Jerusalem Post Neanderthals were selectively targeted for cannibalism in Ice Age Europe, study reveals JERUSALEM POST STAFF Wed, December 10, 2025 at 4:45 PM EST 3 min read
Neanderthal communities in prehistoric Europe. How were they linked? (Illustrative) (photo credit: PIXABAY)
Research focused on human remains found at the Troisième caverne of Goyet, a cave site in present-day Belgium that contains one of the largest known assemblages of Neanderthal bones in northern EU.
Neanderthals living in northern Europe during the Late Pleistocene may have been deliberately targeted, killed, and cannibalized by other human groups, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports.
The findings challenge long-held assumptions that Neanderthal cannibalism was primarily ritualistic or driven by extreme survival conditions.
This peer-reviewed study was initially [url-https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-861326]published in the academic journal Scientific Reports[/url].
The research focused on human remains found at the Troisième caverne of Goyet, a cave site in present-day Belgium that contains one of the largest known assemblages of Neanderthal bones in northern Europe.
Previous studies had identified cut marks and bone fractures consistent with cannibalism. Still, the new analysis goes further by examining who the victims were and whether their deaths reflected selective targeting.
The skull of the child from Israel's Skhul Cave, showing the typical cranial curvature of Homo sapiens. (credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)
Researchers identify remains of six Neanderthals
Using a combination of ancient DNA analysis, stable isotope testing, and detailed measurements of long bones, researchers identified the remains of at least six Neanderthals. These included four adult or adolescent females and two juveniles. The distribution, the authors say, is highly unusual.
“The demographic profile does not reflect natural mortality,” the study found, noting that adult males, typically overrepresented in accidental deaths or violent encounters, were largely absent. Instead, females and children dominated the sample.
The victims' physical characteristics were further evident. Long-bone analysis indicated that female individuals were generally shorter and less robust than males in other known Neanderthal populations.
Structural markers associated with high mobility were also largely absent, despite isotopic evidence indicating that these individuals were not local to the Goyet area.
That combination, non-local origin, physical gracility, and demographic skew, suggests the victims were selected rather than randomly encountered, the researchers concluded.
Evidence on the bones themselves supports this interpretation. The Neanderthal remains showed systematic cut marks, impact fractures, and signs of marrow extraction that closely matched the treatment of animal bones found at the same site.
Several human bones were also repurposed as retouchers, commonly used to shape stone implements.
“The processing of human remains followed the same patterns as prey animals,” the authors wrote, pointing to nutritional cannibalism rather than burial rituals or symbolic behavior.
Taken together, the findings suggest episodes of exocannibalism, or the killing and consumption of individuals from outside one’s own group. The researchers argue this likely reflects violent intergroup conflict, possibly driven by territorial competition, population stress, or broader social instability during the period.
The remains date to between roughly 41,000 and 45,000 years ago, a time of significant upheaval in Europe. Neanderthal populations were declining, climates were fluctuating, and early modern humans were expanding across the continent.
While the study does not identify the perpetrators, it raises the possibility that Neanderthals were sometimes preyed upon by other human groups, including both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
The authors caution against interpreting the findings as evidence of uniquely violent behavior. Cannibalism has been documented across human history in a range of contexts, including warfare, survival situations, and cultural practices. However, the clear selectivity at Goyet sets this site apart.
“This study changes how we think about cannibalism in prehistory,” the researchers wrote, emphasizing that it was not always an act of desperation, but in some cases a deliberate and organized practice embedded in social conflict.
By demonstrating that Neanderthals themselves could be targeted as prey, the study adds a new dimension to our understanding of their social world, one shaped not only by cooperation and care but also by competition and violence.
As researchers continue to reexamine old collections with new tools, the authors suggest similar patterns may yet emerge at other sites across Ice Age Europe.
