Here are some interesting science stories recently:
Prehistoric ecosystem found in Israeli cave: Some people drilling rock in a quarry in Israel found a cave that had been completely self-contained for millions of years. "Until now eight species of animals were found in the cave, all of them unknown to science," said Dr Hanan Dimantman, a biologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...He said the cave's ecosystem probably dates back around five million years when the Mediterranean Sea covered parts of Israel...
The cave was completely sealed off from the world, including from water and nutrients seeping through rock crevices above. Scientists who discovered the cave believe it has been intact for millions of years."
"Hobbit" humans able to make tools: "Hobbit-sized humans who survived on an isolated Indonesian island until 12,000 years ago were smart enough to make stone tools even though they had small brains...Some researchers doubt that tools found with the remains of the species named Homo floresiensis in a cave on the island of Flores could have been made by the 3 foot tall creatures whose brains were about the size of a grapefruit...They believe the tools must have been made by modern humans. Experts have also argued that the 'hobbit' people were modern humans suffering from an illness that caused their small brain and size. But an international team of scientists said older tools dating back more than 800,000 years also found on the island showed the 'hobbits' probably inherited their tool-making skills from their ancestors."
Dried-up figs may have been humanity's first crop: "Dried-up figs found in what is modern day Israel may have been the first cultivated crop more than 11,000 years ago...Their discovery pushes back the earliest estimates of when agriculture began by 1,000 years...And it suggests that, centuries before they figured out how to plant barley and other crops, people knew how to propagate fruit trees for sweet treats, said researchers Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Mordechai Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Israel's Bar-Ilan University... "Eleven thousand years ago, there was a critical switch in the human mind -- from exploiting the earth as it is to actively changing the environment to suit our needs...People decided to intervene in nature and supply their own food rather than relying on what was provided by the gods. This shift to a sedentary lifestyle grounded in the growing of wild crops such as barley and wheat marked a dramatic change from 2.5 million years of human history as mobile hunter-gatherers."
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