discovered

archaeologists have discovered an unexpected link between petroglyphs from Galicia and Scandinavia

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If you travel to Galicia or the north of Portugal and observe carefully some of its petroglyphs From the Bronze Age you will find representations of ships. Back in the day, thousands of years ago, someone carved them into the rock to show the silhouette of ships, sometimes with decorations, crew members, oars and even something resembling sails. The really surprising thing about these pieces is that, deep down, they have little of ‘surprising’ about them. In the southern region of Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) archaeologists have documented thousands of engravings similar, which leaves one question: How the hell do you explain this coincidence? Now at last we have answers. Connecting dots. Recently a group of researchers led by Marta Díaz-Guardaminofrom the University of Durham, embarked on a peculiar project: analyzing the rock art samples located in a dozen deposits distributed throughout the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, more specifically in Galicia and the north of Portugal. They then compared them with other engravings located in Denmark and Sweden. It was not a capricious or random job. All the pieces shared a common link: they showed representations of ships. What did they find out? That beyond representing boats, the two samples (both the Scandinavian and the Iberian) have certain details in common, “design characteristics” that are repeated despite the hundreds of kilometers that separate Sweden from the Galician coast. Which is it? The archaeologists mainly identified decorations located at the ends of the boats with birds or ‘S’-shaped layouts, as well as representations of rigging, oars and sails. “The study identifies important typological and iconographic parallels between images from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and the Nordic ones,” they detail in the article that have been published in Plos One with their conclusions and in which they highlight the existence of “numerous and surprising” coincidences between the samples. “While several of the carved images of ships identified at coastal and river sites on the Atlantic coast of the peninsula are very rudimentary and difficult to interpret, there is no doubt that there are parallels with ships that can be dated within Scandinavian chronologies. In addition to the decorations on the ends of the ships (such as birds and ‘S’ drawings), they include shapes similar to ‘mushrooms’, ‘cult axes’ or ‘sails’ located in the center of the ship or that decorate the ends or knobs of bronze knives”. Old-fashioned globalization. With his analysis, Díaz-Guardamino pursued two objectives: to understand whether the engravings were related to each other and, if so, what that tells us about the Bronze Age. Now researchers believe they have valuable proof that “ideas and technologies were shared across Europe” millennia ago through maritime connections and cultural ties. Not only that. They believe that the engravings reveal something to us much more important: that ships were not a simple means of transportation with which to cross seas. They also had a “symbolic importance linked to rituals and beliefs.” “The shared iconography supports hypotheses about long-distance connectivity and maritime trade networks in Atlantic Europe, particularly regarding the movement of metals such as copper and tin,” abound the authors of the article before remembering that almost all the deposits in Iberia share another peculiarity: they are close to navigable waterways, whether rivers or the sea. Specifically, they have studied carvings from Viana, Caminha, Monterrei and Oia. Experienced sailors. In the opinion of experts, the “high level of technical detail” they have documented provides a new perspective on navigation capacity in the Bronze Age. Especially since in the engravings you can see boats that include oars, crew, masts, rigging and curved hulls, a detail that supports the hypothesis that the use of ships with sail was widespread on the Atlantic coast. The presence of cosmological symbols also tells us about a “shared concern” for solar mythology and travel. Fine-tuning the chronological shot. The research is not interesting only for what it reveals about the parallels between both regions. It is also because it helps us better understand the Iberian petroglyphs. More than 20,000 representations of Bronze Age ships have been discovered in Scandinavia, but in the northwest of the peninsula experts have struggled to date them. Thanks to their comparison and examination with high-resolution laser scanning, three-dimensional photogrammetry, RTI and GIS, the researchers believe that the Galicia and northern Portugal samples can be dated to the Late Bronze Age, around 1300-800 BC, a framework consistent with known Scandinavian maritime technologies. “Sea travel covered great distances and helped share cultural ideas across thousands of miles.” For researchers, it does not matter whether the Iberian petroglyphs were recorded by local sailors who assimilated foreign naval technology or were created by navigators who came from abroad and were passing through what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. The key, in his view, is that coastal communities “were actively involved in extensive long-distance maritime networks.” Images | Plos One-Marta Díaz-Guardamino et al. In Xataka | “For 2,000 years they have been inaccessible. Finally we can read them”: archaeologists now know how to decipher the Herculaneum papyri

