strategy game. It’s kind of like Fire Emblem-- which says something, as it was created by the same studio: 

For those who are unfamiliar, Advance Wars is a turn-based tactical strategy series that pits armies against each other on a grid map. Created by the same studio behind the Fire Emblem series, Intelligent Systems, Advance Wars is arguably one of the most beloved Nintendo series not starring Mario or Pikachu, with a fandom that obsesses over the games as much as Nintendo’s other franchises. Unlike Fire Emblem, which has seen its popularity skyrocket ever since its 3DS debut, Advance Wars has remained dormant for more than a decade. Now, fans and newcomers alike can experience the first two games in the series, revamped from the ground up.

The game is being developed by Way Forward, who are the fine folks behind the underrated platforming series, Shantae, so it’s in good hands. They also developed River City Girls and are working on the upcoming sequel. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp includes Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, which originally launched on the Game Boy Advance. While the game is sticking with the original mechanics, it’s getting a complete makeover, with a new art style and updated graphics.

I’m very excited about this one as I remember playing it as much as possible on my Gameboy Advanced. I certainly did not expect Nintendo to revive this franchise, out of all the possible games they could. 

Image credit: Nintendo 

Scientists now believe that a particular group of people came first before the Neanderthals. Thanks to a cave in the Altai Mountains in Russia, experts have found evidence that another, little-known group of ancient humans, called the Denisovans occupied the site first before sharing it with the Neanderthals. Inverse has more details: 

“This is a group we know very little about,” lead author Elena Zavala tells Inverse. Zavala is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“By increasing our knowledge, we are provided with another perspective or reference for understanding what are the elements that make us modern humans ‘human.’”

Our understanding of who exactly the Denisovans were is still murky, but it’s one that’s steadily becoming improved.

Denisovans and Neanderthals — the ancient sister kin of humans — both belong to the same Homo genus, but we knew little about these ancient peoples until 2010. This is when scientists discovered their fossilized remains in what’s known called Denisova Cave, the three-chambered site in the Altai Mountains.

Scientists had previously discovered a dozen remains of Neanderthals and Denisovans in the cave, as well as a hybrid child with a mix of Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that the two groups mated with each other.

However, the researchers didn’t fully understand when and how these different groups of ancient humans overlapped.

That’s where the new study comes into play. Contrary to what we previously thought, Denisovans may have actually predated the Neanderthals.

Image credit: Dr. Richard G. Roberts 

Technology is constantly improving and evolving. With the rise of facial recognition software, it comes as no surprise that there are now ways to fool these complex algorithms. An AI technique, developed by Adversa, is claimed to fool facial recognition systems into identifying a picture of one person’s face as that of someone else by adding minute alterations, or noise, to the original image: 

The company announced the technique on its website with a demonstration video showing that it could alter an image of CEO Alex Polyakov into fooling PimEyes, a publicly available facial recognition search engine, into misidentifying his face as that of Elon Musk. 

To test this, I sent a photo of myself to the researchers, who ran it through their system and sent it back to me. I uploaded it to PimEyes, and now PimEyes thinks I’m Mark Zuckerberg.

Adversarial attacks against facial recognition systems have been improving for years, as have the defenses against them. But there are several factors that distinguish Adversa AI’s attack, which the company has nicknamed Adversarial Octopus because it is “adaptable,” “stealthy,” and “precise.”

Other methods are “just hiding you, they’re not changing you to somebody else,” Polyakov told Motherboard.

And rather than adding noise to the image data on which models are trained in order to subvert that training—known as a poisoning attack—this technique involves altering the image that will be input into the facial recognition system and doesn’t require inside knowledge of how that system was trained. 

Image via Vice 

Why doesn’t this exist in my country? Japan is a hub for unique vending machines. From extremely obscure objects to odd food items (eg. canned insect larvae-- yes these exist), it’s no surprise that Japan has its own vending machine for comfort food. The question now is how does the machine prepare the pizza for consumption? Since travelling to Hiroshima isn’t an option these days, watch more to learn how! 

What are vernal pools anyway? Vernal pools are temporary bodies of water formed by seasonal rains and snowmelt. This is the focus of conservation photographer and professor Steven David Johnson’s images for his new ebook. The Virginia-based photographer aims to showcase the beauty in these environments: 

As an adult, Johnson moved to Virginia in 2005 and became a photography teacher at Eastern Mennonite University. He tells PetaPixel that nature photography became a way for him to understand and communicate about his new environment, most notable learning about the central and southern Appalachians, which provide biodiversity hotspots for salamanders — with more than 50 species in Virginia alone. Johnson says that this fueled his macro photography skills as he learned to document salamanders, frogs, and other — often hidden — life forms in the forests. He eventually moved to underwater photography to capture complete life cycles.

[...]

“There’s a tiny world of beauty and complexity that deserves appreciation and protection,” writes Johnson in his e-book.

Although documenting vernal pools life cycles is cyclical — because the same events happen annually — each year brings an additional layer of complexity, depth, and new discoveries about behavior.

“It’s a dramatic cycle that takes place on a minute scale,” explains Johnson.

Image credit: Steven David Johnson