Live Science 'It is the most exciting discovery in my 40-year career': Archaeologists uncover evidence that Neanderthals made fire 400,000 years ago in England Kristina Killgrove Wed, December 10, 2025 at 11:00 AM EST
An artist's impression of making sparks from pyrite and flint. | Credit: Craig Williams/The Trustees of the British Museum
Neanderthals were the world's first innovators of fire technology, tiny specks of evidence in England suggest. Flecks of pyrite found at a more than 400,000-year-old archaeological site in Suffolk, in eastern England, push back archaeologists' evidence for controlled fire-making and suggest that key human brain developments began far earlier than previously thought.
"We're a species who've used fire to really shape the world around us," study co-author Rob Davis, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the British Museum, said in a news conference on Tuesday (Dec. 9). "The ability to make fire would have been critically important" in human evolution, Davis said, "accelerating evolutionary trends" such as developing larger brains, maintaining larger social groups, and increasing language skills.
Since 2013, Davis and colleagues have been excavating an archaeological site in England called Barnham, which yielded stone tools, burnt sediment and charcoal from 400,000 years ago. In a study published Wednesday (Dec. 10) in the journal Nature, the researchers revealed that the site contained the world's earliest direct evidence of fire-making — and that this fire technology was likely pioneered by Neanderthals.
A big turning point
Barnham was first recognized as a Paleolithic human site in the early 1900s due to the presence of stone tools. But recent excavations uncovered evidence of ancient human groups occupying the area more than 415,000 years ago, when Barnham was a small, seasonal watering hole in a woodland depression.
In one corner of the site, archaeologists found a concentration of heat-shattered hand axes as well as a zone of reddened clay. Through a series of scientific analyses, the researchers discovered that the reddened clay had been subjected to repeated, localized burning, which suggested the area may have been an ancient hearth.
"The big turning point came with the discovery of iron pyrite," study co-author Nick Ashton, curator of Paleolithic collections at the British Museum, said in the news conference.
Pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is a naturally occurring mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint. While pyrite is found in many locations around the world, it is extremely rare in the Barnham area, meaning someone specifically brought pyrite to the site, probably with the aim of making fire, the researchers said in the study.
Discovery of the first fragment of iron pyrite in 2017 at Barnham, Suffolk, U.K. | Credit: Jordan Mansfield/Pathways to Ancient Britain Project
Humans' use of fire
Because of the importance of controlled fire, paleoanthropologists have long debated the timing of this invention.
"There are so many obvious advantages to fire, from cooking to protection from predators to its technological use in creating new types of artifacts to its ability to bring people together," April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "We only have to think of our own childhoods gathering around a campfire to understand its emotional resonance."
Researchers believe that early humans first used wildfires for cooking food. This was a crucial step in human evolution because cooking widened the range of food available and made it more digestible, which in turn provided more nutrients needed to grow a larger brain, Davis said.
But there is limited evidence for deliberate early fire technology, and that evidence is often ambiguous, the researchers noted in the study.
For example, scientists unearthed reddened sediment at Koobi Fora in Kenya that dated to about 1.5 million years ago. Researchers suggested it could hint at early fire use because the key hominin at the site — Homo erectus — had a fairly large brain. And at two sites in Israel dated to about 800,000 years ago, burnt animal bones and stone tools suggest possible control of fire by the human ancestors who lived there.
Fire technology then exploded around 400,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence of burning at cave sites in France, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine and the U.K., and then more widespread use of fire in Europe, Africa and the Levant (the region around the east Mediterranean) by 200,000 years ago.
But these previous examples do not show the same kind of conclusive geochemical evidence of fire making that was found at Barnham, Ashton argued. He called the team's careful analysis of the Barnham sediment and identification of pyrite "the most exciting discovery in my 40-year career."
Neanderthals are "fully human"
However, any bones at Barnham have since disintegrated, so the "smoking gun" of butchered and burned animal bones that could prove the site was used for cooking has not been found.
This also means there are no skeletal remains of the fire producers themselves at Barnham — but study co-author Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the National History Museum in London, has a guess about their identity.
"We assume that the fires at Barnham were being made by early Neanderthals," Stringer said in the news conference, based on a nearby site called Swanscombe, where Neanderthal skull bones were discovered that dated to the same time period as Barnham.