The Milky Way is 10% larger than we thought, and we have discovered it by looking at explosions in other galaxies

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Imagine that you have never left your house. What could you draw better? Your own building or the building across the street? The answer is simple. If we look out the window, we can see the building in front in detail, but we have no idea What is it like where we live?. The same thing happens with galaxies. There is data that is easier to analyze from neighboring galaxies than from the Milky Way. Therefore, for a long time, its appearance has been a mystery and its size a very cursory estimate. Thanks to the Gaia missionfrom ESA, we were able to have the most precise map of our galaxy and, with it, understand its structure much better. We know, for example, that it consists of 4 arms, instead of two, as we used to think. Now, through a collaboration between ESA and NASA, we have also discovered the size of the Milky Way. 10% bigger. NASA and ESA scientists have achieved measure the size of the Milky Way through its two X-ray observatories: the XMM-Newton, of the European Space Agency, and the Chandra, of the American one. This type of observatories have been used because the measurement has been carried out through the analysis of X-rays released by gamma ray bursts in other galaxies. Thus, they have seen that the distance between the two outermost arms of the Milky Way is 10% greater than what had been calculated until now. What do X-rays have to do with it? Gamma ray bursts They are the most energetic explosions in the Universe. Although the rays that give it its name stand out, these explosions are usually followed by an emission in the rest of the electromagnetic range known as afterluminescence. Here X-rays stand outwhich can be measured thanks to the ESA and NASA observatories. These X-rays from neighboring galaxies shoot out in all directions, so some can reach the Milky Way and, of course, also the Earth. In the latter case, there are some that arrive directly and others that arrive after being dispersed by the dust clouds in the arms of our galaxy. Detecting these two types of X-rays is what allows us to determine the size of the Milky Way. The importance of angle. The X-rays that travel directly to Earth are the first ones captured by observatories. Next come those that have been dispersed by the dust clouds. As they come from many directions, in the detectors it is seen as a circle in the center of which are the X-rays that arrive directly and, around them, the scattered ones. Although in reality they are several concentric circles. Each of them corresponds to X-rays that have been scattered at the same distance. In the case of galaxies, from the same arm. With all this, calculations can be inferred that allow us to detect how far some arms are from each other. Until now, only estimates had been made, but in this case the distances have been measured thanks to three gamma ray bursts measured in three of the four arms of our galaxy: Perseus, the outer one, and the outer Scutum-Centaurus. To know the size of the Milky Way you only have to measure the distance between the outermost arms. It was observed that the distance between them and the center is 10% greater than what had been measured until now, so the galaxy is larger than we believed. Far from retirement. So much Chandra as XMM-Newton They were launched in 1999. We might think that they are already outdated, but they continue to give us data as important as the size of the Milky Way. The key is knowing how to use the information they can capture. In this case, the calculations have been based precisely on looking out the window towards the neighbor’s house. Because until now we had not seen that we could draw our own building by observing the shadow on the one in front. Images | Magnificent | ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar, ESA/XMM-Newton and NASA/Chandra In Xataka | When stars formed has always been one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. And we are closer to solving it

80 years ago an American destroyer attacked what it believed to be an enemy submarine. We just discovered it was a sunken ship

