First mushrooms appeared earlier than previously thought

by Université libre de Bruxelles

Fossilized network of filaments where vestiges of chitin - a very tough compound found in the cell walls of fungi - was detected. Credit: Steeve Bonneville - Université Libre de Bruxelles

According to a new study led by Steeve Bonneville from the Université libre de Bruxelles, the first mushrooms evolved on Earth between 715 and 810 million years ago, 300 million years earlier than the scientific community had believed until now. The results, published in Science Advances, also suggest that mushrooms could have been important partners for the first plants that colonized the continental surface.

The origin and evolution of the kingdom Fungi—more commonly known as mushrooms—are still very mysterious. Only 2 percent of species have been identified, and their delicate nature means fossils are extremely rare and difficult to discern from other microorganisms. Until now, the oldest confirmed mushroom fossil was 460 million years old.

A group of researchers led by Professor Steeve Bonneville, from the Biogeochemistry and Earth System Modelling research unit at the Université libre de Bruxelles has discovered a new mushroom fossil—the oldest to ever be identified from its molecular composition. The results are published in Science Advances.

The fossilized remains of mycelium (a network of interconnected microscopic strands) were discovered in rocks between 715 and 810 million years old—during a time in Earth's history when life on the continents' surface was in its infancy. These ancient rocks, found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and part of the collection of the Africa Museum on Tervuren, formed in a lagoon or coastal lake environment. "The presence of fungi in this transitional area between water and land leads us to believe that these microscopic mushrooms were important partners of the first plants that colonized the Earth's surface around 500 million years ago," explains Steeve Bonneville, professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles and coordinator of the study.

Previous mushroom fossils had been identified only based on the morphology of organic remains extracted from rocks using corrosive acid compounds. "This method damages the chemistry of organic fossils and only allows morphological analysis, which can lead to incorrect interpretations because certain morphological characteristics are common to different branches of living organisms," Bonneville says.

The authors of this new study used multiple molecular analysis techniques at a microscopic scale: synchrotron radiation spectroscopy (XANES, μFTIR), μ-Raman confocal microscopy, fluorescence microscopy (CLSM) and electron microscopy (FIB-TEM-HAADF). Using these techniques, it was possible to study the chemistry of organic remains in situ, without chemical treatment. This enabled the researchers to detect traces of chitin, a very tough compound found in the cell walls of fungi. They also demonstrated that the organisms were eukaryotes, i.e., their cells had a nucleus. "Only by cross- correlating chemical and micro-spectroscopic analyses could we demonstrate that the structures found in the old rock are indeed ~ 800-million-year-old fungal remains," says Liane Benning from GFZ Potsdam.

"This is a major discovery, and one that prompts us to reconsider our timeline of the evolution of organisms on Earth," says Bonneville. "The next step will be to look further back in time, in even more ancient rocks, for evidence of those microorganisms that are truly at the origins of the animal kingdom."

I'm an evolutionary biologist—here's why this ancient fungal fossil discovery is so revealing

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More information: S. Bonneville el al., "Molecular identification of fungi microfossils in a Neoproterozoic shale rock," Science Advances (2020). advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/4/eaax7599

Prehistoric Egg Shells Provide Clues To Dinosaurs’ Evolution From Cold- To Warm-Blooded Creatures

From the time that dinosaur fossils were first discovered, these creatures have fascinated scientists and laypeople alike. In the academic world, their remains provide important clues into the prehistoric world; in popular culture, dinosaurs have inspired blockbuster hits, such as Jurassic Park and King Kong.

Hadrosaur eggshells [Credit: Darla Zelenitsky]
Now, a research team headed by Professor Hagit Affek at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Earth Sciences has unlocked a mystery that has stymied researchers for decades: How did dinosaurs regulate their body temperatures? Were they warm-blooded or cold-blooded?

Affek's study, published in Science Advances, relies on a novel method to measure historical temperatures. Called clumped isotope geochemistry, this method analyzes chemical bonds among heavy isotopes in calcium carbonate minerals--the main ingredient in egg shells. This allows scientists to calculate both the temperature at which the minerals formed and the body temperature of the mother that laid the egg.

Affek and her team applied this method to fossilized eggs from three distinct dinosaur species along the evolutionary path from reptile to bird and found that their body temperature ranged from 35-40 degrees Celsius. However, this bit of information still did not answer the question as to whether dinosaurs were endothermic or exothermic, meaning, did they generate their own body heat or get warm from the sun and their environment?


