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Years ago we discovered that our ancestors’ dreams were not like ours. There are now thousands of people trying to introduce biphasic sleep into their lives.

November 9, 2025 by usatoday24

It’s two or three in the morning and something clicks in your eyes. You wake up. There are five seconds of disorientation. You try to go back to sleep, but many people can’t. In fact, those early morning awakenings they become a curse. Therefore, when they see on social networks that there are experts who recommend sleeping in two blocks (either in more); What’s more, when they read that biphasic sleep It is ‘normal’ biologically speakingthey think maybe they don’t have a problem. Maybe, just maybe, society has the problem. What is true in all this? How human beings sleep. A few years ago, historian Thomas Ekirch discovered recurring references to “first dreams.” It was not something isolated: he found them in documents that covered not only the Middle Ages but also the modern age. Many centuries of “first dreams” that contrasted with the fact that, in short, he did not know what they were talking about. He decided to investigate it in detail and, with this, he managed compile a series of tests historiographical evidence of the existence of a biphasic dream in these periods: according to their research, the first dream lasted from 9 to 11 at night. Then there would be a period of wakefulness (which is dedicated to the most diverse activities: chatting, praying, visiting neighbors…) and, subsequently, there would be another period of sleeping again until dawn. It’s not just something historical. Seduced by Ekirch’s ideas, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr performed an experiment with 15 subjects who were left without artificial light. He found that under certain restrictions (basically limiting their leisure activities), participants adopted a biphasic pattern. This has triggered the ‘two-phase evangelizers’. And, in fact, it is increasingly common to find people who defend it. The problem is that this ‘natural’ pattern is highly debatable. Yes, in the pre-industrial European era many slept in two phases: but that is not ‘natural’. As Wehr himself discovered, it is, in any case, the natural adaptation to short days (around 10 hours). If we go closer to the equator, where the days are more stable, the anthropological evidence does not find the same patterns. What does this mean? That there are no magical ways. If we review the research on naps, for example, we will see cases in which there is a lower cardiovascular risk and others in which cardiometabolic risk skyrockets. Here we are defenders of the napbut only when it makes sense. The bottom line here is that lack of sleep or poor quality sleep has been linked to immunological problems, metaboliccardiac, psychological and cognitive. Not only that, the scientific literature is full of studies showing an increase in coronary heart diseaseof the diabetes and of the obesity. To make matters worse, social problems they are also on the agenda. The important thing, therefore, is to find a way of sleeping that works for us. And for this we have some tricks. a lot of tricks: turn sleep into a routine (whatever it may be), exercise throughout the day, do not consume substances that affect it, relax and use our physiology to our advantage. However, the central trick is not to overwhelm ourselves. As we said years agothe idea behind all sleep experts is that, we can use certain techniques to help us sleep, but the only way to cultivate restful sleep is to reconcile ourselves to it. Image | Mussi Katz In Xataka | When “dying of sleep” is literal: This is how not sleeping can kill us

A 4.4 million-year-old ankle has turned the history of bipedalism and everything we knew about our ancestors upside down.

