Ocean Acidification Causes, Effects, & Examples: Top 10 List

Ocean acidification is the process by which oceanic waters progressively become more and more acidic...

Ocean Acidification Effects, Causes, & Examples List Part 2

(This is Part 2 of the Ocean Acidification Causes, Effects, & Examples: Top 10 List, which had ...

Ancient Seafaring — Neanderthals Sailing The Mediterranean 100,000 Years Ago; Prehistoric Travel & Cross-Continent Exchange; & The Reality Of Archaeological Evidence As Compared To Pop Culture Assumptions

The subject of prehistoric seafaring, and the technology of ocean-worthy ships, is a highly conteste...

 

Did A ‘Dim’ Star Pass Through Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago? New Research Suggests So

February 18, 2015 in Space

In a somewhat strange new finding, an international group of astronomers has been able to determine that roughly ~70,000 years ago our solar system had a close encounter with an alien star system.

So close, in fact, that the “dim star” in question actually passed through the outer reaches of our solar system — making its way through the outer Oort Cloud, where most long period comets spend most of their time.

Scholtz's star Oort cloud
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Olmec Civilization, Specialization, & The Origins Of Agriculture — Common Threads

February 17, 2015 in Humans

The Olmec Civilization was one of the largest and most influential cultural centers to emerge in the Americas over the last 10,000 or so years — and was responsible for, amongst other things, domesticating a fair number of the plants that are commonly eaten as food throughout the world today.

The culture’s earliest known center of activity was the city of “San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan” — where clearly recognizable “Olmec” features were first visible sometime around 1600 BC (3600 years ago).

This is when the giant “colossal heads” first started appearing, as well as some of the earliest evidence of the mesoamerican ball game (including rubber balls, and “stadiums”), ceremonial axes, “baby face” figurines/depictions, the feathered serpent, the long count calendar, and cocoa (what we make chocolate out of), amongst other things.

Olmec jaguar man mask
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Paleoneurology & Prehistoric Cave Art, Paintings, & Carvings

February 13, 2015 in Humans

Prehistoric cave art France

I’m not interested in spending too much time on this so I’m going to keep it short and sweet.

– Brain-to-body ratios (one of the most reliable markers for what we currently consider to be intelligent behavior) peaked in humans roughly 30,000 years ago — its been generally declining ever since.
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Late Bronze Age Collapse, Mycenaean Civilization Collapse — Collapse As Witnessed 3400-3000 Years Ago

February 11, 2015 in Humans

The Late Bronze Age Collapse, often alternately referred to as the Mycenaean Palatial Civilization Collapse, was a period of time — roughly between the years of 1250-1000 BC (3250-3000 years ago) — that was violent, and catastrophically disruptive with regard to cultures, social systems/practices, government institutions, languages, ethnic identities, trade routes, literacy, and technologies.

During these years, all of the large urban centers and governing systems of the Mediterranean, the Aegean, and most of Southwestern Asia, collapsed — leaving behind, after a period of turmoil and mass migration, the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages.

This period of time saw the end of the various Mycenaean kingdoms of the Mediterranean, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan.

Fall of Troy painting collapse
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Deep Sea Animals & Life — Fundamental Patterns, Convergent Evolution, & Other Worlds

February 9, 2015 in Animals & Insects

It’s been said before that the deep sea may as well be another world considering how distant it is from us, and how strange some of the life forms that live down may there seem to us.

And indeed in some ways the life-forms that live down there do seem strange, but at the same time they certainly do have something clearly recognizable about them do they not? Strange, but also familiar at the same time? Not quite truly alien — if it’s even possible for people to conceive of or imagine (or perhaps even be aware of?) the truly alien. Perhaps the world is filled up with the “truly alien” but it’s just that people aren’t aware of it?

After all, everything really just comes down to familiarity does it not? And people can get used to practically anything after all, even the rather strange ways that modern people live, for example.
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