Dinosaur nesting site in Alberta, Canada [Credit: Darla Zelenitsky]
"The global climate during the dinosaur era was significantly warmer than it is today. For this reason, measuring only the body temperatures of dinosaurs who lived near the equator wouldn't tell us whether they were endo- or exothermic because their body temperature may simply have been a cold-blooded response to the hot climates they lived in," shared Affek.

To address this issue, her team focused on dinosaurs that lived in high latitudes like Alberta, Canada--far enough north to ensure that their warm body temperatures were the result of an internal, metabolic warming process rather than merely reflecting the climate around them.

To verify their hypothesis, Affek and her team needed to determine the environmental temperature in Alberta back when dinosaurs lived. They accomplished this by applying their isotope method to mollusk shells that lived in Alberta alongside the dinosaurs. Since mollusks are cold-blooded creatures, they reflect the ambient climate of the time. The mollusks' body temperature measured 26°C and showed that the dinosaurs living in Alberta were endothermic; otherwise, they could not have maintained a body temperature of 35-40°C.



Dinosaur body temperature comparison chart [Credit: Robin Dawson]
As dinosaurs evolved, they moved from lizard-like (cold-blooded) characteristics to avian (warm-blooded) ones. "We believe that this transformation happened very early on in dinosaurs' evolution since the Mayasaura eggs--a lizard-like dinosaur species that we tested--were already able to self-regulate their body temperature, just like their warm-blooded, bird-like cousins, the Torrdons," explained Affek.

The fact that both of these species, located at opposite ends of the dinosaur evolutionary tree, had body temperatures higher than those of their environment means that both had the ability to warm themselves.

Either way, Mother of Dragons, if your baby is showing a fever of 41 degrees, it's time to call the doctor.

Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem [February 14, 2020]

Human Language Most Likely Evolved Gradually

One of the most controversial hypotheses for the origin of human language faculty is the evolutionary conjecture that language arose instantaneously in humans through a single gene mutation. `

These research studies claim that it is more likely that language evolved gradually, instead of by means
of sudden single mutation [Credit: Cedric Boeckx (University of Barcelona- ICREA-UBICS)]
Two recent publications by researchers at the University of Barcelona (UB), led by Cedric Boeckx, ICREA Research professor from the Section of General Linguistics and member of the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS), question this hypothesis, advocated among others by linguist Noam Chomsky, and suggest that it is more likely that language evolved gradually.

Merge, the cognitive operation key to human language

For decades, several scholars such as Chomsky have proposed that modern humans are genetically equipped with a unique cognitive capacity that specifically allows us to implement computations over hierarchically structured symbolic representations. This capacity is enabled by a formally simple cognitive operation known as Merge, which is the basis of our ability to represent complex grammars in a way that other species cannot.



"Merge is claimed to be sufficient to yield grammatical structure. Put it simple, Merge takes two linguistic units (say, words) and combines them into a set that can then be combined further with other linguistic units, effectively creating unbounded linguistic expressions. These, in turn, are claimed to form the basis for our cognitive creativity and flexibility, setting us aside from other species," said Cedric Boeckx.

"The strongest version of this hypothesis --Cedric Boeckx continued -- suggests that the biological foundation of our modern language capacity is a single genetic mutation, a macromutation, that emerged instantaneously in a single hominin individual who is an ancestor of all modern humans, and spread through the population."

Modelling the single gene mutation hypothesis

In the first paper, published in Scientific Reports -with participation of Cedric Boeckx and researchers from the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and the Max Plank Institute of Psycholinguistics (Netherlands), they examine this hypothesis by modeling the evolutionary dynamics of such a scenario, taking into account different parameters such as how long ago this mutation would have happened and the population size at the time.

"We examine the dynamics of a single, critical, mutation spreading rapidly through a population in a given time window, combining this theoretical proposal with contemporary genetic and demographic findings", said Cedric Boeckx.

In this case, researchers have applied a variety of techniques from theoretical biology to the question of how to quantify the probability of a complex trait like language evolving in a single step, in many small steps, or in a limited number of intermediate steps, within a specific time window and population size.

Researchers concluded that, instead of a single mutation with an extremely large fitness advantage, the most likely scenario is one where higher number of mutations, each with moderate fitness advantages, accumulate. "A scenario in which the genetic bases of our linguistic ability evolved through a gradual accumulation of smaller biological changes. This scenario can be articulated in many different ways, for instance as syntax evolving from phonological form, from rapid manual actions or from much simple pragmatic sequencing of words", said Boeckx.

