غالبًا ما تُرى منتجات بلاستيكية، مثل هذا الجزء من عوامة سباحة (أزرق)، على شواطئ المحيطات. تتحلل هذه المنتجات في نهاية المطاف إلى جسيمات بلاستيكية دقيقة تنتشر في المحيطات وتساهم في توزيع الكربون إلى جانب المواد العضوية. تُعد دورة الكربون في المحيطات أساسية للحفاظ على التوازن الحيوي في المياه البحرية ولخفض الكربون في الغلاف الجوي، وهو عامل مهم في مكافحة تغير المناخ. أظهرت دراسة أجراها باحثون في…

Wolves Are Better Imitators of Conspecifics than Dogs

PLOS One, 29 January 2014

Friederike Range, Zsófia Virányi

Domestication is thought to have influenced the cognitive abilities of dogs underlying their communication with humans, but little is known about its effect on their interactions with conspecifics. Since domestication hypotheses offer limited predictions in regard to wolf-wolf compared to dog-dog interactions, we extend the cooperative breeding hypothesis suggesting that the dependency of wolves on close cooperation with conspecifics, including breeding but also territory defense and hunting, has created selection pressures on motivational and cognitive processes enhancing their propensity to pay close attention to conspecifics’ actions. During domestication, dogs’ dependency on conspecifics has been relaxed, leading to reduced motivational and cognitive abilities to interact with conspecifics. Here we show that 6-month-old wolves outperform same aged dogs in a two-action-imitation task following a conspecific demonstration. While the wolves readily opened the apparatus after a demonstration, the dogs failed to solve the problem. This difference could not be explained by differential motivation, better physical insight of wolves, differential developmental pathways of wolves and dogs or a higher dependency of dogs from humans. Our results are best explained by the hypothesis that higher cooperativeness may come together with a higher propensity to pay close attention to detailed actions of others and offer an alternative perspective to domestication by emphasizing the cooperativeness of wolves as a potential source of dog-human cooperation.

تحيط بنا جسيمات بلاستيكية دقيقة يوميًا، لا نراها ولكننا نستنشقهـا باستمرار.في دراسة جديدة أجرتها ناديا ياكوفينكو وفريقها بجامعة تولوز الفرنسية، تبيّن أن التعرض لهذه الجسيمات داخل الأماكن المغلقة أكبر بكثير مما كنا نعتقد. نشرت الدراسة في دورية PLOS ONE، وكشفت مدى كثافة تلوث الهواء الداخلي بالجزيئات البلاستيكية داخل المنازل والسيارات. أظهرت دراسات سابقة وجود البلاستيك في الهواء في كل مكان تقريبًا.…

@wanderingnork sure thing! Let me preface by saying this was published in 2020, and I hadn't read it until now. So, while it's not "fresh off the press" new, it's pretty recent. I think you'll enjoy it if you haven't read it yet, so without further adieu, here's the link!

This 9,000-year-old necklace is remarkable.

Researchers spent five years reconstructing this remarkable necklace from a tumble of some 2,500 beads discovered in a burial at the site of Baja, Jordan.

Crafted between 7,400 and 6,800 B.C., it's fashioned from sea shell, turquoise, amber, and more with an engraved mother-of-pearl ring and a hematite pendant.

Black foam tubes are used to indicate the presence of beads too poorly preserved to be displayed.

📷: Alarashi et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0

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Archaeologists have been working there since 1997 in hopes of learning more about its Neolithic inhabitants, including their social structures, crafts, and architecture.

Now, after five years of study, researchers have not only reconstructed the beads into their original form — a multi-stand necklace — but have also gained a better understanding of its owner:

an 8-year-old child who bore the intricate jewelry fashioned from more than 2,500 beads.