Innehållsförteckning för September/October 2024 från Discover

LANGUAGE GAVE humans a leg up compared to all other species. By working together outside of the family unit through spoken — and later written — communication, we were able to hunt and gather, farm, and build great civilizations. There’s a lot we don’t know about how it all started, though. That’s because there were no recording devices, and the first writing didn’t occur until around 3200 B.C.E. As a result, there’s no record of how language began. It’s important to note that researchers don’t agree on what the origins of language are. What we do know is that language gave humans an extraordinary ability to cooperate with people to whom they weren’t related, says Mark Pagel, a professor of evolutionary biology and expert in the origins of language at…

SOME PEOPLE see something cute and want to hold it, squeeze it tight, and call it George. Others might feel an urge to take an adorable paw or floppy ear and pretend to eat it. Some may even pantomime chomping on the adorable creature while saying, “Nom, nom, nom.” But if we love something, why would we act like we’re hurting it? Many of us share this desire to squeeze a cuddly animal or an adorable baby, which scientists call cute aggression. In the past few decades, scientific research into emotions has helped scientists learn why people have this unexpected response. Cute aggression is a type of dimorphous expression, an emotional response in which a person experiences more than one emotion at the same time. The concept was first introduced…

1 Zombie ants among us When an ant encounters a spore of Ophiocordyceps, also known as the zombie ant fungus, the fungal parasite hijacks the insect’s body and behavior. The infected ant climbs several feet up a tree, where it dies. Then, the fungus bursts through the ant’s decaying corpse and releases its spores, beginning the cycle again. Ophiocordyceps has been made famous by The Last of Us video game series and TV show, but don’t worry: This parasite is so species-specific that it can’t make the jump to humans anytime soon. 2 The flower that reeks of rotting meat The world’s largest flower — Rafflesia, commonly known as the corpse flower — belongs to a parasitic plant with no roots or leaves of its own. It siphons nutrients away from vines…

Zooarchaeologists and geneticists don’t dispute that the faithful dog was our first friend from the animal kingdom. The relationship began back in our days as nomadic hunter-gatherers, well before we started farming or building any kind of civilization. Handy for hunting, protection, pest control, and companionship, dogs may even have provided one of the developmental advantages that allowed Homo sapiens to outcompete Neanderthals. Exactly when we first attempted to domesticate dogs is a bone of contention, though. Some archaeological evidence has pointed to dogs splitting off from wolves as much as 40,000 years ago, but they may not have been domesticated then. A 2021 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) analyzed ancient dog DNA, with the results indicating that Ice Age hunters in Siberia may have…

If history had gone a little differently, or some early daredevil had second thoughts about jumping on the back of one, horses might today be considered comparable to cattle instead of the noblest of livestock. We know from cave art dating back 30,000 years that the earliest relationship between human and horse was likely one of predator and prey and that wild horses were hunted for food. Early domestication efforts, approximately 5,500 years ago, are typically credited to people living in the western Eurasian Steppe, who were thought to use horses initially as a ready supply of meat and milk. A 2023 Science Advances study of ancient human skeletons showed evidence that at least some people were riding the beasts as early as 4,500 to 5,000 years ago — signs…

My husband, Brandon, has been collecting toys since the summer of 1996 when he was 17 years old, beginning with the 3-inch Obi-Wan Kenobi he purchased to dress up his dorm room windowsill. A motley crew of Star Wars action figures followed. And eventually, what began as an easy-to-contain collection morphed into a three-car garage packed with 450 Pez dispensers, 1,000-plus action figures, and a 6-foot-tall Spider-Man. Like his toys, Brandon is in good company. An estimated 1 in 3 adults collects something, and research suggests the popular pastime could come with cognitive perks. Through a range of mechanisms that scientists are still teasing out, collecting may enhance memory, forge new connections in the brain, and even trigger the body’s relaxation response. According to neuroscientist (and Chinese porcelain collector) Shirley…