October 24, 2025 by usatoday24

The origin of human bipedalism, the ability to walk on two legs, is one of the great debates in science today. For decades, scientists have wondered what the last common ancestor we share with us was like. chimpanzees and its characteristics. Now an ankle bone has ended up giving us the key we were looking for to rethink everything what we knew about our ancestors. The study. Published in Communications Biology and as the protagonist a 4.4 million year old ankle bone that belonged to a Ardipithecus ramidus. a hominid which was discovered in Ethiopia and which gives us many data about the history of human evolution. And this is because the conclusion is surprising: the ankle of this ancient hominid has surprising similarities with those of modern chimpanzees and gorillas. Something that makes us think that humans evolve from an ancestor similar to African apes, which makes us wonder about how and why we began to walk upright. The great debate. He Ardipithecus ramidusor “Ardi”, is essential in this case. It lived 4.4 million years ago and already displayed hominid characteristics, but combined primitive features such as a prehensile, ape-like big toe with human-derived features in the pelvis and skull. This is what suggests right now that an “early form of bipedalism” was used. The key is in the morphology of the talus, which in Ardi resembles that of African apes more than that of any other fossil hominin analyzed. The objective in this case is to know how our ancestors moved on the surface, but they also climbed trees vertically. This suggests that it made use of both early bipedalism and skills typical of arboreal life, placing Ardi in an intermediate position between Australopithecus and the great apes. And this bone is the fundamental key to knowing how the evolution to bipedalism took place. The challenge. This finding broadly challenges the traditional model of human evolution, which assumed that the last common ancestor with chimpanzees was a generalist and arboreal ape, alien to terrestrial life and bipedalism. New evidence indicates that humans most likely evolved from an African ancestor specialized in vertical climbing and also had plantigrade terrestrial locomotion. That is, with the soles of the feet completely supported like current gorillas and chimpanzees. A true hybrid between the two automotive models. The authors maintain that several lineages (humans, chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas) share a past adapted to mixed life between trees and soil. The subsequent evolution of bipedalism would have been built on that basis, little by little modifying the anatomy and locomotor abilities to stop climbing trees and move on to what we now all use in our daily lives. Its implications. The morphometric data of the ankle of Ardipithecus demonstrate the presence of a structure designed to “push” when walking and improve balance, but without completely losing the ability to grip. The evolutionary process towards complete bipedalism was much more gradual and less linear than what had originally been proposed by experts. Furthermore, the most recent studies not only focus on the talus, but also on the metatarsus and pelvis, confirming that Ardi could walk upright during his short journeys and return to trees to climb and take shelter. This duality is key to understanding how our ancestors adapted to different environments and ecological pressures. What changes. The hybrid anatomy of Ardipithecus ramidus dismantles the chimpanzee ancestor myth, and presents a new branch on our human evolutionary tree. Far from being a rarity, Ardi represents an example of evolutionary transition and the complexities that may exist in the origins of our species. Thus, scientists propose abandoning this concept of a straight line in evolution and embracing an adaptive mosaic between different species. Images | Wikipedia Satya deep In Xataka | The skull that changes everything: a million-year-old fossil suggests that ‘Homo sapiens’ did not come from Africa

41,000 years ago, our ancestors survived an investment of the poles. We already know how they cope with this change

August 28, 2025 by usatoday24

About 41,000 ago, planet Earth became a much more hostile place than it is now. He magnetic shield that protects us from solar wind and Cosmic radiation It weakened until almost disappearing, and the magnetic poles, those references that the compasses use, abandoned the Arctic and Antarctica to roam all the globe. This event, known as the Laschamp excursionhe plunged the planet into An unprecedented radiation environment for almost two millennia. Our ancestors lived differently. The Homo sapiens I know They expanded by Eurasiaand the Neanderthals In their last millennia of existence, they lived under a very different sky. A new and revolutionary study published in Science Advances The space environment of the Earth has first rebuilt in 3D During this chaotic period. The results not only show us what the planet was like, but they offer fascinating clues about how our ancestors could have survived and even prospered. A broken magnetic shield and auroras about Ecuador. The Earth’s magnetic field is like an invisible shield generated by the planet’s liquid iron core. It protects us from a constant flow of charged particles emanating from the Sun. without it, The atmosphere would be swept and life on the surface, bombarded by harmful radiation. During the Laschamps event, This shield weakened until it reached just 10% of its current force. According to the simulation of the team led by Agnit Mukhopadhyay, this had two spectacular consequences related to the magnetosphere and the poles. The magnetosphere contracted dramatically. The protective bubble that surrounds us shrunk almost half of its normal size. At its weakest point, the limit of this shield (the Magnetopause) was only 15,500 km from the surface, a dangerously close distance. The poles went crazy. He Magnetic axis More than 75 degrees leaned. This caused the Earth’s magnetic field to become “multipolar”, with several North and South weak poles distributed by the planet, a configuration More similar to Uranus or Neptune than to that of our current land. Logically they had consequences. The most visible consequence of this magnetic chaos was the migration of the auroras. Normally confined to the polar regions, the lights of the north and the south expanded and wandered throughout the globe. The simulation shows that the Auroral oval moved from the Arctic, passing through Western Eurasia, until it reaches northern Africa. At the same time, in the southern hemisphere Las Auroras moved over Australia and New Zealand. In the peak of the event, the auroras were probably a global phenomenon, visible from almost any point on the planet. Adapt or die. See auroras From the Sahara it may sound poetic, but the reality was much more bleak. Those lights meant that the “open field lines” were no longer only on the uninhabited poles. They covered regions densely populated by prehistoric humans such as Europe. This implied a much greater exposure to Ultraviolet radiationwith all its associated hazards such as burns, skin cancer, eye damage or even fetal development problems. This is where the study connects geophysics with archeology in a fascinating way. The researchers point out that the Laschamps event coincides with notable changes in human behavior, which could be interpreted as adaptations to this new and radiant world. Appearance of custom clothing. The Homo sapiens From the Auriñaciense culture they developed tools such as bone needles and scrapers, associated with the manufacture of tight clothing. This clothes, unlike the simple skins or layers that are believed to use the Neanderthals, offered a Much more complete protection against UV radiation without sacrificing mobility. This innovation could have conferred on sapiens A competitive crucial advantage. Generalized ocher use. The ocher, a mineral pigment of iron oxide, becomes much more common in the archaeological sites of this era. It is known that ocher is an effective topical sunscreen. Its extended use could have been a direct response to protect the skin. The Boom of Rock Art. The event also coincides with the appearance of some of the first cave paintings known figuratives. The hypothesis is that, to protect themselves from radiation, humans spent much longer within caves, which could have encouraged the development of this cultural and symbolic expression in the safety of the gloom. The inevitable: the disappearance of the Neanderthals. This fact occurred just at the end of this period and that is why it was almost safely A multifactorial process. However, this study suggests that its possible inability to adapt to high levels of radiation, in contrast to the cultural innovations of the Homo sapiensit could have been another factor in its decline. If it occurred today, it would end up in Apocalypse. Although a geomagnetic event like Laschamps is not imminent, the Earth’s magnetic field It has weakened around 10% in the last 180 years and The magnetic north pole is moving at a record speed. If a similar event occurred in our current society, we would face an apocalypse. A weakened magnetic shield would leave our completely exposed communications and GPS satellites. The global electricity would suffer massive overloads that would cause generalized and lasting blackouts. And all this would be added to an alteration in the atmosphere that could lead to very important climatic changes. A look at the future of our planet. The Laschamp excursion study is not just a window to our deep past. It is a warning about the fragility of our world and a reminder that Earth is a dynamic and sometimes violent system. 41,000 years ago, our ancestors survived thanks to their ingenuity. Today, our survival would depend on a technology that, ironically, would be the first to fall. In Xataka | Amputations, cannibalism and dehumanization: the most violent and extreme killing of prehistory happened 4,000 years ago