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In June 1942, something unprecedented in modern American history happened: someone invaded them. In the middle of World War II, Japanese troops landed on Attu Island, in the extreme west of Alaska. What took place then was an icy and fleeting battle that resulted in the death of more than 3,000 people in less than three weeks. Faced with well-known operations reproduced ad nauseam in cinema on the European front or the South Pacific, the battle of Attu She was and is a great unknown. Eighty years later, the remains of that battle were still sunk on the seabed of the Aleutian Islands. Until nothing ago. The discovery. In July 2024, an archeology team funded by the US oceanographic agency NOAA and the US National Park Service carried out the first in-depth underwater exploration in the waters of Attu. There they found two shipwrecks from World War II: on the one hand, the Kotohira Maru, a Japanese military cargo ship sunk on January 5, 1943 by B-24 bombers. On the other hand, the SS Dellwood, an American cable ship that ran aground on an underwater pinnacle seven months later, on July 20, 1943. Both wrecks lie just 25 kilometers apart from each other. Why is it important. Because the Battle of Attu is probably the least studied campaign of the war and this finding is only the beginning of deeper research. Beyond recovering this military history, this discovery brings to the forefront another little-known tragedy: the one suffered by the Saskinax̂ indigenous people of Attu. After the occupation, the Saskinax̂ were deported to Japan, but when the war ended they were prohibited from returning: Attu had become a US military base. Of the 41 prisoners sent to Japan, only 25 survived and most ended up relocated to another island. Context. Despite being a brief and almost unknown battle, it was the fiercest: the ratio of American to Japanese casualties was the second highest of the war, only surpassed by the famous battle of Iwo Jima, as explained by the research team. The Kotohira Maru was bombed when it was trying to supply the troops isolated in Attu: it was carrying wood, food, fuel and construction materials, essential for the survival of the Japanese soldiers, who endured harsh climatic conditions (it is practically in the Arctic) and almost no trees. For its part, the SS Dellwood ran aground while laying communications cables between islands. In detail. To find the ships, the researchers dragged from their boat a high-resolution sonar capable of “photographing” the seabed with an accuracy of centimeters. When the sonar detected something of interest, they sent an underwater drone to investigate it closely with a video camera. In five days of work they inspected more than 1,000 targets at the bottom. But perhaps the most striking thing was not what they found, but what they solved. In May 1943, the destroyer USS Phelps attacked what it believed to be a Japanese submarine near Holtz Bay. They were wrong: this study has revealed that what the destroyer had detected as a submarine was actually the hull of the Kotohira Maru deposited on the seabed. Yes, but. The study has certain limitations. Strong underwater currents made the remote-controlled underwater robot’s work difficult, especially on the Kotohira Maru, leaving large areas of the wreck undocumented. The team recognizes that they need a more powerful robot to complete the job. There are also unanswered questions. Without going any further, the identity of the Kotohira Maru crew remains a mystery: the files only confirm that two people were rescued, a figure that the study’s own authors consider improbably low. And no one has yet addressed a thorny issue: who has legal sovereignty over these war wrecks. In Xataka | Barcelona started digging to build a parking lot. He ended up discovering a 10 m medieval ship of uncertain origin. In Xataka | The 17th century ship refloated in Cádiz held a surprise for archaeologists. One of more than 50 meters Cover | US Navy and Exploration of Alaska’s World War II Submerged Heritage: The Kotahira Maru and S.S. Dellwood Wreck Sites off Attu Island

We have been growing lettuce in space for years. Now we have discovered that they are more likely to make us sick

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Bad news for astronauts who usually eat healthy. That is, for all astronauts. It has been almost ten years since the crew of the International Space Station consume vegetables they grow themselves in microgravity: lettuce, peppers, radishes. Some hot chili. More recently, the astronauts of the chinese space stationwhich already has lettuce, cherry tomatoes and chiveseven though it hasn’t been in orbit that long. The problem is that space salads They are not as safe for consumption as we thought.. A team of researchers from the University of Delaware has discovered that lettuce and other vegetables grown in microgravity are more prone to contamination by bacteria such as Salmonella. Until now, we thought that under microgravity conditions, plants tend to open their stomata (the small pores in their leaves and stems) more instead of closing them to prevent the invasion of pathogens. However, a recent job from the same laboratory has discovered that at the entrance of Salmonella enterica in the tissue was independent of stomatal density, and that the factor that best predicts it is the variety (cultivar) of lettuce together with the microgravity itself. Friendly bacteria also lose their protective effect In previous studies, researchers explored the use of a friendly bacteria, B. subtilis, as a solution to the problem. However, the bacteria, which on Earth help plants fight pathogens, failed to protect them in it simulated microgravity environmentsuggesting that space significantly changes the interaction between plants and microbes. The finding is important. Not only because it calls into question whether salads on the International Space Station are completely safe, but also because it helps understand the challenges of agriculture in future space colonies. Now, anyway, we have another solution: use red lettuce. Probably, the higher content of phenols and antioxidants protects them from salmonella and the data suggests that selecting varieties with these traits could improve the food security of space crops. With population growth on Earth and the loss of agricultural land, space is an increasingly realistic option for growing food. But if they want prevent a salmonellosis outbreakfuture space farmers better wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water. A previous version of this article was published in February 2024 Image | NASA/Cory Huston In Xataka | NASA astronauts will eat their first lettuce from a garden in space today