While experts have known for about a decade that some Neanderthals could make fire, that evidence goes back only 50,000 years. The Barnham finds push that date 350,000 years further back, suggesting Neanderthals were much smarter than most people give them credit for.
Neanderthals "are fully human," Stringer said. "They have complex behavior, they're adapting to new environments, and their brains are as large as ours. They're very evolved humans."
Nowell said that the study's results add fuel to a larger debate about Neanderthals' control of fire and their social and cultural use of it.
"There is a lot of discussion right now about whether all Neanderthals made fire or if it is only some Neanderthals at some times and places that made fire," Nowell said. The new study "is another important data point in our understanding of Neanderthal pyrotechnical capabilities with all that implies cognitively, socially and technologically."
Who made fire first?
If the researchers are correct that Neanderthals made fire from flint and pyrite more than 400,000 years ago in England, this raises additional questions, Nowell said.
"Despite its obvious advantages, questions remain about the nature of early fire use: When did fire use become a regular part of the human behavioral repertoire? Were early humans dependent on the opportunistic use of wildfires and lightning strikes? Was fire rediscovered multiple times?" Nowell said.
The ancestors of Homo sapiens were living in Africa 400,000 years ago and not likely interacting with early Neanderthals half a world away.
"We don't know if Homo sapiens at that date had the ability to make fire," Stringer said, because to date there is no clear evidence for control of fire any earlier than Barnham.
This means that Neanderthals may have invented ways to make and control fire somewhere in continental Europe, which then enabled our human cousins to move further north into England, heating and lighting their way with fire.
"It's plausible that fire became more controlled in Europe and spread to Africa," Ashton said. "We have to keep an open mind."
Popular Mechanics A Lost Observatory Just Emerged From the Desert—And It May Be the Oldest in the Americas Tim Newcomb Wed, December 10, 2025 at 8:30 AM EST 3 min read
A Lost Observatory Just Emerged From the Desert View Stock - Getty Images
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
*Nearby what was thought to be the oldest known astrological observatory in the Western Hemisphere, archaeologists discovered one even older.
*The site in the Casma Valley of Peru could be centuries older than its neighbor, the previous record-holder.
*Research into the new find shows astrology understanding was far more complex in the ancient world than previously known.
Studying the sun, moon, and stars was obviously a more complex endeavor in the ancient world than it is now, but thanks to a fresh discovery at an already famous astrological site on the north-central coast of Peru, we have a better idea of just how complex.
The Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex in Peru was known as the oldest observatory in the Americas and the Western Hemisphere, but this new find might have beaten it on the very same ground.
According to a translated statement from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, a fresh discovery at the site is even older than the well-known Chankillo Solar Observatory, which was built around 250 B.C.E. and is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The research team must still perform radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the exact age of the newly found evidence at the site, which is located in Peru’s Casma Valley along the northcentral coast in the Andes Mountains, but thanks to the solar orientation, stratigraphy, and construction materials, experts are certain it was built with not only an astronomical function, but one that predates the Chankillo Solar Observatory, potentially by multiple centuries.
The ministry wrote that the existence of both observatories “solidify Casma’s position as one of the world’s most important ancient astronomical centers.”
The UNESCO site is home to the Chankillo Solar Observatory, a 13-tower complex, and a triple-walled hilltop complex known as the Fortified Temple.
“The site shows great innovation by using the solar cycle and an artificial horizon to mark the solstices, the equinoxes, and every other date within the year with a precision of one to two days,” UNESCO wrote about the Chankillo Solar Observatory. “It is thus a testimony to the culmination of a long historical evolution of astronomical practices in the Casma Valley.”
The new find features a corridor intentionally aligned with the lunar cycle, indicating the ancient complex had both a solar and lunar observation function. The dual purpose of both solar and lunar observations—lunar observation is considered a trickier endeavor than solar tracking—signify a more intense astronomical understanding than previously believed.