Challenging the logic of the hypothesis

In the other study, published in PLoS Biology, UB graduate student Pedro Tiago Martins and Cedric Boeckx question this evolutionary hypothesis from a different angle: by going over its logic. Defendants of the single hypothesis claim that Merge, being such a simple operation had to be the result of a single genetic mutation that endowed one individual with the necessary biological equipment for language. In addition, because Merge is either fully present or fully absent --in other words, there cannot be such a thing as half-Merge--, the human language faculty had to emerge suddenly, as the result of this single mutation.

"From the formal properties of Merge, it is not possible to derive of number of evolutionary steps that led to the emergence of Merge. The computational simplicity of Merge does not correlate in any meaningful way to biological simplicity, and that once different levels of organization are taken into account there is no way to derive such simplistic evolutionary scenarios for any complex trait.",said Pedro Tiago Martins. The study highlights that even if a trait, such as the Merge operation, does not manifest itself in intermediate steps, its evolution may very well be gradual.

Researchers explained that the evolution of something as complex as human language deserves integration of results and insights from different corners of the research landscape, namely the fields of neurobiology, genetics, cognitive science, comparative biology, archaeology, psychology, and linguistics. "This is hard because it requires compatible levels of granularity between all fields involved, but it is the only way of achieving meaningful understanding," said Pedro Tiago Martins.

Together, these studies suggest that evolutionary reasoning does not warrant a scenario of sudden emergence of human language by means of a single mutation, and that it is more likely instead that language evolved gradually.

Source: University of Barcelona [February 12, 2020]

Language evolution and complexity considerations: The no ...

https://journals.plos.org › plosbiology › article › journal.pbio.3000389

by PT Martins - ‎2019 - ‎Nov 27, 2019 - Citation: Martins PT, Boeckx C (2019) Language evolution and complexity ... language deserves integration of results and insights from different corners of the research landscape, namely the fields of neurobiology, genetics, cognitive science, comparative biology, archaeology, psychology, and linguistics.

The Curious Case Of The Disappearing Snakes
2/13/2020

The loss of any species is devastating. However, the decline or extinction of one species can trigger an avalanche within an ecosystem, wiping out many species in the process. When biodiversity losses cause cascading effects within a region, they can eliminate many data-deficient species ¬- animals that have eluded scientific study or haven't been researched enough to understand how best to conserve them.

An MSU-led study featured on the cover of this week’s Science magazine should
sound alarm bells regarding the “biodiversity crisis” or the loss of wildlife
around the world [Credit: Andrew Hein]
"Some species that are rare or hard to detect may be declining so quickly that we might not ever know that we're losing them," said Elise Zipkin, MSU integrative biologist and the study's lead author. "In fact, this study is less about snakes and more about the general loss of biodiversity and its consequences."

The snakes in question reside in a protected area near El Copé, Panama. The new study documents how the snake community plummeted after an invasive fungal pathogen wiped out most of the area's frogs, a primary food source. Thanks to the University of Maryland's long-term study tracking amphibians and reptiles, the team had seven years of data on the snake community before the loss of frogs and six years of data afterwards.

Yet even with that extensive dataset, many species were detected so infrequently that traditional analysis methods were impossible. To say that these snakes are highly elusive or rare would be an understatement. Of the 36 snake species observed during the study, 12 were detected only once and five species were detected twice.

"We need to reframe the question and accept that with data-deficient species, we won't often be able to assess population changes with high levels of certainty," Zipkin said. "Instead, we need to look at the probability that this snake community is worse off now than it used to be."

Using this approach, the team, which included former MSU integrative biologists Grace DiRenzo and Sam Rossman, built statistical models focused on estimating the probability that snake diversity metrics changed after the loss of amphibians, rather than trying to estimate the absolute number of species in the area, which is inherently difficult because snakes are so rare.

"We estimated an 85% probability that there are fewer snake species than there were before the amphibians declined," Zipkin said. "We also estimated high probabilities that the occurrence rates and body conditions of many of the individual snake species were lower after the loss of amphibians, despite no other systematic changes to the environment."

When animals die off en masse, such as what is happening with amphibians worldwide, researchers are dealing mainly with that discovery and are focused on determining the causes. But what happens to everything else that relies on those animals? Scientists don't often have accurate counts and observations of the other species in those ecosystems, leaving them guessing to the consequences of these changes. The challenge is exacerbated, of course, when it involves rare and data-deficient species.