SEEING THE MOON (“Our Moon on Earth,” May/June 2024) I grew up during the Sputnik-era science push and watched every NASA moon mission with both great interest and a bit of envy. I found Rebecca Boyle’s article on NASA-collected moon rocks gave a fascinating insider’s look at this little-known collection. But please give us an image of Ms. Boyle’s “favorite” moon rock, Troctolite 76535. Her description was excellent, but as the saying goes: A picture is worth… Steven Oboler FROM THE EDITORS: Fair enough, Steven! Here it is (right). Found by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, Troctolite 76535 is “unshocked,” or unaltered by the many meteors that have impacted the Moon’s surface over its history. Because it’s the oldest unshocked lunar rock brought back to Earth, Troctolite 76535 has unique…

I think I’m dying.” Janice’s first words definitely got my attention. She was a 27-year-old paralegal, and when she first entered the exam room, I couldn’t help but notice that she was extremely thin, unhealthily so. Her skin looked dull, her cheeks and temples were sunken, and she seemed to have very little muscle in her arms and legs. Janice had come to me for an evaluation after her internist recommended that she consult with a gastroenterologist about the eating difficulties she’d been experiencing. Previously fit and without medical troubles, Janice told me that the last six months had brought a stark change in her overall health. At first, she noticed that she became full in the middle of a meal — something she had never experienced before — even…

WITHIN A NONDESCRIPT brick building at the University of Nebraska — once a watch factory — lies the largest cataloged collection of parasites in the U.S. Just as parasites have been understudied among scientists, they’ve also been underrepresented in natural history collections. These collections serve as libraries of life on Earth, documenting what species lived in which locations throughout time. When scientists are depositing larger animal specimens into collections, like mammals and birds, the parasites in those specimens’ fur, skin, feathers, and intestinal tracts often get left behind. For instance, if scientists only keep the skeleton of an animal that they’ve collected for research, they’re missing the wealth of parasites lurking in the parts of the animals that have been tossed. “They just don’t know how [to collect the parts…

If the exploration of the planets has taught us one thing, it is that Murphy’s law — “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” — is alive and well throughout the solar system. But one planet in particular exhibits more than its share of quirks: Venus. It’s no wonder. Venus is a tough place to study, let alone land on. The planet’s toxic environment is seasoned with sulfuric acid and pressurized at the surface to 90 times the crush at Earth’s sea level, or roughly equal to that of an ocean depth of 3,000 feet (900 meters). Temperatures soar to 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius). And every four days, an atmospheric tsunami sends a front of hurricane-force winds around the globe. Despite those obvious challenges, the spacecraft that…

My family always had a weakness for roadside oddities and attractions. No road trip was complete until we had made several detours to see local wonders and curiosities in whatever state we happened to be passing through. Historical markers pointing to the site of a long-ago bloody massacre? Let’s go! A building made from corn or some other unlikely construction material? My big brother and I were all ears. Largest ball of twine in the world? I’ve been to three of them. (It’s a highly contentious field.) I loved everything about these side quests, to the point that I often remember those impulsive stops more vividly than whatever our ultimate destination was supposed to be. So, it was with some excitement that, at around the age of 9, I discovered…

Launched in 1972, Landsat was the first Earth-observing satellite; weather satellites like the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (or GOES) followed in the mid-1970s. In 1978, NASA launched Seasat, the first satellite to study the oceans from space. It revealed a dynamic planet with changing land temperatures, periodic sea ice cover, wind patterns over the Pacific, phytoplankton blooms in Atlantic currents, and the seasonal cycles of vegetation. The late Shelby Tilford was acting associate administrator of NASA’s Office of Mission to Planet Earth, and one of the initiators of the ESS concept. Tilford believed that NASA needed to reorient its mission from a Star-Trek-esque “seek out,” to instead “look back” and study the Earth. One influential, early program in this vein was Oceanography from Space (OFS), which analyzed and depicted Seasat…

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT Sporting distinctive spikes along its limbs, this pirate spider (Ero lizae) may look like quite the bold buccaneer. But, alongside another pirate spider species (Ero natashae), it’s been living a life of secrecy in one of the world’s most critically endangered habitats. For decades, researchers mistook these elusive arachnids for a closely related species, Ero aphana, commonly found in western Europe. After conducting DNA testing and noting key physical differences, however, research taxonomist Danni Sherwood and colleagues concluded in early 2024 that these insects were two entirely new species living among the cloud forests of St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic. Their secluded tropical habitat isn’t the only thing they have in common with their nautical namesake — pirate spiders are known to…