We just discovered it five kilometers from the one everyone knows

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On June 21 and as is tradition, thousands of people they met Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. Meanwhile, a short distance away, an ancient structure discovered in an excavation less than a decade ago He passed the change of season alone: ​​a sort of “primordial Stonehenge” 500 years older than the famous one and which probably served as the first prototype of the solar alignment of the well-known Cromlech. The discovery. The Bulford site, in Wiltshire, is just five kilometers from Stonehenge. The Wessex Archeology team carried out the excavation between 2015 and 2017 and, after analyzing the materials, they will publish the academic paper at the end of this year. There they found 48 pits that have been dated by radiocarbon: they date back to approximately 2950 BC. In the center of the site, the holes of two enormous wooden posts (which have not survived the passage of time) that were driven into the ground, 120 meters apart and precisely aligned towards where the sun rises on the summer solstice and where it sets on the winter solstice. Why is it important. As says Phil Hardingdirector of research at Wessex Archaeology, what makes this structure so relevant is how early it is: “Until now, our knowledge of this achievement of ancient astronomy was based on Stonehenge and other monuments of a similar period, but what we have discovered at Bulford is 500 years older than the famous stones we all know.” This discovery shows that this tradition came from before, that the Neolithic communities already knew and marked the solar cycles centuries before Stonehenge. In other words, Stonehenge did not invent the relationship with the sun: it inherited it and made it the monument that everyone knows. He Dr. Fabio Silva contextualizes itputting Stonehenge in its place: “This discovery helps us understand Stonehenge not as a singular creation, but as part of a much longer conversation between people, land and sky. The alignment shows that communities were already relating to the summer and winter solstices in the Stonehenge landscape, centuries before the sarsen stones were raised.” Context. The Bulford site was discovered because the British Ministry of Defense needed to build housing for soldiers returning from Germany and, by law, it is mandatory to apply preventive archeology before any work. Among the recovered materials Grooved Ware style potteryanimal bones, flint and charcoal, suggesting that large groups of people gathered there for short periods of time, probably to celebrate the solar cycle. Come on, like now. A curiosity: this type of ceramic is native to the Scottish Orkney Islands, and its presence shows that at that time there were already cultural contacts within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. In detail. One of the graves, which could have been part of an observation station, contained a very rare disc-shaped flint knife. Its location is not random: it was probably placed as a symbolic reference to the sun. Dr. Fabio Silva, of Stone x Sky and Skyscape Academy, confirmed the alignment of the two poles: through digital reconstructions of the sky and horizon of the time, he determined that it coincides with the solstices with an accuracy of one degree. The team also suggests that a similar structure existed in the earliest phase of Stonehenge, but that later work probably erased it. A true paradox: Stonehenge, by growing and improving, was able to destroy its own origin. Yes, but. In the absence of the academic paper and its review to have a more exhaustive analysis on the table, there is a central limitation: the alignment is based on only two posts. As warns for National Geographic Jim Leary of York University: “two post holes does not make a particularly compelling alignment.” In this sense, he explains that he would expect a longer row to support that interpretation. Vince Gaffney, landscape archaeologist at the University of Bradford and lead scientist on the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, matches in that it is difficult to say with certainty whether it was a deliberate alignment: “It is only two points, but it is not impossible.” In Xataka | The coasts of Sweden are full of feet carved into rock: this is how deals were signed 3,000 years ago In Xataka | We thought it was a bend in the Rhine. In reality it was a huge Roman water channel that survived the fall of the Empire for 300 years. Cover | Priyank V

Italy planted millions of fir trees to protect the Alps. 90 years later they have discovered that biodiversity has been reduced by half