Archaeologists also located a Patazca-style ceremonial vessel within the new find. The vessel, about three feet tall with clay figures of warriors in combat positions, suggests that cultural elites were involved with goings-on at the complex, perhaps combined astronomical knowledge with military leadership. The vessel may reinforce the political and ritual function of the Fortified Temple, all while the new discovery further expands our knowledge of ancient world’s relationship to the exploration of our solar system.
Space An industrial project in Chile threatens Earth's darkest sky. 28 leading astronomers signed an open letter urging to move it Tereza Pultarova Wed, December 10, 2025 at 8:00 AM EST 4 min read
The sky above the Very Large Telescope in Chile is at risk of becoming severely light-polluted. | Credit: A. Berdeu/ESO
German Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel has penned a letter urging the government of Chile to halt the development of a green hydrogen plant in the vicinity of one of the world's top astronomical observatories.
In the letter, Genzel and 30 other world-leading astronomers urge Chilean leaders to protect the pristine, unpolluted night sky above Cerro Paranal, an 8,740-foot-high (2,664-meter) peak in the Atacama Desert that is home to the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) most valuable astronomical observatories including the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which when built will be the world's largest telescope.
The astronomers believe that the Paranal Observatory, currently considered among the least light-polluted astronomical sites in the world, will suffer if a planned clean hydrogen plant gets a go-ahead. "As currently conceived, the project represents an imminent threat to some of the most advanced astronomical facilities on Earth, operating under one of the world's last pristine dark skies," the scientists wrote in the letter, criticizing the placement of the clean hydrogen plant, called INNA, just a few miles from the summit of Cerro Paranal. "Earlier this year, an in-depth, data-driven technical analysis by ESO revealed that INNA would cause an increase of up to 35% in light pollution above Cerro Paranal."
It's not just light pollution that poses a threat, however. the letter continues. The signing scientists write that the same analysis "also revealed other impacts of the project, from creating micro-vibrations that will negatively affect and possibly impede the operation of some of the most cutting-edge astronomical facilities, to increasing turbulence that blurs our view of the universe."
The Paranal Observatory is home to the Very Large Telescope (VLT), which is actually a quartet of telescopes with 27-foot-wide (8.2 meters) mirrors that can work in concert as a so-called interferometer to maximize the facility's sky-observing abilities.
Genzel, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research of the Sagittarius A* black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, used VLT to observe the movements of stars close to the galaxy's center to determine the black hole's properties.
Cerro Paranal is also home to the Cherenkov Telescope Array, the world's most powerful observatory for research of high-energy gamma rays, extremely energetic radiation emitted from black holes and released in supernova explosions. According to the ESO analysis, the Cherenkov array could suffer an up to 50% light pollution increase from the proposed plant, being located only 3 miles (5 kilometers) away from the prospected site.
The astronomers think that interference from the hydrogen plant might degrade Paranal from being the world's premium astronomy site to a merely mediocre one.
"We might lose the ability to observe about 30% of the faintest galaxies," Xavier Barcons, ESO's Director General, told Space.com in an earlier interview. "We are at the point of starting to be able to see details of exoplanet atmospheres, but if the sky gets brighter, we may not be able to see those details anymore."
The unspoiled nature of the Paranal sky, together with the world's most favorable weather conditions for astronomy, prompted ESO to choose the neighboring Cerro Armazones as a site of the next-generation ELT. ELT, currently under construction, will be fitted with a single 130-foot-wide (39.3m) mirror and will become the world's largest telescope capable of studying the universe in visible light.
The $1.4-billion observer should enable astronomers to directly image exoplanets orbiting nearby stars and observe the most distant galaxies. The presence of INNA, however, is likely to increase the brightness of the sky above ELT by 5%, reducing the telescope's scientific potential.
The $10 billion INNA renewable hydrogen plant, developed by the U.S.-headquartered energy company AES, will spread across 7,500 acres (3,021 hectares) of land and consist of three solar farms, three wind farms, a battery energy storage system and facilities for the production of hydrogen.