"Because there will never be a ton of data, we can't pinpoint exactly why some snake species declined while others seemed to do okay or even prospered after the catastrophic loss of amphibians." Zipkin said. "But this phenomenon, in which a disturbance event indirectly produces a large number of 'losers' but also a few 'winners,' is increasingly common and leads to worldwide biotic homogenization, or the process of formally dissimilar ecosystems gradually becoming more similar."

The inability to put their finger on the exact cause, however, isn't the worst news to come from their results. The truly bad news is that the level of devastation portends to much greater worldwide loss than the scientific community has been estimating.

"The huge die-off of frogs is an even bigger problem than we thought," said Doug Levey, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology. "Frogs' disappearance has had cascading effects in tropical food chains. This study reveals the importance of basic, long-term data. When these scientists started counting snakes in a rainforest, they had no idea what they'd eventually discover."

Zipkin agrees that long-term data is important to help stakeholders ascertain the extent of the issue.

"We have this unique dataset and we have found a clever way to estimate declines in rare species," she said. "It's sad, however, that the biodiversity crisis is probably worse than we thought because there are so many data-deficient species that we'll never be able to assess."

On a positive note, the scientists believe that improved forecasts and modeling could lead to bolstering conservation efforts. Making data-driven, proactive changes can prevent massive die offs and curb biodiversity loss.

The study is published in Science.
Source: Michigan State University [February 13, 2020]

When frogs die off, snake diversity plummets
SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/when-frogs-die-off-snake-diversity.html

Painting Of Deity Found Inside 3,000-Year-Old Egyptian Coffin

2/17/2020 

Three men, one at each end and one at the middle, slowly and gingerly lifted the wooden lid as if handling a giant eggshell. Quietly offering each other direction and status reports, they glided a few steps and placed the lid atop a Styrofoam support structure for safekeeping.

Dennis Piechota (from left), Adam Middleton, and Joe Green work on the coffin of Ankh-Khonsu
with a team at the Semitic Museum [Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer]
Then they looked back at the 3,000-year-old coffin and what was now visible inside: an image of the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra-Horakhty, partially obscured by a thick, tar-like coating.

It "was a heart-stopping moment," said Peter Der Manuelian, Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology and director of the Harvard Semitic Museum, of the discovery his team made last month after opening the coffin of Ankh-khonsu, a doorkeeper in the Temple of Amun-Ra.

The find was a highlight of a week-long research project led by Manuelian and financed by a grant from the Dean's Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship. The goal was to create a complete digital visual record of Ankh-khonsu's coffin, along with two others, which then can be shared with students, researchers, museum visitors, and other enthusiasts. It's also part of a push by the museum to find ways to allow greater access to its collection of antiquities.

The body of Ankh-khonsu had been removed more than 100 years ago when the coffin was brought from Egypt to Cambridge, and the container was reopened about 30 years ago. But for reasons unknown, "there was no modern documentation of the coffin's interior, so we had no idea what to expect, plain wood or an exquisitely painted deity staring back at us," said Manuelian. "It turned out to be the latter, hiding somewhat beneath a layer of resinous material used in the funeral process." The two other coffins, whose former inhabitants were the female temple singer Mut-iy-iy and a priest and metal engraver named Pa-di-mut, had more complete records.

Despite the uneven texture of the area and the dark coating, Manuelian and his colleagues could see the yellow, orange, and blue painting and the hieroglyphs that read "Ra-Horakhty, the great God, Lord of Heaven" next to the figure.

As part of the project, Manuelian assembled an "all-star cast" of conservators, a professional photographer, and pigment sampling and residue and wood analysis experts to collect information and capture imagery of the coffin materials and adornments. Colleagues came from as far away as University College London and from just down the street at the Harvard Art Museums.

Over the course of their work, a dozen people congregated to document and analyze every inch of the artifacts. All three coffins date from Dynasty 22 (945‒712 BCE) and came to the museum from modern-day Thebes, Egypt, between 1901 and 1902. The coffins of Mut-iy-iy and Ankh-khonsu are made of wood, likely sycamore, while that of Pa-di-mut is a cartonnage case made of linen and plaster that was once housed within a wooden box. The closed coffins are displayed on the second floor of the Semitic Museum.

In addition to conservation efforts, assistant curator of collections Adam Aja and students in his co-taught Harvard Extension School course "Museum Collections Care," were on hand to 3-D scan the pieces, while Manuelian produced the camera-based photogrammetry of the coffins: top, bottom, interior, and exterior. The group worked with researcher Mohammed Abdelaziz of Indiana University on an animated and rotatable "first draft" of all three coffins.