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The ecologist Aldo Leopold wrote a phrase that would end up defining all modern conservation in 1949: “maintaining each piece is the first rule of ecological intelligence.” He said it decades before science could measure it, but today studies like the one in the Alps Italians demonstrate the extent to which removing pieces of an ecosystem can seem invisible… until generations pass. A forest that seemed like a solution. In the 1930s, Italy by Benito Mussolini He decided that the best way to stabilize the Alps was to cover them with trees. The logic seemed impeccable: stop erosion, ensure wood for the future and display an image of order and national productivity. For this they chose norwegian sprucea fast-growing conifer, straight trunk and profitable wood. Thousands of hectares of alpine meadows and native forests were razed to plant dense, homogeneous rows of this species. For decades, that decision was sold as a forestry engineering success. From afar, those green forests looked healthy. But almost a century later, science has discovered that beneath that appearance a silent impoverishment was hidden. Ninety years later, the ecological bill. The studyled by ecologist Gianalberto Losapio and published in the journal Ecology, analyzed two areas of the Italian Prealps, near Lake Como: Monte Bisbino and Vicere Alp. There, the researchers They compared three habitats Neighbors: spruce plantations, native deciduous forests and traditional alpine grasslands. During five months of field work they identified 136 plant species and 201 arthropod species. The results were devastating. In plantations there was a median of only seven plant species per plot, compared to 18.5 in native forests and 37 in grasslands. Translated: more than 50% less diversity than in natural forests and almost 75% less than in the pastures. The problem of planting only one type of tree. The big mistake was believing that more trees automatically equaled more nature. Monoculture works well to produce wood, but It’s an ecological trap. When a landscape is filled with a single species, complexity disappears, because each plant, insect and microorganism plays a role in the ecosystem. Reducing this variety implies reducing resistance to diseases, pests or extreme phenomena. In the Italian Alps, diverse landscapes were replaced by uniform blocks coniferousand the result was a brutal simplification of the ecological network. What seemed like reforestation ended up being a substitution of biodiversity for productivity. A: Location of the study sites. B: Satellite image of the Monte Bisbino site. C: Satellite image of the Alpe del Vicerè site. Satellite images B and C represent the location of the fixed plots. “SM” = monoculture spruce plantations, “DF” = native deciduous forest and “GR” = grassland (prairie/mountain grassland). Map data: Google, Maxar Technologies Darkness as a silent weapon. The norway spruce It has a key characteristic: it is perennial. While beech, maple or chestnut trees lose their leaves and allow light to reach the ground in spring, the spruce maintains a closed canopy all year round. It is not trivial. In fact, that difference changes everything. Many alpine plants flower precisely in that window of early light, before the forest canopy closes. Under a spruce plantation, that opportunity disappears because the ground remains in constant shade and many species simply cannot survive. That is, it is not an open competition, it is a physical and permanent exclusion. The ground was also transformed. There is more, because the damage did not remain on the surface. Spruce needles acidify the soil as they accumulate over decades. The researchers found 25% more organic carbon in these plantations, although that did not mean greater fertility. It was just the opposite: organic matter decomposed more slowly, a sign of lower biological activity. Not only that. The balance between carbon and nitrogen also I was upsetindicating slower and less efficient nutrient cycling. In simple terms, the forest continued to accumulate remains because the system had lost the capacity to recycle them. It was a stuck ecosystem. A poorer and more fragile forest. Beyond the number of species, scientists measured something even more important: the “functional uniformity”that is, how ecological roles are distributed within the plant community. In spruce plantations, this index was 30% lower than in natural forests. That means less balance and more vulnerability. It’s not just that there are fewer species, but rather that entire functions within the system are missing. Some niches were left empty and many ecological jobs stopped being done. In other words, the forest is still there, but it works worse. It didn’t even create a new ecosystem. The researchers of the study said that one of the most revealing findings was verifying that these plantations they did not generate a new community adapted to the spruce. In fact, no specialized boreal species appeared nor a new equilibrium built. No, what they found was a version mutilated of the original forest: the same species as always, but less numerous and diverse. The spruce did not bring new life, it simply eroded what already existed. The insects resisted better, but with nuances. The only less alarming data appeared in the soil arthropods. Its diversity barely varied between plantations and natural forests. Reasons? Scientists believe that this due to their mobility and their ability to move between nearby habitats. Be that as it may, even here there is caution among experts. Soil chemistry suggests that microbial activity and the finer network of underground life have also changed, although they were not directly measured. The surface may give an image of partial recovery, but the subsoil continues to tell another story. The global lesson that comes too late. If you also want, what happened in Italy is not a historical rarity. Today, a good part of the global reforestation commitments continue exactly this model: plant quickly, cheaply and uniformly to meet climatic and accounting objectives. According to previous studies cited by the authorshalf of the areas committed to forest restoration in the world are monocultures of non-native species. Although it is an efficient formula in the short term … Read more

German scientists have discovered that the Earth has been receiving radioactive fallout for more than 100 million years due to the violent “kiss” of two supernovae.