AES submitted its environmental assessment for the development a year ago and is awaiting a decision by local authorities. The astronomers call for the plant's relocation away from Atacama's precious observatories.
"While we recognize the need, both in Chile and globally, to develop green energy facilities, the proximity and extent of the infrastructure associated with the INNA project pose a grave threat, which cannot be mitigated given the closeness of the planned installation to the observatory," the scientists wrote in the letter. "We are convinced that economic development and scientific progress can and must coexist to the benefit of all people in Chile, but not at the irreversible expense of one of Earth's unique and irreplaceable windows to the universe."
AES previously told Space.com that the site's impact on the Paranal night sky would be negligible.
CBS News Possible evidence of 2,100-year-old ceasefire uncovered in Israel CBSNews Wed, December 10, 2025 at 7:33 AM EST 5 min read
Workers from the Israel Antiquities Authority clean a section of an excavation site where, according to the institution, a city wall from the Hasmonean period, dating to the late 2nd century BCE, was uncovered under the Tower of David Citadel Museum, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Dec. 8, 2025. / Credit: Leo Correa / AP
Archaeologists have finished uncovering the longest continuous remains of an ancient wall that encircled Jerusalem, including possible evidence of a 2,100-year-old ceasefire between warring kingdoms.
Last week, archaeologists finished excavating the most complete part ever discovered of the foundations of the walls, which surrounded Jerusalem during the time of the Hasmonean Kingdom, when the story of Hanukkah took place. The discovery comes almost exactly one year after a rare collection of ancient coins was unearthed by Israeli researchers, who called the find an "archaeological Hanukkah miracle."
In Hebrew, Hanukkah means "dedication," and the holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C., after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces, and the Hasmonean Kingdom that followed.
Jews celebrate the eight-day holiday, which this year begins on Dec. 14, with the ritual of lighting a nightly candle, in honor of the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the temple that lasted for eight nights instead of just one. Many also eat fried foods such as potato pancakes, called latkes, to memorialize this miraculously long-lasting oil.
The Hasmonean wall foundation, whose excavation was finished last week in Jerusalem, was likely built a few decades after the story of Hanukkah by the same rulers. It's almost 50 meters (164 feet) long, around half the length of a football field, and around 5 meters (16 feet) wide. It held walls, which according to estimations and some historical writings, were taller than the current walls surrounding Jerusalem's Old City.
Much of the current walls surrounding Jerusalem's Old City date back hundreds of years to the Ottoman Era.
The Hasmonean walls encircled an area much larger than the current Old City of Jerusalem, with 60 watchtowers along the wall that were more than 10 meters (33 feet) tall, according to ancient writings. The part recently uncovered is one of the longest sections found intact from the foundation of the Hasmonean walls.
Separation wall and ceasefire
One of the most interesting aspects of the foundation was that the wall above it seems to have been purposefully and uniformly dismantled to a uniform height, not chaotically destroyed by the ravages of time or war, said Dr. Amit Re'em, one of the lead archaeologists for the project from the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Experts wondered why any leader would take apart a perfectly good security wall in an area that was constantly threatened by invasion.
In 132 or 133 B.C., Hellenistic King Antiochus the Seventh, an heir to the Antiochus the Fourth from the story of Hanukkah, laid siege to Jerusalem and the Judean Kingdom, according to ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
The Jerusalem Regional Archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, Dr. Amit Re'im, walks in a section of an excavation site where, according to the institution, a city wall from the Hasmonean period, dating to the late 2nd century BCE, was uncovered under the Tower of David Citadel Museum, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Dec. 8, 2025. / Credit: Leo Correa / AP
As the Judean army struggled, Jewish king John Hyrcanus I decided to strike a deal with Antiochus. He raided King David's tomb for 3,000 talents of silver and offered 500 hostages, including his own brother, according to the writings of Josephus.
"Antiochus Sidetes (the Seventh) reached a ceasefire agreement with John Hyrcanus, saying, if you want me to remove my army, you yourself, the Jewish king, must raze to the ground the Hasmonean fortification that you and your father built," Re'em said Monday. Josephus' writings state that after Antiochus accepted Hyrcanus' deal, they "pulled down the walls encircling the city."
