General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - January 2019

Jan 2019

Aug 14, 2020

Europe's Earliest Bone Tools Found in Britain

Archaeologists say that they have identified the earliest known bone tools in the European archaeological record.
The implements come from the renowned Boxgrove site in West Sussex, which was excavated in the 1980s and 90s.
The bone tools came from a horse that humans butchered at the site for its meat.
Flakes of stone in piles around the animal suggest at least eight individuals were making large flint knives for the job.
Researchers also found evidence that other people were present nearby - perhaps younger or older members of a community - shedding light on the social structure of our ancient relatives.
During excavations, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of stone tools, along with animal bones, that dated to 500,000 years ago.
They were made by the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor for modern humans and Neanderthals.
Researchers found a shin bone belonging to one of them - it's the oldest human bone known from Britain.

Aug 12, 2020

New Butterfly Species Found In Matheran Hill Station

According to the Bombay Natural History Society, as many as 77 new species of butterflies have been found in the ecologically sensitive forest of Matheran Hill Station near Mumbai during a study conducted there over the last eight years.
With this, the total number of butterfly species in the Matheran Forest has now gone up to 140.
Matheran is spread over an area of 214.73 sq km and is located about 80 km from the Maharashtra capital.
The eight-year-long rigorous study undertaken by BNHS from 2011 to 2019 has resulted in the discovery of 77 new species of butterflies in Matheran.
After a span of 125 years, for the first time such a study was undertaken to discover the flying beauties at Matheran.

Aug 09, 2020

Breakthrough: Restored Corals Ready to Become Parents

For the first time, massive corals restored to Florida's Coral Reef are ready to become parents in the wild—a breakthrough in Mote Marine Laboratory's scientific efforts to restore critically imperiled coral reefs, the "rainforests of the sea," to self-sustaining life.
This month, Mote's coral reproduction scientist, Dr. Hanna Koch, identified gametes (eggs and sperm) inside colonies of two threatened, yet key, reef-building species that Mote restored to Florida Keys reefs in recent years: the massive or mounding species called mountainous star coral (Orbicella faveolata) and branching staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis). Both species are listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The presence of gametes indicates that these corals are sexually mature, gravid (pregnant), and ready to produce the next generation of coral "babies" with fresh genetics to help revive declining coral populations.
These corals are achieving critical milestones for the entire field of coral reef restoration—showing the first signs that they are capable of producing new generations of corals on their own. These and other corals in Mote's restored populations survived big challenges to reach this point, demonstrating resilience. Their success validates the significance and progress of Mote's science-based, resilience-focused coral restoration.

Aug 08, 2020

Canada's Last Fully Intact Arctic Ice Shelf Collapses

The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days.
The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.
Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up.
The shelf's area shrank by about 80 square kilometers.
The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification.

Aug 07, 2020

UK Peat Emissions Could Cancel Forest Benefits

Emissions from UK peatland could cancel out all carbon reduction achieved through new and existing forests, warns the countryside charity CPRE.
It says many degraded peatlands are actually increasing carbon emissions.
Yet, it says, there has been much more focus from the government and media on forests than on peat bogs.
The government's advisory committee on climate change told BBC News that it agreed with the conclusions of the analysis.
Both that committee and the CPRE are urging more ambitious action to protect and enhance peatlands.
A peat bog is a Jekyll and Hyde thing. A wet, pristine peat bog soaks up CO2 and, unlike trees, has no limit to the amount of carbon it captures. rees only capture CO2 until they are mature.
But a dry, degraded bog – like many in England's uplands – is a big source of CO2 as the carbon in the bog oxidises.

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