Author name: Yourwellness

During the last ice age – some 100,000 to 15,000 years ago – woolly mammoths were widespread in the northern hemisphere from Spain to Alaska. Due to the global warming that began 15,000 years ago, their habitat in Northern Siberia and Alaska shrank. On Wrangel Island, some mammoths were cut off from the mainland by rising sea levels; that population survived another 7000 years. The last mammoths died out 4,000 years ago. Isolated habitat and extreme weather events, and even the spread of prehistoric man may have sealed the ancient giants’ fate. A study, published in the ‘Quaternary Science Reviews’ shows how isolated small populations of large mammals are particularly at risk of extinction due to extreme environmental influences and human behaviour. An important takeaway from this is that we can help preserve species by protecting the populations that are not isolated from one another.

Tel Aviv University researchers have uncovered evidence of that some 400,000 years ago, early Palaeolithic people saved animal bones for up to nine weeks before feasting on them. Deer leg bones, for instance, were kept at the cave, covered in skin, to facilitate the preservation of nutritious marrow for consumption in time of need. Until recently, it was believed that the Palaeolithic people were hunter gatherers who lived hand-to-mouth, consuming whatever they caught that day and enduring long periods of hunger when food sources were scarce. Says researcher Avi Gopher “We show for the first time that 420,000 to 200,000 years ago, prehistoric humans were sophisticated, intelligent and talented enough to know that it was possible to preserve particular bones of animals under specific conditions, and, when necessary, remove the skin, crack the bone and eat the bone marrow.”

Even with a highly skilled neurosurgeon, and all the other advances of modern medicine, most of us would cringe at the thought of undergoing cranial surgery today. But, according to a study led by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, trepanation, the act of scraping, cutting, or drilling an opening into the skull, was practiced around the world, to treat head trauma, quell headaches, seizures and mental illnesses. It was so expertly practiced in ancient Peru that the survival rate for the procedure during the Incan Empire was about twice that of the American civil war three centuries later. And ancient Peru had better trained, educated and equipped surgeons to treat their soldiers!

Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs on the planet, had an air conditioner in its head, suggest scientists from the University of Missouri, Ohio University and University of Florida. In the past, scientists believed two large holes in the roof of a T. rex’s skull — called the dorsotemporal fenestra — were filled with muscles that assisted with jaw movements. The scientists knew that similar to the T-rex, alligators have holes on the roof of their skulls. Using thermal imaging they examined alligators at a zoological park and found that when it was cooler and the alligators were trying to warm up, the thermal imaging showed big hot spots in these holes in the roof of their skull, indicating a rise in temperature. Yet, later in the day when it was warmer, the holes appeared dark, like they were turned off to keep cool. This is consistent with prior evidence that alligators have a cross-current circulatory system or an internal thermostat, so to speak.