What mostly people looking for?

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What mostly people looking for?

Nothing to see here, folks.Cone Heads

A viral Facebook post is claiming that strange-looking skulls found in Peru are evidence of alien life, USA Today reports.

But fortunately — or disappointingly, depending on your frame of reference — the skulls are almost certainly from plain-old human beings.

“The eye sockets are normal and perfectly within the range of human variation and look like eye sockets of other human skulls from Peru,” University of Wyoming anthropology professor Melissa Murphy told the newspaper.

Big Headed Astronaut

The skulls do indeed look unusual. A YouTube video shared alongside the viral Facebook post shows a variety of skulls with elongated crowns that are admittedly somewhat reminiscent of pop-culture aliens.

But the reality is distinctly terrestrial, Murphy told USA Today. Ancient people in what is now Peru, she said, had a long history of using binding techniques to coax human skulls into unusual shapes.

“Deliberate head shaping is a form of cultural modification of the body that marks different things, like one’s identity, a rite of passage, [or] an occupation,” she told the paper.

READ MORE: Fact check: Elongated skulls in Peru are human, not alien, expert says [USA Today]

More on skulls: Scientists Add Windows to Mice Skulls to Watch Their Brains

02

Signs Of The Human Era, From Nuclear Fallout To Microplastics

Radioactive traces left by nuclear weapon tests are one of humanity’s calling cards being used to mark the Anthropocene epoch -

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As scientists make the case that humans have fundamentally transformed the planet enough to warrant our own geological epoch, another question arises: is there anything left untouched by humanity’s presence?

Soaring greenhouse gases, ubiquitous microplastics, pervasive “forever chemicals”, the global upheaval of animals, even old mobile phones and chicken bones — all have been put forward as evidence that the world entered the Anthropocene, or era of humans, in the mid-20th century.

Jan Zalasiewicz, a British geologist who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group for over a decade, paused for a moment when asked if there was anywhere on Earth that lacked signs of human influence.

“It’s hard to think of a more remote place” than the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica, Zalasiewicz told AFP.

Yet when scientists drilled deep below the glacier’s ice a few years ago, they found traces of plutonium.

It was lingering fallout from nuclear weapon tests that began in 1945, leaving behind a radioactive presence unlike anything before.

Zalasiewicz said these radionuclides represented perhaps “the sharpest signal” to mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch 70 years ago.

But “there’s an awful lot to choose from,” he added.

The remote Pine Island glacier in Antarctica, where plutonium has been detected deep under the ice MICHAEL STUDINGER

On Tuesday, the Anthropocene Working Group is expected to announce its choice for the epoch’s “golden spike” location, selecting the site that most clearly represents the many ways humans have changed the world.

However the announcement will not make the Anthropocene an official geological time unit just yet, as the world’s geologists continue to sift through the evidence.

Another major calling card of the Anthropocene will likely come as little surprise: the rapid surge in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are heating the world.

Many things changed “once humans developed the technology to pull fossilised sunshine — in the form of oil, coal and gas — out of the ground,” Zalasiewicz said.

Humans have consumed more energy since 1950 than was used in the previous 11,700 years of the Holocene epoch, the Anthropocene scientists have shown.

This new power was used to dominate the world in a way not previously possible. Both land and animals were deployed to feed the exploding human population.

Supermarket chickens account for two thirds of the biomass of all birds on Earth, research has suggested HECTOR GUERRERO

Humans and their livestock make up 96 percent of the biomass of all land mammals on the planet, with wild mammals representing just four percent, researchers estimated in 2018.

Supermarket chickens, bred by humans to grow far larger than natural, account for two thirds of the biomass of all birds, Zalasiewicz said.

Humans also reshuffled species across the globe, introducing invasive species such as rats to even the most remote Pacific islands.

In 2020, researchers estimated that the mass of all objects made by humans has now exceeded the weight of all living things on the planet.

The Anthropocene researchers called these objects “technofossils”.

Successive generations of mobile phones, which so quickly become obsolete, were just one example of a technofossil that will “be part of the Anthropocene record,” Zalasiewicz said.

Smaller pieces of plastic called microplastics have been detected on the planet’s highest peaks and at the bottom of the deepest oceans.

Mobile phones will just one “technofossil” that will let future ancestors or aliens study our civilisation, scientists say Ed JONES

Substances called PFAS or “forever chemicals,” created for products such as non-stick cookware, are also being increasingly identified across the world.

Pesticides, fertilisers, increasing levels of nitrogen of phosphorus, even the buried skeletons of humans — the list of potential Anthropocene markers goes on.

The scientists say that hundreds of thousands of years into the future, all of these markers will be clearly preserved to give our future ancestors — or any other beings who care to look — insight into this human era.

But what will this future geologist see happen next?

“One of the signals that you would want to see from the Anthropocene is humanity responding in a positive way,” said Mark Williams, a British palaeontologist and member of the Anthropocene Working Group.

The fossil record does not yet show a mass extinction, but one “is now very much on the cards,” he told AFP.

“We go two ways from here,” he added.

