​The famous Mayan calendar is much older than thought ● In Brazil 50,000 years ago, apes, not humans, made stone tools ● The first bee vaccine will soon be on the market ● Chimpanzees have dialects

The famous Mayan calendar is much older than previously thought

The Mayan calendar, which caused quite a stir a decade ago on the grounds that it announced the end of the world on 12/21/2012, would be much older than first thought. And no, it does not portend any Apocalypse. It was just a Hollywood-made marketing campaign (no – 2012), very well thought out by the team, but not so well thought out by the media and the general public.

The information about the true age of the calendar was published in the journal Science and appeared after research conducted by Ivan Sprajc, a Slovenian researcher who analyzed in detail the discoveries made with the Lidar laser system. In collaboration with a group of specialists from the University of Arizona, Sprake managed to discover a repeating pattern in buildings and monuments identified using Lidar in the Guatemalan jungle.

The aforementioned team noted that 90% of the buildings in question are aligned with sunrise on specific dates, namely February 11 and October 29.

The alignment is not coincidental, the researchers say, because there are exactly 260 days between the two dates, as believed by Tsolkin, or the divine calendar. It was used simultaneously with another calendar, the Haab calendar, which counted 365 days, or the civil calendar. Along with them, a third was also used – the Great Count, which calculated years.

The oldest evidence of the use of these calendars dates back to 2,300 years ago, but the newly analyzed buildings are about 3,100 years old, and Spreitz and his colleagues believe that their placement is not a coincidence, but clear evidence that they were used long ago. before their supposed origin. In fact, it would have been invented long before the earliest written evidence of it, which does not exist.

50,000 years ago, monkeys, not humans, made stone tools in Brazil

Disappointment for some, revelation for others, but it is undeniable that the appearance of Homo sapiens in Brazil is not as early as was believed. The fact that people appeared in northeastern Brazil as early as 50,000 years ago is confirmed by the discovery of more than 800 archaeological sites, collectively known as Pedro Furada.

They offered not only rock paintings about 12,000 years old, but also stone tools, the age of which was estimated at about 20,000-50,000 years. This would radically change the idea of ​​the expansion of Homo sapiens, especially since they would have reached Brazil and not Europe from Asia and Africa.

Well, it seems it was all just misinformation. While studying the behavior pattern of capuchin monkeys, archaeologist Agustin Agnolin and paleontologist Federico Agnolin, two Argentinian researchers, noticed that the stones used by the monkeys to crack nuts were identical to those found at the Pedro Furada sites.

Coupled with the fact that there are no hearths or animal remains that indicate a human presence, the two experts concluded that the so-called artifacts are actually nothing more than the creations of monkeys that cracked nuts about 50,000 years ago.

According to the cited study, the human presence in Brazil remains confirmed in the old parameters, i.e. 13,000-14,000 years ago. As for capuchin monkeys and their ability to use stones as tools, it appears that more work needs to be done to determine the origins of this behavior pattern.

Soon, the first vaccine against bees will appear on the market

It is a well-known fact that the number of bees around the world is drastically decreasing. Be it insecticides, pollution, disease, invasive species attacking them, bees have greatly reduced their numbers and the consequences of their possible disappearance would be catastrophic.

However, the American company Dalan Animal Health claims to have created a vaccine capable of stopping at least one of the diseases that have wreaked havoc on the bee population. The disease is caused by a bacterium called paenibacillus larvae, which has been found to mainly infect larvae.

Once it infects the colony, it is impossible to get rid of it. All you can do is set the entire colony on fire, including the bees, and hope the bacteria hasn’t already spread to other colonies.

The creators of the vaccine claim that it can prevent infection, increase bee immunity and protect future larvae. It must be introduced into the queen’s food, and from there it is quickly absorbed. For now, the vaccine will only be sold in the US, but if things go well, it will go global.

However, by then, it is estimated that some countries could lose up to 30% of their crop or fruit tree yields due to a drastic decline in bee populations. Indicative statistics: from 1962 to the present, their number has decreased by almost 90%.

Chimpanzees have dialects

Although it was believed that animals, primates and chimpanzees, can communicate without problems, even if they come from different parts of the globe, it seems that, at least in the case of the mentioned primates, differences in the level of communication are present, just like in humans. .

Well, not quite like humans, since chimpanzees are not capable of clear language, but it is clear that there are differences between groups, and that the signals they send to each other can be incomprehensible to members of another group.

Several researchers from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, analyzed the behavior pattern of chimpanzees from two different communities in Uganda. Thus, a study published by them in the journal Scientific Report shows us that observed groups use different gestures to express the same things.

Gestures are widely used in chimpanzee communities. They can beg for food, interact with each other, maintain group hierarchies, etc. However, for the first time, differences between the ways of gestural communication of members of different groups were revealed.

For example, chimpanzees tear or change leaves to send messages to each other. Although the behavior is universal, differences can be seen at the group level. That is, not everyone breaks or modifies them in the same way. Be that as it may, they have a different pattern, that is, local dialects. SR!

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