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Planet Earth is home to the ocean depths a radioactive plutonium deposit that could only be formed in space, during a violent cosmic cataclysm. Although there are reserves of this radioactive dust at great depths, it has been proven that it continues to rain down on us today. That would lead one to think that it was a recent cataclysm in astronomical terms. However, according to a recently published study by German scientistsit was hundreds of millions of years ago. Two isotopes to understand everything. Plutonium-244 does not exist naturally on Earth. In fact, the only isotope of this element that can be produced naturally in some geological processes is plutonium-239. and it does so mostly in the form of traces. Plutonium-244 is the heaviest isotope of this element. That is, the one with the most neutrons. It is known that it is usually formed by cosmic phenomena during something known as the r process, where lighter atoms quickly absorb neutrons into their nuclei. Generally, the event that usually gives rise to this phenomenon is the kilonova, an explosion resulting from the merger of two neutron stars. In the process, curium-247 is also formed, which is why these scientists have also analyzed its levels. Taking this data into account, they have discovered that the explosion in question must have occurred more than 100 million years ago, but less than one billion years ago. And, also, that the radioactive fallout has not stopped since then. The key is in the ferromanganese crust. Ferromanganese bark It is a layer of the ocean floor which is formed when metals dissolved in sea water, such as iron and manganese, are deposited and solidify. This occurs at a fairly slow rate, with growth of between 1 and 10 millimeters per million years. The deposits do not only have iron and manganese. Mixed with them are other substances that have fallen into the sea at that time. Therefore, this crust is a perfect chemical photograph of the history of our planet. A section with surprise. The authors of this study analyzed a section of this crust extracted at a depth of 4,830 meters in 1976. This had already been analyzed previously and had pointed out something surprising. And, in addition to plutonium, iron-60 was also found, another radioisotope associated with supernova explosions, which has a fairly short half-life of 2.6 million years. This figure means that, every 2.6 million years, half of the initial atoms of this isotope will have decayed. In another 2.6 million years half of what remained and so on. Since it is a fairly short half-life, it was concluded at the time that the kilonova that caused the fall of radioactive dust took place about 3 million years ago. However, the authors of the study just published debunked that hypothesis. Half-life of the study isotopes Curio to the rescue. The formation of plutonium-244 when neutron stars merge is always accompanied by the formation of curium-247. The plutonium isotope has a half-life of 81 million years, while that of curium “only” has a half-life of 15.6 million years. When analyzing the ferromanganese bark sample, these researchers found no curium. Therefore, it must have completely disintegrated. That places the explosion more than 100 million years ago. Be careful, remember that the half-life is the time it takes for half of the radioactive material to decay. Every 15.6 million years, half of it disintegrates, so in 100 million years there should be no curium left, but a lot of plutonium, which only lost half of it 19 million years ago. For plutonium to completely disappear, it would take 1 billion years. What about iron? The reason why there is iron-60 in the sample, despite having a lower half-life than that of curium-247, is that they originated in different events. In fact, the level changes of iron do not coincide with those of plutonium. On the other hand, it has been seen that plutonium continues to appear uniformly in the upper layers, hence it has been concluded that the radioactive fallout has not ended. At least it hadn’t ended in 1976 and that in astronomical terms was before yesterday. And now what? These scientists think that the cataclysm that released this long radioactive fallout must have been immense. Possibly even affected life on Earth. But at the moment it is something that cannot be known. We will have to continue investigating to have the answer. Image | University of Warwick/Mark Garlick | B. Schröder/HZDR/NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll/ASU In Xataka | Gravitational waves work their magic: we are closer to revealing the enigmas of neutron stars

Arab Emirates has oil and desert in abundance. Now they have discovered how to take advantage of sand: turning it into brick

