Humans

Thanks to humans, Salish Sea waters are too noisy for resident orcas to hunt successfully

A northern resident orca initiates a dive while wearing a Dtag temporarily stuck to its back by neoprene suction cups. The waterproof tag contains two underwater microphones, pressure and temperature sensors, triaxial accelerometers and magnetometers to help researchers understand how orcas move through the water and interact with their environment. Image taken under NOAA permit.

Randy Roberie September 11, 2024

Humans are depleting groundwater worldwide, but there are ways to replenish it

Groundwater is an essential but underappreciated resource worldwide. Credit: World Bank, CC BY-ND If you stand at practically any point on Earth, there is water moving through the ground beneath your feet. Groundwater provides about half of the world’s population with drinking water and nearly half of all water used to irrigate crops. It sustains

Tami Ramage January 28, 2024

Robots vs. humans: Which do children trust more when learning new information?

A child watching a robot provide accurate or inaccurate information. Credit: SUTD In this digital age, children are exposed to overwhelming amounts of information online, some of it unverified and increasingly generated by non-human sources, such as AI-driven language models. As children grow older, the ability to assess a source’s reliability is an important skill

Buffy Klemp December 23, 2023

Early humans deliberately made mysterious stone ‘spheroids’

Three limestone “spheroids” from the ‘Ubeidiya site in Israel, which researchers believe were deliberately made into spheres 1.4 million years ago. The early ancestors of humans deliberately made stones into spheres 1.4 million years ago, a study said on Wednesday, though what prehistoric people used the balls for remains a mystery. Archaeologists have long debated

Rubi Paris September 10, 2023

While humans were in strict lockdown, wild mammals roamed further—new research

Japan, May 2020: no humans to be seen. Credit: worldlandscape / shutterstock At one point in 2020, 4.4 billion people—more than half of the world’s population—were under lockdown restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19. This was such a sudden and substantial event that it has become known as the anthropause. Many bustling cities fell

Jeanice Center June 11, 2023

Humans evolved to walk with an extra spring in our step, shows foot arch study

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new study has shown that humans may have evolved a spring-like arch to help us walk on two feet. Researchers studying the evolution of bipedal walking have long assumed that the raised arch of the foot helps us walk by acting as a lever which propels the body forward. But…

Samatha Howe May 30, 2023

Humans were using fire in Europe 50,000 years earlier than previously thought

The control of fire by humans probably developed gradually over thousands of years. Credit: matsiukpavel / Shutterstock Human history is intimately entwined with the use and control of fire. However, working out when our relationship with fire began and how it subsequently evolved has been notoriously difficult. This is partly due to the incomplete nature…

Joan Howe May 21, 2023