Newly discovered polar shipwreck may contain intriguing artifacts

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In the early 1900s, Antarctica became a hot spot for explorers undertaking intrepid but dangerous expeditions.

Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 27-man crew set out aboard HMS Endurance in 1914. But Endurance became trapped in ice, documented in dramatic images by the crew’s official photographer.

The crew established a “land station” and watched the ice slowly crush and sink the boat. The men floated on an ice floe and used lifeboats to reach uninhabited Elephant Island.

Shackleton and some crew members embarked on a risky journey through hundreds of miles of rough seas to the island of South Georgia in search of rescuers. After receiving help from a whaling station, Shackleton returned for his men. He refused to give up.

The entire crew survived despite the dangerous adventure that ended in 1916. Although the expedition was unsuccessful, the crew’s safe return became the big story.

A searching expedition found the wreckage of HMS Endurance in 2022and now, another part of Shackleton’s legacy has been reclaimed.

Secrets of the ocean

An international team of experts, using sonar, located the exploration ship Quest, once captained by Shackleton, off the coast of Canada.

The explorer was on board the ship, searching for his fourth expedition to Antarctica, when he died of a heart attack in January 1922, aged 47.

After her death, the ship continued on more adventures before sinking in 1962, and researchers believe there may be Onboard artifacts with a story to tell about the ship’s travels.

An expedition will deploy a remotely operated vehicle to explore the Quest’s interior later this year.

Curiosities

The late physicist Freeman Dyson theorized in 1960 that if advanced civilizations of alien life existed, they could invent a way to harness the power of stars as an energy solution.

His idea of ​​these stellar megastructures, inspired by science fiction, resulted in a concept called Dyson spheres, and he thought they might be detectable in infrared light.

Although identifying sources of infrared radiation is not direct evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, the famous scientist said he also hopes the search will lead to the discovery of new types of celestial objects.

Now, new research has identified seven possible stars in the Milky Way that may host Dyson spheresand the discovery is shaking up the astronomical community in more ways than one.

wild kingdom

Similar to humans, wild African elephants may use individual name-like calls to address and identify each other, according to a new study.

Scientists analyzed recordings of different types of booms, or sounds that female elephants and their calves use. And after hearing the playback, the elephants responded more strongly to the calls originally intended for them.

“This implies some capacity for abstract thought — they need to be able to learn this arbitrary sound and associate it with other individuals and essentially call each other by name,” said animal behaviorist Mickey Pardo, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. .

A long time ago

For years, the myth that it was overwhelmingly The number of young women who were ritualistically sacrificed in the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá has persisted – but new evidence suggests that another part of the population played a role in the deadly rites.

An analysis of dozens of skeletons deposited in a sacred hole in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico showed that the victims were boys between 3 and 6 years old. Many of them were related, including some who were twins.

The reason for their sacrifice remains unknown, but the revelation adds another layer of complexity to the ancient Mayan ritual calendar, researchers said.

Other worlds

An orbiter circling Mars spied ice formation at the top of the red planet’s volcanoes for the first time.

The equatorial region of Mars is home to some of the tallest volcanoes in the solar system, with some peaks well above the height of Mount Everest.

“It’s significant because it shows us that Mars is a dynamic planet, but also that water can be found on almost the entire Martian surface,” said Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University.

Additionally, a large solar storm hit Mars in May and NASA missions captured stunning planet-enveloping auroras and other surprising sights of the event.

Discoveries

Take a deep dive into these new discoveries:

— A vegetarian piranha relative with human-like teeth seems unlikely, but it’s a newly discovered Amazonian species that researchers named after a villain from “The Lord of the Rings” Series.

— Recent excavations have revealed artifacts such as pottery and coins that show how the Romans integrated into local communities in southern England thousands of years ago.

— A farmer and amateur paleontologist unearthed the fossil of a previously unknown species of pterosaur that flew over the sea that once covered part of Australia 100 million years ago.

— A botanist sighted a small species of plant new to science growing in an unlikely place on the slopes of the Andes.

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