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Although transport or energy are the sectors that first come to mind when we talk about emissions, there is a third industry with a comparable share of responsibility: construction, responsible for 34% of global CO₂ emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. The problem is in the materials: manufacturing a ton of Portland cement emits between 0.6 and 0.8 tons of CO₂ both due to the energy consumed in the process and the chemical reaction that produces it. So any idea to replace classic construction materials such as concrete and brick is good to decarbonize the industry. We have already seen alternatives such as the shells on the beachbut to a company in Dubai Another idea has occurred to him: instead of importing materials, manufacture them with abundant resources in the area. More specifically, with sand and date seeds. The invention. The star product of ARDH Collective, which is the name of the Dubai company formed by Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Máximo Tettamanzi, is DuneCrete: An alternative to concrete made from locally sourced desert sand, which reduces cement content by 50%. From there they manufacture the DuneBlockthe building blocks. In their product catalog they also have the Dateforma material that reuses 1,000 date seeds per square meter. Why is it important. Because after water, sand is the second resource we consume the most. The United Nations Environment Program esteem that up to 50,000 million tons of sand and gravel are consumed annually worldwide. Removing sand from rivers and coastal ecosystems causes erosion, damages water supplies, harms biodiversity and reduces storm protection, so replacing it with underused desert sand would be a turning point. DuneCrete reduces cement content by 50%, which according to its founders represents approximately half the carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional concrete. It makes sense: Portland cement alone is responsible for 8% of global emissions and its footprint does not disappear using renewable energy, since much of it comes from a chemical reaction, not from burning fuel. Context. Paradoxically, the UAE has to import sand even though it is basically a desert. The underlying problem is that desert sand particles are rounded due to wind erosion, which makes their adhesion in conventional concrete mixtures difficult, while river sand has more angular particles that favor compaction and resistance. In detail. This project arose during a master’s degree at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. After obtaining a couple of grants totaling $8,000, they began research in a laboratory that they set up in the garage of one of their homes in Dubai during the pandemic. That was where they found the formula that stabilized the mixture with desert sand. Laboratory tests confirmed that the material met the resistance standards necessary for commercial development. The company start production in 2021. Yes, but. Once the problem of the geometry of desert sand has been solved, there is another obstacle to solve to scale the project: its morphology varies enormously by region and is not homogeneous. ARDHCollective affirms DuneCrete is “just as strong” as conventional concrete, but there are no academic publications or third-party test reports to support its mechanical properties. Simply put, the transformative potential of this DuneCrete remains to be seen. In Xataka | A young woman from Kenya has developed brick 2.0: the main ingredient is the plastic of the shampoo bottle In Xataka | We have just reinvented the brick. It is just as it was millennia ago Cover | ARDHCollective and Fredrik Öhlander

It turns out that there is an island in Fiji made of shellfish shells. Some crabs discovered it

