Month: October 2018

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the world’s oldest intact shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Sea where it appears to have lain undisturbed for more than 2,400 years.

The 23-metre (75ft) vessel, thought to be ancient Greek, was discovered with its mast, rudders and rowing benches all present and correct just over a mile below the surface. A lack of oxygen at that depth preserved it, the researchers said.

“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), the team that made the find. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.”

The ship is believed to have been a trading vessel of a type that researchers say has only previously been seen “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum”.

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That work, which dates from about the same period, depicts a similar vessel bearing Odysseus past the sirens, with the Homeric hero lashed to the mast to resist their songs.

The team reportedly said they intended to leave the vessel where it was found, but added that a small piece had been carbon dated by the University of Southampton and claimed the results “confirmed [it] as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind”. The team said the data would be published at the Black Sea MAP conference at the Wellcome Collection in London later this week.

It was among more than 60 shipwrecks found by the international team of maritime archaeologists, scientists and marine surveyors, which has been on a three-year mission to explore the depths of the Black Sea to gain a greater understanding of the impact of prehistoric sea-level changes.

They said the finds varied in age from a “17th-century Cossack raiding fleet, through Roman trading vessels, complete with amphorae, to a complete ship from the classical period”.

The documentary team made a two-hour film that is due to be shown at the British Museum on Tuesday.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/23/oldest-intact-shipwreck-thought-to-be-ancient-greek-discovered-at-bottom-of-black-sea

[This is incredible stuff! I’m keen to see what they learn from this! The 2 worms are from different places. The one worm is 41,700 years old and the other worm, found at a different location is 32,000 years old!]

Here’s the abstract from the science paper:-

Abstract

We have obtained the first data demonstrating the capability of multicellular organisms for longterm cryobiosis in permafrost deposits of the Arctic. The viable soil nematodes Panagrolaimus aff. detritophagus (Rhabditida) and Plectus aff. parvus (Plectida) were isolated from the samples of Pleistocene permafrost deposits of the Kolyma River Lowland. The duration of natural cryopreservation of the nematodes corresponds to the age of the deposits, 30 000–40 000 years.

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0012496618030079

Here’s the full story:-

A pair of nematodes – roundworms – are apparently alive after they were frozen in permafrost for nearly 42,000 years.

Russian scientists said the two prehistoric worms, out of a group of about 300, are moving and eating after they came back to life in a lab at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow, the Siberian Times reported.

One of the worms was found near the Alazeya River in 2015 and is believed to be about 41,700 years old, according to the study published in the Doklady Biological Sciences. They were found about 11.5 feet underground.

The other worm was found in 2002 in a fossil rodent burrow near the Kolyma River. These samples were taken from about 100 feet underground.

Scientists said worms frozen in permafrost in eastern Russia for nearly 42,000 years are alive and eating. (East2West)

The worms were found close to Pleistocene Park, the site of an experimental project to recreate the habitat of the extinct woolly mammoth, according to The Sun.

100 TAPEWORM EGGS FOUND INSIDE BRAIN OF 8 YEAR OLD WITH SEVERE HEADACHES, SEIZURES

“Our data demonstrate the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) cryobiosis under the conditions of natural cryoconservation,” a report provided to Fox News said.

The worms were cultivated in Petri dishes at about 20 degrees Celsius, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit, for several weeks.(East2West)

“It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,” it continued.

Cryobiology is the study of living things at extremely low temperatures.

The worms were cultivated in Petri dishes at about 20 degrees Celsius, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit, for several weeks, the study said.

MASSIVE 18-INCH HAMMERHEAD WORMS ARE INVADING FRANCE

Scientists believe both worms are females, according to a report provided to Fox News.

Nematodes are known for their ability to sustain long periods of time in unfavorable conditions, including in extremely low temperatures, the report said.

They are the oldest living animals currently on the planet, the Siberian Times reported.

The research was conducted by teams from multiple Russian institutions as well as Princeton University in New Jersey.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/science/russian-worms-frozen-for-nearly-42000-years-alive-and-well-scientists-say

[Here are some amazing facts about this dwarf planet: It is 2,000 times further away from the Sun than the Earth! That makes it 2.5 times further away than Pluto. Even crazier, this dwarf planet takes 40,000 years to revolve once around the Sun!]

12 new moons discovered around Jupiter

“This new object has the largest orbit of all the extremely distant objects that stay well beyond Pluto,” Sheppard said. Given its orbit, the Goblin never comes close enough to the giant planets in our solar system to be affected by their gravitational influence.

It joins other objects Sheppard and his team have found on the edge of the solar system since 2012. Their isolation makes them unique. “They can be used as probes to understand what is happening at the edge of our solar system,” Sheppard said.

The researchers were able to detect the Goblin in the first place because they’re using the Japanese Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, one of the largest telescopes in the world and the most powerful survey telescope due to its large field of view.

Given the object’s slow movement along an elongated orbit, it took Sheppard and his team a few years of observing to understand the Goblin and its orbit.

Quest for Planet Nine turns up ‘extreme objects’ on edge of solar system

“We think there could be thousands of small bodies like 2015 TG387 out on the Solar System’s fringes, but their distance makes finding them very difficult,” Tholen said in a statement. “Currently we would only detect 2015 TG387 when it is near its closest approach to the Sun. For some 99 percent of its 40,000-year orbit, it would be too faint to see.”

So if the Goblin is unaffected by the gas giant planets in our solar system, what contributes to its strange orbit? That’s where Planet X comes in.

Like the other objects found by Sheppard and his team on the edge of the solar system, the Goblin behaves in a way that is pushed into a similar orbit by some unseen force.

Based on simulations using the basic parameters they have for Planet X, the researchers say the Goblin acts like it is “shepherded” by the planet but never nears the proposed massive planet. This is similar to why Pluto never gets too close to the gas giant Neptune, although their orbits actually cross.

“These distant objects are like breadcrumbs leading us to Planet X,” Sheppard said. “The more of them we can find, the better we can understand the outer Solar System and the possible planet that we think is shaping their orbits — a discovery that would redefine our knowledge of the Solar System’s evolution.”

Sheppard and his colleagues continue their survey, the largest and deepest ever for distant solar system objects, by observing the northern and southern skies at all times of year.

“We are very uniform in our sky coverage and can find all types of orbits, yet we seem to only be finding objects with similar types of orbits that are on the same side of the sky, suggesting something is shepherding them into these similar types of orbits, which we believe is Planet X,” Sheppard said.

“What makes this result really interesting is that Planet X seems to affect 2015 TG387 the same way as all the other extremely distant Solar System objects. These simulations do not prove that there’s another massive planet in our Solar System, but they are further evidence that something big could be out there,” Trujillo said in a statement.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/02/us/planet-x-search-new-object/index.html