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Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday Feb 8, 2025 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-08

The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, doomandgloom, Besame, and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Rise above the swamp, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.

OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos since 2007, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.

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From Phys.org:

Missing link in Indo-European languages' history found

Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Ron Pinhasi and his team in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna contribute a new piece to this puzzle in collaboration with David Reich's ancient DNA laboratory at Harvard University. They analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia between 6400–2000 BCE. They found out that a newly recognized Caucasus-Lower Volga population can be connected to all Indo-European-speaking populations. The new study is published in Nature. Indo-European languages (IE), which number over 400 and include major groups such as Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic, are spoken by nearly half the world's population today. Originating from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, historians and linguists since the 19th century have been investigating its origins and spread as there is still a knowledge gap. ***

From SciTechDaily:

Ancient DNA Unlocks 11,000 Years of Sheep and Human History

Ancient DNA analysis reveals that sheep were domesticated over 11,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. By 8,000 years ago, early farmers were selectively breeding them. Sheep have been intertwined with human livelihoods for over 11,000 years. Beyond providing meat, their domestication allowed humans to benefit from their protein-rich milk and to create warm, water-resistant fabrics from their wool. Now, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and zooarchaeologists from LMU Munich and the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB), has traced the prehistoric cultural trajectory of this species. By analyzing 118 genomes recovered from archaeological bones spanning 12 millennia and regions from Mongolia to Ireland, they have uncovered key insights into the history of sheep domestication. ***

From SciTechDaily:

California’s Coast Is Slipping Away – NASA’s Radar Data Sounds the Alarm

NASA scientists have been tracking an alarming acceleration in landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in California, where land is sliding toward the ocean at speeds of up to 4 inches per week. Using advanced airborne radar, researchers mapped the movement of the unstable terrain and found that the affected area has expanded significantly, threatening homes and infrastructure. Landslides on the move: NASA’s High-Tech Analysis NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California used airborne radar to track slow-moving landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County. Their analysis found that between September and October 2024, land in the residential area was sliding toward the ocean at a rate of up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) per week. ***

From Science News:

Earth’s first waterfowl may have lived in Antarctica 69 million years ago

An ancient bird that swam in Antarctica’s balmier waters 69 million years ago may be the earliest known waterfowl on Earth, scientists say. A newly discovered and nearly complete fossilized skull found in rocks on the Antarctic peninsula belonged to Vegavis iaai, an ancient bird previously known only from fossilized body parts and a bit of its voice box. This skull offers the best evidence yet that the enigmatic, controversial bird was closely related to modern ducks and geese, report paleontologist Christopher Torres of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., and his colleagues in the Feb. 6 Nature. ***

From SciTechDaily:

Octopuses Have a Secret Sex Chromosome – and It’s Older Than Dinosaurs

New research at the UO reveals that they have been using one that has existed for 480 million years. The octopus has just revealed another secret: what determines its sex. Researchers at the University of Oregon have identified a sex chromosome in the California two-spot octopus. This chromosome has likely existed for 480 million years, predating the evolutionary split between octopuses and nautiluses. That makes it one of the oldest known animal sex chromosomes. ***

From The Conversation:

An ‘earthquake swarm’ is shaking Santorini. It could persist for months

Greece’s government has just declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini, as earthquakes shake the island multiple times a day and sometimes only minutes apart. The “earthquake swarm” is also affecting other nearby islands in the Aegean Sea. It began gradually with numerous very minor (less than magnitude 3) and mostly imperceptible earthquakes in late January. However, at the start of February, the seismic activity intensified as the quakes became larger and more frequent. So far, several thousand quakes have been recorded in the last two weeks. As many as 30 a day have been above magnitude 4.0 – most of them at less than 10km depth, which is large and shallow enough to be felt by people living on local islands. ***

From The Guardian:

Hottest January on record mystifies climate scientists

A run of record-breaking global temperatures has continued, even with a La Niña weather pattern cooling the tropical Pacific. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the warmest January on record, with surface – air temperatures 1.75C above preindustrial levels. The EU-funded Earth observation programme highlighted wetter-than-average conditions in eastern Australia and drier-than-average conditions in other parts of the country. Samantha Burgess, the strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said: “January 2025 is another surprising month, continuing the record temperatures observed throughout the last two years … Copernicus will continue to closely monitor ocean temperatures and their influence on our evolving climate throughout 2025.” Sea-surface temperatures remained unusually high in many ocean basins and seas. ***

This bodes ill for the hope of keeping the climate heating to 2°C.

I hope to have happier news next week. See you then.

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