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Off the northern coast of Vanua Levu, the second largest island in the entire archipelago of Fijithere is a small island of 3,000 square meters. In a country made up of more than 300 islands scattered in the Pacific, the fact that there is one so small is not a surprise. But when you remove the mangroves and sand, what you have are shells. More specifically, edible seafood remains. The million dollar question now science is done It is whether that huge amount of shells is the work of people or nature. Once upon a time there was an island made of seafood remains. The shell deposit reaches 60 centimeters thick above the average high tide level and is between 20 and 40 centimeters thick on average and its composition is between 70% and 90% edible shellfish remains. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the greatest accumulation occurred around 760 AD, with samples spanning from approximately 420 to 1040 AD. That there is such an abundance of edible species gives a clue to the origin of the island: if it were a natural deposit, what would be expected would be to find an indiscriminate mixture of marine detritus, such as stones or inedible organisms from the seabed. Why is it important. Because everything indicates that this simple and small island is a “shell midden“, a “conchero” or shell dump created by humans. Or what is the same: the physical proof that there was once a community that lived, worked and fed in the area on the coast of Culasawani. Over the centuries, this accumulation of remains became an island demonstrating that even without wanting to, humans can make land without trying. On the other hand, historically there are not many archaeological studies in Vanua Levu and this site It constitutes a great opportunity to reconstruct ancient settlements and their customs. Context. The first time the research team was aware of the island was in 2017, in a general reconnaissance. It was the activity of the burrowing crabs that caught the team’s attention: the crustaceans brought material up to half a meter deep to the surface. In 2024 they resumed the investigation and they confirmed it: It was an island separated from the mainland. The “concheros” are an old acquaintance in the archeology of the Pacific, since they give many clues about how ancient communities lived, what they fed on and how they interacted with the environment. Of course, in this case the shell hole is so large that it has formed an entire island. The mangrove would arrive later, when the settlement had already been abandoned: the relative drop in sea level and the deforestation of inland areas released large quantities of sediment that functioned as a substrate on which to take root. In detail. To analyze it, the research team extracted 20 sediment cores and excavated four pits measuring one meter by one meter. All the remains of shellfish found in the sediments belonged to edible species, more specifically, the majority of the shellfish that make up them are clams of the genus Anadarain addition to other edible bivalves and gastropods and some ceramic fragments typical of human activity. The team found no clear evidence of animal bones, fish remains or stone tools, suggesting that these people gathered the shellfish in shallow waters, extracted the meat there and transported the food in ceramic vessels to another site, leaving the shells behind. Yes, but. In archeology, having the absolute truth is a chimera, but the most solid hypothesis with the evidence found is that it is an island of random human construction. The natural alternative involves a large wave or tsunami, but it is ruled out: it would carry away all types of marine organisms, not just those that are eaten. There is still one pending issue: where exactly the people who processed that seafood in the place lived. The team’s next step is to explore the mainland area near Culasawani to find the associated village and better understand how the entire system worked. And they are racing against the clock: what barely peeks through the mangroves is tremendously vulnerable to rising sea levels, a threat about which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has already warned. In Xataka | A man bought a desert island in 1962: he planted 16,000 trees and turned it into an anti-rich sanctuary In Xataka | A billionaire bought an island in Hawaii for himself and his friends. So the locals had to leave Cover | Zunnoon Ahmed and Eduardo Gorghetto

We have been mapping Antarctica for decades. We have just discovered that its largest basins form a single tectonic “fan”

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For decades, researchers have mapped the frozen continent, finding huge depressions and subglacial lakes that have left us in awe. Until now, these formations were studied as isolated pieces of a geological puzzle; However, a new study has turned this view on its head. The demonstration. This study has been published in Nature Geoscience and has just demonstrated that the great basins of East Antarctica are not independent accidents, but form part of a single, gigantic fan-shaped tectonic province. The tectonic fan. The research team, using a combination of subglacial topography, gravity and magnetism data, proposes that this entire vast region is the result of a distributed rotational extension process. To understand it, we can imagine the Earth’s crust in this area opening and stretching asymmetrically, unfolding as if it were a fan. This colossal tectonic movement makes East Antarctica one of the largest known examples of rotational extension in continental crust on the entire planet. The beginning. The origin of this continental scar is closely linked to the history of our planet, specifically to the tectonic phases linked to the fragmentation of the supercontinent Gondwana and the dramatic separation between Antarctica and Australia. As the land masses separated, the crust stretched and fractured, leaving this “bounced topography” that today lies hidden under miles of ice. Its importance. Beyond the undoubted geological and historical value, understanding this structure has a practical and urgent application, since Antarctica is the great thermostat of the Earth and its stability is key in the face of climate change. The topography beneath the Antarctic ice sheet acts as a mold that conditions absolutely everything that happens on the surface. This is seen, for example, in how the shape of bedrock controls the flow of today’s glaciers and determines how subglacial lake and basin systems are distributed. That is why, if we want to predict with mathematical precision how the Antarctic ice will respond to global warming and how it will flow towards the ocean, we need to know the tectonic “pipe” on which it rests to the millimeter. Its mystery. Although the article Nature Geoscience manages to unify structures as massive as the Wilkes and Aurora basins under the same theoretical framework, the authors maintain scientific caution. The exact age at which this fan province formed and the fine geodynamic mechanism that triggered it remain, to a large extent, open questions, and this means that work still needs to be done to find out exactly when the movements of the Antarctic crust will occur. Images | Tam Minton Nature In Xataka | Antarctica was practically the last corner of the Earth immune to touristification. That’s ending

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