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In this week's science news, we revealed evidence of Neanderthals making fire more than 400,000 years ago and explored the possible astronomical origins of the "Star of Bethlehem."
(Image credit: Craig Williams/The Trustees of the British Museum | Getty Images)
It has been an exciting week in science news, with our understanding of human evolution and animal behavior taking interesting turns. But before we dip into matters on Earth, let's look to the skies and see what we've discovered in space.
A bright binary star system could soon light up with the nuclear brilliance of thousands of suns. The star system, called V Sagittae, is giving off brilliant flares before going supernova a century from now. Skywatchers are in for a treat, because the flares will be visible with the naked eye — day or night. Meanwhile, a mysterious X-ray signal from deep space may in fact be the death throes of a star getting ripped to bits by two separate black holes.
Finally, in a bit of out-of-this-world holiday news, Jupiter will be big and bright in the skies this month, making some wonder if it could have been the Star of Bethlehem described in the story of Jesus' birth. We'll never know for sure, but it's unlikely.
Orcas living off the coast of British Columbia have been spotted hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins and sharing scraps of salmon with them after making a kill.
A study released this week shows the two species in this area generally showing few signs of mutual aggression and sometimes even seeking each other out, which is unusual given that orcas hunt dolphins in other locations, while some dolphins mob orcas.
The study authors claim the findings are the first documented recording of cooperative hunting and prey-sharing between orcas and dolphins. However, not all experts agree that the behavior shows these species working together. Instead, it could be a form of kleptoparasitism, in which one animal steals food that another has already hunted.
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In 30 B.C., Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII died by suicide after they were defeated by Octavian's forces in a civil war.
But what if Antony and Cleopatra had defeated Octavian, the man who became Rome's first emperor? Would they have become rulers of Rome? How would history have been different?
The use of fire is often considered one of the key moments in the history of human evolution, but a new study released this week has pushed back previous estimates of when Neanderthals were first able to control it by some 350,000 years.
A naturally occurring mineral called pyrite can be found all around the world, and when struck against flint, produces fire-starting sparks. But the mineral, also known as fool's gold, is extremely rare at an archaeological site in Suffolk, England, from more than 400,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals ruled the land but much earlier than previous evidence of fire making. Its presence at the site suggests it was intentionally brought there, probably with the aim of making fire, the researchers said in the study.
Because of the importance of controlled fire, paleoanthropologists have long debated the timing of this invention. The study's results add fuel to a larger debate about Neanderthals' control of fire and their social and cultural use of it.
Two millennia ago, the Roman Empire reached the limits of its power. The island of Britain marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire and the point at which the ancient superpower's expansion came to a halt.
The Romans launched several invasions and kept 10% of the entire army in the province but failed to conquer the whole island. Instead, a militarized frontier divided the island in two — marked by the 73-mile-long (118 kilometers) Hadrian's Wall, which was the border for nearly 300 years.
One key source of information we've gleaned about this borderland is a historic fort called Vindolanda.New discoveries at Vindolanda are changing the picture of what life was like on the edge of the empire. The Roman frontier was far from a forbidding, "Game of Thrones"-like outpost in the middle of nowhere. Instead, clues point to a vibrant community that was a demographic snapshot of the entire empire. And the site is shining a light on some of the most understudied groups in Roman society.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best polls, interviews and opinion pieces published this week.
This may look like a particularly unassuming rock, but its curious bleaching suggests that its home, Mars, may have once had wet, humid areas with heavy rainfall, similar to tropical regions on Earth.
The rock seen in this photo, taken by NASA's Perseverance rover, appears to be kaolinite, an aluminum-rich type of clay that on Earth almost always forms under very warm, steamy conditions. So how did it form on the cold and dry climate of Mars?
Tia is the editor-in-chief (premium) and was formerly managing editor and senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com, Science News and other outlets. She holds a master's degree in bioengineering from the University of Washington, a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Tia was part of a team at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that published the Empty Cradles series on preterm births, which won multiple awards, including the 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.
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