Other sections of the Hasmonean wall uncovered in other parts of Jerusalem weren't dismantled, so it could have just been one section that was dismantled, possibly to provide a foundation for Herod's palace, Peleg-Barkat explained. Its unlikely that Jerusalem was left unprotected without any security walls for more than a century, she said.
Wall under a prison
The current section of the wall was uncovered underneath an abandoned wing of the building known as the Kishleh, which was built in 1830 as a military base. The wing was used as a prison, including by the British up until the 1940s, and the walls were covered with graffiti carved by prisoners in English, Hebrew and Arabic. The remnants of the iron bars of the cells are still visible in the ceiling.
Most of the building is still used by the Israeli police today, but one wing was abandoned and later transferred to the Tower of David Museum. Archaeologists first began excavating this wing of the Kishleh in 1999, but violence in Jerusalem during the Second Intifada, which began in 2000, halted the excavations until two years ago.
Archaeologists removed the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools worth of dirt and debris by hand over the past two years from the hall. The excavations revealed what they believe are Middle Age-era dye pits, likely for fabric dying, and the long section of the Hasmonean wall foundation.
In the coming years, the Tower of David Museum will install a floating glass floor over the ruins and use the hall as one of its new galleries in the Schulich Wing of Archaeology, Art and Innovation. The renovations of this section are expected to take at least two years, now that the archaeological dig has concluded.
Last year's "archaeological Hanukkah miracle"
Almost exactly one year ago, in December 2024, Israeli researchers discovered a rare collection of ancient coins on the third day of Hanukkah, calling the find an "archaeological Hanukkah miracle."
The coins were more than 2,000 years old and believed to belong to King Alexander Jannaeus, the second ruler of the Hasmonean dynasty. Archaeologists found the hoard of about 160 of the coins during excavations in the Jordan Valley, which runs between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the eastern border of Jordan.
The ancient coins were unearthed on the third day of Hanukkah. Researchers noted the significance of that timing, since Alexander Jannaeus descended from leaders of a revolt in 167 B.C.E. that the Talmud says led to the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem and the first celebration of the Hanukkah holiday.
More recently, last month, archaeologists discovered evidence of an ancient religious practice in northern Israel in addition to a wine press dating back roughly 5,000 years — one of the oldest ever uncovered in the country.
Futurism Scientists Find Evidence of Ancient Tropical Oasis on Mars Victor Tangermann Wed, December 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM EST 3 min read
An unusual new rock collection discovered by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover suggests the Red Planet's ancient past was wet and tropical.
Scientists suspect that the surface of Mars was once teeming with water, a lush oasis full of river systems and lakes — until a dramatic change in the planet’s magnetic field caused it to lose most of its atmosphere, turning it into the arid hellscape we know it as today.
Now, an unusual new rock collection discovered by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover suggests the Red Planet’s ancient past was even wetter and more tropical than scientists previously thought, an intriguing new wrinkle in our efforts to figure out if the planet was once habitable.
As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, a team of researchers analyzed the rocks, which feature intriguing, light-colored dots and range in size from pebbles to boulders. They suspect it’s aluminum-rich kaolinite clay which on Earth forms after millions of years of wet, rain-filled weather leeches all other minerals from it.
“Elsewhere on Mars, rocks like these are probably some of the most important outcrops we’ve seen from orbit because they are just so hard to form,” said coauthor and Purdue University professor of planetary science and NASA Perseverance team member Briony Horgan in a statement. “You need so much water that we think these could be evidence of an ancient warmer and wetter climate where there was rain falling for millions of years.”
On Earth, kaolinite clay is most commonly found in tropical climates like rainforests, suggesting Mars may have once been home to a lush oasis. The team compared the rocks with samples from San Diego, California, and South Africa, and found intriguing similarities.