AT THE HEART of humanity’s grand odyssey into the cosmos lies a problem that needs to be solved. The success of our final-frontier journey — the reality of settling humans long-term on the moon, Mars, and beyond — hinges on our ability to cultivate our own sustainable sustenance. Transforming harsh, disagreeable lunar and martian soil into a nurturing medium suitable for terrestrial plants is no easy task. Yet it’s one that has fascinated graduate students Jessica Atkin of Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Science and Sara Oliveira Santos of Brown University’s School of Engineering. In late January 2024, the two revealed that they managed to grow chickpeas from simulated lunar regolith, with the help of fungi and worm manure. While their findings were posted in the preprint server…

In 2010, Chelsea Wood was conducting a biological survey of the Line Islands, a chain of atolls and coral outcrops a thousand miles south of Hawaii. Some islands are heavily populated, home to a robust fishing trade, while others have never been permanently inhabited by humans. Seizing upon the opportunity afforded by such a stark contrast, Wood, then a budding parasitologist pursuing her Ph.D. in biology at Stanford University, decided to compare the worms living in the organs of fish from the uninhabited islands with those from the heavily fished areas. What she found shocked her. There’s a common perception of parasites as harmful, a harbinger of an ecosystem in distress, that’s shared by the public, and even many scientists. “We associate parasites with badness and destruction and decay,” says…

Humans have lived with animals for so long, it’s hard to imagine there was ever a time when we didn’t have furry, feathered, or four-legged companions to help us in one way or another. Although the number varies depending on how you define “domestication,” science has identified dozens of species that we’ve either outright domesticated or with whom we’ve at least forged connections for our mutual benefit. Whatever the criteria, domestication was by no means a simple or linear process. It happened over millennia, at different times and places across the globe. But once domestication got rolling, we didn’t just change the animals we brought into our lives; they changed us, too. Humanity would look very different today — and possibly not have thrived to the extent that it has…

A 2017 analysis of ancient cat DNA indicates that humanity’s first attempts to domesticate cats could have occurred 9,000 or more years ago in the Near East. A second wave of cat domestication took place several thousand years later in Egypt. However, cats lived in proximity to humans for centuries without actually being domesticated. They first enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with us. Wild cats could have been drawn to humans because our early agricultural efforts generated both resources and waste. Food and trash attract vermin, and vermin attracts cats. But although cats have been alongside humans for most of the time we’ve lived in complex societies, the exact chronology of their domestication is still unclear. In any case, there’s little doubt that cats spread through multiple ancient civilizations, often…

It’s daily news: We are living on a hothouse planet with fierce hurricanes, floods, landslides, droughts, and fires, not to mention the plight of environmental refugees. Almost 40 years ago, the situation was anticipated by scientists whose knowledge of the Earth had become so sophisticated and detailed that they could build models of future climates. At the center of their efforts was a diagram showing how the Earth System — the planet’s interacting physical, biological, and chemical processes — worked, related, and changed over time. This was the Bretherton Diagram, the first complete attempt to envision the planet’s life-support systems in short- and longterm scales. To create it, scientists from many different disciplines collaborated on a new branch of knowledge called Earth System Science (ESS). The hope was that understanding…

White sand beaches, rocky plains, and twisted trees dot the otherworldly archipelago of Soqotra (or Socotra). Located off the coast of Yemen, the island chain was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 to better safeguard its rare treasures. More recently, though, the islands have faced challenges including being struck by devastating cyclones, while a Yemeni civil war has raged nearby. Soqotra — sometimes called the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean — is not only renowned for its unique scenery, but for its high population of endemic flora and fauna, too: Of the 825 plant species that populate the archipelago, 307 are not found anywhere else on Earth. This includes the dragon blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari), which sports rootlike twists at its crown and leaves that form a dome…