Christopher C. Gilbert, from Arizona State University, has filled an important void in the fossil record of apes with the discovery of a 13 million year old fossil unearthed in northern India comes from a newly discovered ape, the oldest known ancestor of the modern gibbon.

The find was by chance, on a small hill in an area where a fossil primate jaw had been found the previous year.

Kapi ramnagarensis

The fossil, a complete lower molar, belongs to a previously unknown genus and species (Kapi ramnagarensis) and represents the first new species of fossil ape discovered at the famous Ramnagar fossil site, India, in almost a century.

The molar was photographed and scanned by computed tomography (CT), and comparative samples of teeth from living and extinct apes were examined to highlight important similarities and differences in dental anatomy. According to Gilbert explains.:

From the shape and size of the molar, our initial assumption was that it might be from a gibbon ancestor, but that seemed too good to be true, given that the fossil record of lesser apes is virtually nonexistent. There are other primate species known during that time, and no gibbon fossils had been found anywhere near Ramnagar. So we knew we would have to do our homework to find out exactly what this little fossil was.

In addition to determining that the new ape represents the oldest known fossil gibbon, the age of the fossil, around 13 million years, is contemporary with known great ape fossils.

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The news

Missing link in ape fossil record found in India

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

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Using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in Western Australia, it has been done the deepest and widest search at low frequencies for alien technologies.

After searching a patch of sky known to include at least 10 million stars, around the constellation Vela, no trace of them has been found. The telescope searched for powerful radio emissions at frequencies similar to those of FM, that could indicate the presence of an intelligent source.

Murchison Widefield Array

The MWA is an inherently versatile instrument with a very large field of view (on the order of 30 degrees wide) capable of covering a wide range of scientific objectives. An MWA antenna consists of a regular four-by-four grid of dual-polarized dipole elements arranged on a 4 m x 4 m steel mesh ground plane. Each antenna (with its 16 dipoles) is known as a "mosaic".

He cited study was carried out by CSIRO astronomer Chenoa Tremblay and Steven Tingay, from the Curtin University node of the Centre, and has been published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

As Tremblay explains:

We watched the sky around the Vela constellation for 17 hours, looking more than 100 times wider and deeper than ever before. With this data set, we found no technological signatures, no signs of intelligent life.

The MWA is a precursor to the next instrument, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a €1.7 billion observatory with telescopes in Western Australia and South Africa.

The SKA will be built in the same location as the MWA, but will be 50 times more sensitive and will be able to conduct much deeper SETI experiments, which is equivalent to saying that will be able to detect Earth-like radio signals from relatively nearby planetary systems. Let's keep our fingers crossed for then.

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The news

In the sky around the Vela constellation, with at least ten million stars, no trace of civilization is detected

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

According to a new study, blue jeans are a major source of microfiber pollution in oceans and lakes.

A pair of jeans can release more than 50,000 microfibers per wash. Which is a relevant environmental problem if we take into account that Approximately half of the world's population wears this item of clothing.

polluting clothing

Yves Saint Laurent would like to have invented jeans, as he confessed in 1983 to The New York Times: "They have expression, modesty, sex appeal and simplicity, everything I want in my clothes." Not in vain, blue jeans are the most popular garment in the world.

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The microfibers included between 87% and 90% of anthropogenic particles found in sediments of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Laurentian Great Lakes, and shallow suburban lakes in southern Ontario. Twenty-one to fifty-one percent of all microfibers in the sediments were anthropogenically modified cellulose (AC), of which 40-57% were indigo denim microfibers (12-23% of all microfibers analyzed).

Microfibers from washed jeans were consistent in chemical composition and morphology with those found in the environment.

In Xataka Science

What you consume, especially what you eat, is much more important for the environment than you think

Thus, the study concludes, blue jeans are an indicator of the widespread burden of anthropogenic pollution by significantly increasing the environmental accumulation of microfibers from temperate to arctic regions.

Furthermore, as indicated Dana Thomas in his book Fashionopolis, making a pair of jeans requires 70 liters of water, 1.5 kilo-watts of energy and 150 grams of chemicals. More than 4 billion pieces of denim leave textile factories every year, most dyed blue with synthetic indigo fixed with a powerful bleach that makes it highly polluting.

In Xataka Science

Nine million people die annually due to pollution

Indigo is the only pigment capable of giving jeans their unmistakable bluish color. It is currently synthesized chemically on a global scale and it is estimated that around 45,000 tons are produced annually, of which 95 % are used to dye jeans.

Thus, More ecological alternatives are being sought for the manufacture of this textile, like the one proposed by a group from the University of Berkley (USA) could have been achieved, according to A study recently published in Nature Chemical Biology.

Clothing is the second cause of pollution on the planet, to the point that in 2015 textile production emitted into the atmosphere 1.2 million tons of CO2That is, more than all the ships and planes on the planet emitted that year, according to data from the International Energy Agency.

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The news

Blue jeans are a major source of microfiber pollution in oceans and lakes

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.