“So when you see kaolinite on a place like Mars, where it’s barren, cold and with certainly no liquid water at the surface, it tells us that there was once a lot more water than there is today,” lead author and Purdue University postdoctoral research associate Adrian Broz added.
The rover found fragments of kaolinite in a number of places along its path along the Jezero crater, which is suspected to be an enormous, dried-out lake bed — a finding that left scientists with a conundrum.
“They’re clearly recording an incredible water event, but where did they come from?” Horgan said in the statement. “Maybe they were washed into Jezero’s lake by the river that formed the delta, or maybe they were thrown into Jezero by an impact and they’re just scattered there. We’re not totally sure.”
Larger outcroppings of light-colored rocks could help them solve the mystery, but that’s something that will require Perseverance to have a much closer look.
“But until we can actually get to these large outcroppings with the rover, these small rocks are our only on-the-ground evidence for how these rocks could have formed,” Horgan said. “And right now the evidence in these rocks really points toward these kinds of ancient warmer and wetter environments.”
“All life uses water,” Broz added. “So when we think about the possibility of these rocks on Mars representing a rainfall-driven environment, that is a really incredible, habitable place where life could have thrived if it were ever on Mars.”
Besides painting a fascinating picture of an ancient tropical oasis on Mars, the researchers believe the rocks could allow us to glean new insights into how the Red Planet turned into a barren wasteland — an extreme shift that remains a mystery to this day.
The Independent This early Alzheimer’s sign could be hiding in your routine scans, scientists say Vishwam Sankaran Wed, December 10, 2025 at 6:54 AM EST 3 min read
This early Alzheimer’s sign could be hiding in your routine scans, scientists say
Changes to tiny structures in the brain that can be detected in MRI scans could serve as a potential early indicator of Alzheimer’s, a new study suggests.
Alzheimer’s dementia progressively worsens as patients experience memory decline, loss of ability to pay attention, ultimately leading to their diminished daily functioning.
The number of dementia patients globally is expected to rise to 78 million in 2030 and 139 million in 2050, with an urgent need for improved early detection.
Scientists across the globe are racing against time to develop better brain scan markers and other cost-effective tools for faster diagnosis before symptoms show up in patients. Spotting Alzheimer’s at an early stage can allow doctors to intervene sooner and potentially slow the progression of symptoms.
Magnetic resonance imaging image of a patient who has enlarged perivascular spaces, which are seen as dark lesions in dark grey regions around the center of the brain (NTU LKCMedicine)
Now, researchers have found that clogged brain drainage spaces visible on MRI scans could serve as early predictors of Alzheimer’s before major brain damage occurs.
They found these natural “drains” in the brain – small channels that serve as pathways for clearing harmful waste – are more likely to become blocked in people who show early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Blocks to these drains, termed “enlarged perivascular spaces”, could serve as an important early signal of dementia, according to the study published in the journal Neurology.
“These brain anomalies can be visually identified on routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans performed to evaluate cognitive decline,” said neurologist Nagaendran Kandiah from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore).
“Identifying them could complement existing methods to detect Alzheimer’s earlier, without having to do and pay for additional tests,” Dr Kandiah said.
When this drainage system becomes inefficient, these spaces can expand in a way that is detectable on MRI scans, researchers say.
In the study, they examined brain scans from nearly 1,000 people in Singapore from various ethnic groups, including nearly 350 who do not have any cognitive problems.
Scientists compared the brain scan data of individuals with no cognitive concerns to those showing difficulties in thinking.
Those with mild cognitive impairment seemed to have clogged drains in their brains, or enlarged perivascular spaces, compared to the other participants, the study found.
Researchers also assessed blood markers of Alzheimer’s found in the participants’ blood, including beta amyloid and tau proteins, which are well known to be linked to the condition.
The presence of clogged drains in the brain was found to be linked to four of the seven blood molecule measurements, including amyloid plaques and tau tangles.
“These findings are significant because they suggest that brain scans showing enlarged perivascular spaces could potentially help identify people at higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, even before symptoms appear,” said Rachel Cheong Chin Yee, a geriatric medicine expert who was not involved in the study.
