Scientific news in small doses

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week

Mathieu Perréault
The press

sub zero dinosaurs

According to a new American study published in scientific advances Beginning of July. Columbia University paleontologists have analyzed fossils from the Junggar Basin in far north Xinjiang, China, and found that the animals that survived the late Triassic extinction event are the ancestors of dinosaurs. At the end of the Triassic extinction event, 252 to 201 million years ago, 76% of all species on the planet disappeared.

quiz

What new threat does deforestation pose in the Amazon?

answers

It is a source of new pandemic viruses. That’s according to an analysis of nine zoonoses (infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans) whose human cases were tracked between 2001 and 2019. Zoonoses that biologists at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute say increase the risk of animal viruses spreading to humans to adjust. This adaptation of viruses is particularly responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. This research will be published in early July scientific advances.

The number

25

This is the weight of the satellite in kilograms capstone NASA launched in late June aboard a New Zealand electron rocket. Capstone will test the stability of the orbit planned for the lunar station Goal. capstone, the first lunar satellite, will take five months to reach the moon (instead of a few days for most lunar missions). Why ? Because the Electron rocket is only 18 m long, five times less than the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo project.

Prehistoric ancestor worship

Israeli researchers have discovered the oldest evidence of ancestor worship. At the Revadim site in the south of the country, paleontologists from Tel Aviv University found collections of stone tools that had no practical use. in the Scientific Reports As of late June, they believe the most likely justification for these stone tool collections is a desire to preserve the possessions of extinct ancestors.

Two victims of Santorini

The first two victims of the volcano’s eruption on the Greek island of Santorini 3,500 years ago have been unearthed in western Turkey. They died when the tsunami triggered by the eruption reached Çeşme-Bağlararası and destroyed this regional metropolis that had been founded 1,000 years earlier. The eruption of Santorini is one of the greatest natural disasters in human history. It caused the disappearance of several Mediterranean coastal civilizations. A description of Ankara University’s 20-year excavation that led to the discovery of the body of a man and his dog last year will be published in June in the Journal of the Center for World Archeology at Ankara University in Copenhagen.