So is there somewhere left on Earth that does not bear a human fingerprint?

The scientists agreed that the only such place was likely somewhere under the ice in Antarctica.

But if nothing changes, these ice sheets will be steadily melted by global warming, Zalasiewicz warned.

03

If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later?

More Curious Kids

(Image credit: The Conversation)

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected]. In this entry, Essie, age 11, of Michigan asks: “If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later?”

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if everyone suddenly disappeared?

What would happen to all our stuff? What would happen to our houses, our schools, our neighborhoods, our cities? Who would feed the dog? Who would cut the grass? Although it’s a common theme in movies, TV shows and books, the end of humanity is still a strange thing to think about.

But as an associate professor of urban design — that is, someone who helps towns and cities plan what their communities will look like — it’s sometimes my job to think about prospects like this.

Related: Sun blasts out powerful X-class solar flare causing radio blackouts on Earth (video)

So much silence

If humans just disappeared from the world, and you could come back to Earth to see what had happened one year later, the first thing you’d notice wouldn’t be with your eyes.

It would be with your ears.

The world would be quiet. And you would realize how much noise people make. Our buildings are noisy. Our cars are noisy. Our sky is noisy. All of that noise would stop.

You’d notice the weather. After a year without people, the sky would be bluer, the air clearer. The wind and the rain would scrub clean the surface of the Earth; all the smog and dust that humans make would be gone.

It wouldn’t be long before wild animals visited our once well-trodden cities. (Image credit: Getty Images)Home sweet home

Imagine that first year, when your house would sit unbothered by anyone.

Go inside your house — and hope you’re not thirsty, because no water would be in your faucets. Water systems require constant pumping. If no one’s at the public water supply to manage the machines that pump water, then there’s no water.

But the water that was in the pipes when everyone disappeared would still be there when the first winter came — so on the first cold snap, the frigid air would freeze the water in the pipes and burst them.

There would be no electricity. Power plants would stop working because no one would monitor them and maintain a supply of fuel. So your house would be dark, with no lights, TV, phones or computers.

Your house would be dusty. Actually, there’s dust in the air all the time, but we don’t notice it because our air conditioning systems and heaters blow air around. And as you move through the rooms in your house, you keep dust on the move too. But once all that stops, the air inside your house would be still and the dust would settle all over.

The grass in your yard would grow — and grow and grow until it got so long and floppy it would stop growing. New weeds would appear, and they would be everywhere.

Lots of plants that you’ve never seen before would take root in your yard. Every time a tree drops a seed, a little sapling might grow. No one would be there to pull it out or cut it down.

You’d notice a lot more bugs buzzing around. Remember, people tend to do everything they can to get rid of bugs. They spray the air and the ground with bug spray. They remove bug habitat. They put screens on the windows. And if that doesn’t work, they swat them.

Without people doing all these things, the bugs would come back. They would have free rein of the world again.

Given enough time, roads would start to crumble. (Image credit: Armastas/iStock via Getty Images Plus)On the street where you live

In your neighborhood, critters would wander around, looking and wondering.

First the little ones: mice, groundhogs, raccoons, skunks, foxes and beavers. That last one might surprise you, but North America was once rich with beavers.

Bigger animals would come later — deer, coyotes and the occasional bear. Not in the first year, maybe, but eventually.

With no electric lights, the rhythm of the natural world would return. The only light would be from the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The night critters would feel good they got their dark sky back.

Fires would happen frequently. Lightning might strike a tree or a field and set brush on fire, or hit the houses and buildings. Without people to put them out, those fires would keeping going until they burned themselves out.

Around your city

After just one year, the concrete stuff — roads, highways, bridges and buildings — would look about the same.

Come back, say, a decade later, and cracks in them would have appeared, with little plants wiggling up through them. This happens because the Earth is constantly moving. With this motion comes pressure, and with this pressure come cracks. Eventually, the roads would crack so much they would look like broken glass, and even trees would grow through them.

Bridges with metal legs would slowly rust. The beams and bolts that hold the bridges up would rust too. But the big concrete bridges, and the interstate highways, also concrete, would last for centuries.

The dams and levees that people have built on the rivers and streams of the world would erode. Farms would fall back to nature. The plants we eat would begin to disappear. Not much corn or potatoes or tomatoes anymore.

Farm animals would be easy prey for bears, coyotes, wolves and panthers. And pets? The cats would go feral — that is, they would become wild, though many would be preyed upon by larger animals. Most dogs wouldn’t survive, either.

Like ancient Rome

In a thousand years, the world you remember would still be vaguely recognizable. Some things would remain; it would depend on the materials they were made of, the climate they’re in, and just plain luck. An apartment building here, a movie theater there, or a crumbling shopping mall would stand as monuments to a lost civilization. The Roman Empire collapsed more than 1,500 years ago, yet you can see some remnants even today.

If nothing else, humans’ suddenly vanishing from the world would reveal something about the way we treated the Earth. It would also show us that the world we have today can’t survive without us and that we can’t survive if we don’t care for it. To keep it working, civilization — like anything else — requires constant upkeep.