Scientists hope to conduct follow-up assessments on the study participants to check how many go on to develop Alzheimer’s and to confirm that enlarged perivascular spaces can predict those more likely to progress to dementia.
Live Science Russia's Bezymianny volcano blew itself apart 69 years ago. It's now almost completely regrown. Stephanie Pappas Wed, December 10, 2025 at 6:45 AM EST
The volcanic eruption of Bezymianny on March 30, 1956. The blast caused the volcano to collapse. | Credit: Photo by I. V. Yerov, 1956 (courtesy of G.S. Gorshkov, published in Green and Short, 1971, Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0).
A restless Russian volcano sent an ash cloud 32,800 ft feet (10 kilometers) into the air in late November in an eruption that may bring the mountain closer to its original height.
The Bezymianny volcano is a dramatic, cone-shaped stratovolcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East. It blew itself apart in 1956, but a 2020 study found that it has nearly grown back — and eruptions like the one that created an ash plume on Nov. 26 are the reason. That study found that the mountain should achieve its pre-collapse height between the years 2030 and 2035.
Seven decades ago, Bezymianny towered at least 10,213 feet (3,113 meters) above sea level. Then, on March 30, 1956, a massive eruption blew out the slope of the volcano, collapsing the summit and turning the cone-shaped mountain into a horseshoe-shaped stone amphitheater.
Almost immediately, though, the mountain started to reform, starting as a lava dome perched in the midst of this amphitheater. Over the years, the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in Kamchatka, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has monitored the mountain's growth with fieldwork, web cameras and observation flights. A series of photographs taken from flights between 1949 and 2017 shows that the volcano has nearly reached its previous height, the researchers reports in 2020. Between 1956 and 2017, the researchers found, the mountain added 932,307.2 cubic feet (26,400 cubic meters) of rock per day, on average, the researchers found.
"The most surprising thing was the fast growth of the new volcanic edifice," study co-authors Alexander Belousov and Marina Belousova, both volcanologists at the Institute of Volcanology, told Live Science in an email.
The lava dome began growing shortly after the eruption, pictured here in 1988. | Credit: Photo by Alexander Belousov, 1988 (Institute of Volcanology, Kamchatka, Russia Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0).
The volcano now produces a couple of explosive eruptions a year, on average. The late-November event featured not only a billowing ash cloud, but also hot avalanches of gas and rock known as pyroclastic flows, Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program reported Dec. 2.
As the volcano reaches its original height, the stability of its slopes is an important question, Belousov and Belousova told Live Science.
"It is known that similar edifices located inside horseshoe-shaped craters can experience one more large scale collapse and, as a result, a large scale explosive eruption," they said.
Bezymianny (pictured here in 2017) is expected to reach its pre-1956 eruption height in the next five to 10 years. | Credit: Alexandr Piragis/Getty Images
The flyover images reviewed in 2020 showed that the volcano not only sends out explosive clouds of ash and gas, but that it grows by what scientists called effusive eruptions: non-explosive flows of lava. The first of these was visible in 1977. Over time, this lava has become less rich in the mineral silica and less viscous, or goopy. Layers of this effusive lava have built up to turn Bezymianny back into a cone-shaped stratovolcano.
Researchers are still monitoring the mountain from the ground as well as by satellite, Belousov and Belousova said. Though each volcano has its own trajectory, there are many volcanoes around the world that have experienced collapse and regrowth, such as Mount St. Helens in the U.S.
"The collected dataset is very important because the obtained knowledge allows volcanologists all over the world to make long-term forecasts of the behavior of different volcanoes which experienced large-scale collapses in their history," the researchers said.
By creating a planetary network, mankind on Planet now has the ability to share information at light-speed. But by creating a single such network, each faction has brought themselves closer to discovery as well. At the speed of light, we will catch your information, tag it like an animal in the wild, and release it unharmed-if such should serve our purposes.
~Datatech Sinder Roze 'The Alpha Codex'
Recent Posts
