Posted inArchaeology, Science

Search for the Skull and Extraction of the Complete Skeleton of the Heaviest Animal to Have Ever Existed on Earth Begins in Peru

The vast Ica desert in Peru, a remote and difficult-to-access region, captured the scientific world’s attention in 2023 thanks to a colossal discovery: the first remains of Perucetus colossus, an ancient cetacean that lived approximately 40 million years ago and has been classified as the heaviest animal ever to have existed on Earth. Now, a […]

Posted inScience

“Brittle Stars” Help Identify a New Climatic Period in Earth’s History, Lasting from 50 to 450 AD

A group of researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Pisa has identified a new climatic period on our planet, named the Ophiuroid Optimum, which spanned from 50 to 450 A.D. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was conducted in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the […]

Posted inAntiquity, Middle Ages

The Tribute of the Three Cows, the oldest treaty still in force in Europe, may have started as a sanction for supporting the invasion of the Cimbri in 125 BC

For six and a half centuries, a peculiar ceremony has been held every July 13 at the Ernaz pass and the San Martín stone, a mountain pass in the Pyrenees that serves as a border point between the Foral Community of Navarra (Spain) and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department (France). The event consists of the delivery of […]

Posted inScience

A Tiny Creature Discovered in a California Lake is the Closest Living Relative of All Animals

Mono Lake, nestled in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada, is famous for its towering tufa formations, brine shrimp, and dense clouds of alkali flies that have uniquely adapted to its salty waters, which also contain traces of arsenic and cyanide. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have now discovered another unusual inhabitant of the lake: […]

Posted inScience

The dodo was neither slow nor fat, it was a giant, strong and fast land pigeon

The dodo bird, often depicted as a slow, chubby creature doomed to extinction, has long been misunderstood. However, new research published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society challenges these misconceptions, revealing the dodo as a giant, ground-dwelling pigeon that was both strong and fast. This study, conducted by researchers from the University of […]