​Discovery of 6,000-year-old human fossils confirms South Asian myths ● Mars was full of microbes, but survived ● Why can’t we tickle ourselves? ● Owning an island was the dream of the rich thousands of years ago

The discovery of 6,000-year-old human fossils confirms South Asian myths

Myths and legends exist everywhere. From time to time some turn out to be genuine. For example, 15 of the 16 indigenous Austronesian groups in Taiwan still maintain legends about a mysterious population of short, dark individuals who once lived in South Asia. The legends, long considered to be mere myths bordering on fiction and truth, have been confirmed by a recent archaeological discovery at the Xiaoma Cave Complex in Taiwan.

Although populations commonly referred to as “negritos” still exist in some areas of South Asia, their presence has not been reported in Taiwan, where they were only mentioned in local myths or occasionally in Chinese chronicles 2,000 years ago. A mixed group of archaeologists from Japan, Vietnam, Australia and Taiwan, however, managed to discover the fossilized remains of a woman who lived about 6,000 years ago, and which show special features of the indigenous Negroes, thus confirming their hypothetical existence.

Interestingly, such people lived in isolated areas of Taiwan, in caves and mountainous areas, until about two hundred years ago. This is if you follow in their material footsteps. It is estimated that the first Austronesian groups entered Taiwan 6,800 years ago, but the earliest evidence of habitation in the area dates back to about 30,000 years ago.

It’s possible, experts say, that the first negritos to enter Taiwan were part of these Pleistocene pioneer groups. Here is further proof, if any was needed, that we know only fragments of what once was, and above all of what human evolution and migrations mean.

Mars would have been full of germs, but he escaped

A team of French researchers reports in the journal Nature Astronomy. These primitive, backward life forms could have thrived in the bowels of Mars until they significantly altered the atmosphere, extracting hydrogen and carbon dioxide respectively, producing methane.

Such major changes, which took place about 4 billion years ago, led to a sharp decrease in the temperature on Mars to about minus 200 degrees Celsius. And so a planet that had oceans, seas, and rivers of liquid water, was teeming with microbial life, and had a warm climate, became a giant frozen ball on which microbes signed their own doom.

During Martian methanogenesis, the methane would have dissipated and some of it would have been lost to space. Despite this, traces of methane were detected in the Martian atmosphere in 2004 by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter mission and then by the Curiosity rover in 2019.

In any case, what the French say is only a hypothesis. Whether this is proven or not, we will know in about ten years, when the rocks collected by the Perseverance rover arrive at NASA, where they will be studied.

Why can’t we tickle ourselves?

If the French turn their eyes to Mars, German researchers from the Humboldt University in Berlin are trying to answer another important question for humanity, namely why we can’t tickle ourselves.

According to the available data, humans are not the only animals that react when they are tickled. Dolphins, dogs, chimpanzees and even mice respond to tickling. But until now, no one has been able to give a clear answer about the mechanisms that determine the reactions in the case of tickling, but, above all, why these reactions disappear when we tickle ourselves.

To do this, 12 volunteers were tested, who apparently tickled each other for scientific purposes, then tickled themselves, and then, even more interestingly, tickled themselves while being tickled by others. It turned out that the feeling of laughter appeared only when they were tickled by other people. Despite the fact that the process occurred simultaneously with the tickling, the sensations were dulled.

And the explanation of the German specialists was unequivocal, accordingly… unknown. Most likely, they argue, the brain inhibits its own tickling. Otherwise, we would never be able to put on socks or scratch certain areas. They blew us away with this explanation, but it’s still more than nothing.

Owning an island was the dream of the rich thousands of years ago

Owning your own island is a dream that only those with a helping hand can enjoy. Please let them enjoy the island, not the dream. Only that this ideal is not yesterday’s, not today’s, but seems to have existed since ancient times. And since they didn’t have boats to take them to unknown heavenly places, representatives of the Scottish and Irish elite built their own islands.

The mentioned artificial islands are called “kranogi”. They were located on lakes, were built 4200-6000 years ago and were inhabited until the 16th century. To date, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of such islands, but their location has complicated excavations.

Thanks to new methods of taking DNA samples from sedimentary layers, a group of archaeologists from UiT University in Norway managed not only to isolate DNA sequences from such places, but also to reconstruct a picture of what happened in the past.

The islands were found to be important places in some communities, most likely inhabited by members of the elite, and also served as a place to store large amounts of food as well as a place for slaughter. Experts say that the slaughter of animals in large quantities can be associated with banquets organized by the islanders, perhaps on the occasion of ceremonies or other important events in the lives of people of that time.

In short, some things have not changed.

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