A small rock flake no larger than a house key is covered with a colossal surprise: the first known drawing ever made by a human. Some human or humans (Homo sapiens) used a red-ochre crayon to draw a hashtag-like design on a rock flake in what is now South Africa about 73,000 years ago, said the researchers who analyzed the doodle. It's unclear what the crisscrossed lines mean, but similar designs have been found at other early human sites in South Africa, Australia and France, said study senior researcher Christopher Henshilwood, director of the Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour at the University of Bergen in Norway. [See Photos of the Ancient Drawing] "It seems to be part of the human repertoire of producing signs," Henshilwood told Live Science. Archaeologists discovered the 1.5-inch-long (3.8 centimeters) rock flake in Blombos Cave, an archaeological site on the coast of South Africa, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) east of Cape Town. The cave is famous for its Middle Stone … [Read more...] about The World’s Oldest Known Drawing Is a 73,000-Year-Old Hashtag
Oldest known photograph
Ancient Egypt: Did Researchers Just Find the World’s Oldest Cheese?
Tech & Science International Affairs A “whitish mass” found in an Egyptian tomb could be among the oldest solid cheese found to date, according to a study published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. The tomb, which is located in the vast ancient burial ground of Saqqara, belongs to Ptahmes—mayor of the ancient city of Memphis and a high-ranking official under the 19th Dynasty Pharaohs Sethi I and Ramses II (1290−1213 B.C.). During excavations in 2013-214, researchers found a jar containing the intriguing solidified material wrapped in a canvas fabric, which may have been used to preserve its contents. “The archaeologist suspected it was a kind of food left for the owner of the tomb and they decided to proceed with the chemical analyses,” Enrico Greco, an author of the study from the Department of Chemical Sciences at the University of Catania, Italy, told Newsweek. Recommended Slideshows 67 The Best Pictures Ever Taken in Space 47 … [Read more...] about Ancient Egypt: Did Researchers Just Find the World’s Oldest Cheese?
Scientists Found Some Of The Oldest Evidence Of Life On Earth In South Africa
Tech & Science A layer of fossilized microbes that most likely lived on the floor of an ancient riverbed was discovered in South Africa. These microbes lived about 3.22 billion years ago, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. Researchers from the European Institute for Marine Studies discovered the fossilized microbes on what’s thought to be one of the world's oldest shorelines, in the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains of eastern South Africa, Stefan Lalonde told Live Science. A co-author of the new study, he is a geochemist from the European Institute for Marine Studies in France. The idea that life existed this early in Earth's history has been around for decades, but a lack of hard evidence has persisted, Hugo Beraldi Campesi, a geobiologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Live Science. He was not involved in the new research. "The problem was always the lack of hard evidence — until now," he said. … [Read more...] about Scientists Found Some Of The Oldest Evidence Of Life On Earth In South Africa
100 Million-year-old Baby Snake Preserved in Amber Is Oldest Ever Discovered
Tech & Science Animals Snakes Reptiles Two small chunks of amber contain the first known fossil snakes ever found trapped in the glassy substance, scientists have revealed. Estimated to be almost 100 million years old, one of the honey-colored hunks contains the oldest known baby snake ever discovered. These gleaming globs of amber, scientists reported in the journal Science Advances, can unlock the secrets of the ancient creatures: their evolutionary history and the environment they lived in. Skeletal remains from the Xiaophis myanmarensis snake hatchling are trapped in Burmese amber. Ming BAI/Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Workers unearthed the amber in Myanmar quarries located near the Chinese border. People have collected amber in the country for more than a century, study author Michael Caldwell told Newsweek, but the quarries have only recently started to yield significant numbers of ancient biological treasures. Recommended Slideshows 67 The Best … [Read more...] about 100 Million-year-old Baby Snake Preserved in Amber Is Oldest Ever Discovered
Off topic: Virtual dating assistants, wildlife-photo scandal, oldest spider dies, trees and sleep
By Levi Sumagaysay | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group May 1, 2018 at 6:13 am a professional flirter. Wildlife photographer who won a contest denies using a stuffed animal — in this case, an anteater — but is disqualified anyway. Speaking of animals, a 43-year-old female trapdoor spider that had been known as the world’s oldest known spider has died. And do trees sleep at night? Researchers studying birch trees find more clues. … [Read more...] about Off topic: Virtual dating assistants, wildlife-photo scandal, oldest spider dies, trees and sleep