To survive in Europe, our Paleolithic ancestors turned to an extreme practice: cannibalism

February 11, 2025 by usatoday24

More and more evidence is that our ancestors resorted, at least occasionally, to cannibalism. We are not speaking in this case of other human species, such as Neanderthals, who could have practiced dozens or hundreds of thousands of years but also Homo sapiensthat had already become the only humans in Europe and the rest of the world. New tests. A recent study led by researchers from the Catalan Institut of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolved (IPHES-CERCA) He has shown New indications of cannibalism among humans. They found them in the Polish site of the Maszycka cave, whose remains would go back about 18,000 years ago. Europe in the Magdaleniense. This places the finding in the context of the Magdalenian period in Europe. This period that owes its name to the French site of the Madeleine covers various European settlements between 19,000 and 14,000 years old, they explain in An article for The conversation Some of the members of the study responsible for the study: Francesc Marginedas Miró, Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo and Palmira Saladié Ballesté, researchers from the IPHES-CERCA and CSIC. The period follows an era of important changes in Europe, mainly derived from the end of the last era era. The ice setback left behind an ideal environment for a change in ecosystems, and with it the expansion to the north of modern humans. From burial to the table. As the team continues, the Magdaleniense, to others of his cave paintings, also stands out for careful funeral rites, burials “with care and offerings”, at least for some of his dead. Because to others what expected them was the flint of the tools with which they were expired. 63 bones. The new analysis studied more than fifty remains found in the Polish Cave of Maszycka, located near Cracovia. They belonged to half a dozen individuals, both adults and children. The remains found together with animal remains and many with signs of having been manipulated. Despite this, the hypothesis that this manipulation responded to simple funeral rites had not been ruled out. The new analysis has incorporated new 3D microscopy techniques in the study of brands, which has allowed distinguishing brands caused by humans from others, such as those that would have caused other carnivores. “The location and frequency of cutting marks and intentional fracturing in skelet added in a press release Marginedas. The details of the work were published In an article In the magazine Scientific Reports. To the core. The study revealed other details that can give us some clues of the context in which this consumption of human flesh was produced. For example, the team points out, the bodies were prosecuted shortly after death, thus avoiding the decomposition of tissues. In Xataka | We have been looking for the mysterious ancestor town of the Indo -Europeans. We have a new track in DNA Image | IPhes-Cerca

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