The ancient Egyptian sun god Ra-Horakhty is barely visible inside
the coffin of Ankh-Khonsu [Credit: Harvard University]
"The work was timed to coincide with this January term course, and it was the perfect opportunity to involve students in one of our complex, multiphase collections projects," said Aja. "In addition to witnessing all of the stages of preparation and study, they were actively engaged in capturing and producing the digital content."

Consulting conservators Dennis and Jane Piechota, who regularly work with the Semitic Museum and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, ensured that the coffins were removed from their display cases safely, transported to the research room, and laid out properly for photography and scanning.

"It's an honor to work on these artifacts up close, and unusual to be able to touch something so old and containing so much history," said Jane Piechota.

Opening the tops, which had been closed for decades, was a sizeable first hurdle. The Piechotas examined the contact points between lid and coffin for signs of pressure and fusing between the pieces, inserting thin wedges of wood all around the lid to begin the separation and lifting process.

Turning the coffins to photograph and scan them required more dexterity and care, due to the age and delicacy of the artifacts.

The female temple singer Mut-iy-iy had artwork inside her coffin
[Credit: Harvard University]
"Turning over the coffins is petrifying! They're heavy, and if we don't handle them carefully they can be easily damaged," said Dennis Piechota. "Once the lid came off, we looked inside at the construction of the sides and bottom of each coffin. We inspected the joints that keep the wooden pieces together, to make sure they would stay together as we turned them."

Researchers collected fabric, paint, and resin samples, and studied the texts and iconography covering the wooden boxes and ancient plaster cartonnage case, including the black resinous "goo" covering the paintings.

At the same time, Eden Piacitelli and Lauren Wyman, master's degree candidates in museum studies at Harvard Extension School, used a 3-D wireless scanner to capture every detail of the coffins, then used software to create rotatable digital models.



"This was all very new for me, with new technology. I've never been this close to an antiquity before," said Piacitelli. "Being part of the team doing the scanning was most exciting because it's a learning process for everybody. Working with these experts across [different] fields has been very intimidating, but they have been very generous with their time and their knowledge."

The project marked the latest step in the museum's journey to make more of its antiquities accessible to a wider audience (previous digital modeling processes included an augmented reality app to accompany an exhibit of the Dream Stela). Manuelian also directs the Giza Project, an initiative that assembles all the archaeology around the Giza Pyramids, including a virtual reality component.

"Even five years ago, we didn't have these technological developments," said Joseph Greene, deputy director and curator of the museum. "So we wanted to do everything we could to study and record information about these artifacts for the next generation of researchers."

Author: Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite | Source: Harvard University [February 17, 2020]

More Than 16,000 Antiquities Stolen From Turkish-Occupied Cyprus
2/12/2020 

More than 16,000 Christian icons, mosaics and murals dating from to 6th and 5th centuries have been forcibly stolen and sold abroad since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, according to the Director of the Office for Combating Illegal Possession and Trafficking of Antiquities, Michalis Gavriilidis.

Credit: KYPE-CNA
In a lecture he gave on Monday night at the University of Cyprus Archeology Research Unit, Michalis Gavriilidis said that after the Cyprus invasion in 1974, Byzantine artworks were even found in Kyoto, Japan (Fragments of Royal Doors from Peristeronopigi were fund in Kanazawa College of Arts). He added that efforts are being made to repatriate them and he hoped to return to Cyprus soon.

As Gavriilidis pointed out, illicit trafficking of cultural property is one of the most serious forms of crime today. “The annual cost of illicit trafficking and trade of artifacts and cultural goods worldwide is estimated to be more than $ 10 billion,” he said.

“Illegal trafficking of cultural heritage is an international crime that many countries suffer from, including Cyprus, especially after the 1974 Turkish invasion. It is a scourge affecting the countries of origin and the countries of transit and final destination of the stolen works. Just by listing the countries whose cultural heritage has been plundered by traffickers in recent years, the magnitude of the crime will be ascertained: Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq and Cyprus and many more countries all over the world,” he said.

Gavriilidis also noted that the international community had become more sensitive about this issue, especially after the disaster in Palmyra, Syria, which put other countries that had suffered a similar disaster on the spotlight, such as Cyprus. The Council of the European Union, INTERPOL, EUROPOL and other international organizations, such as UNESCO, WCO, etc., have undertaken work in this respect, something which assists our efforts, he noted.

Source: KYPE-CNA [February 12, 2020]

Canaanite Temple Unearthed At Lachish
2/17/2020  

A team of archaeologists led by Professor Yosef Garfinkel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology and Professor Michael Hasel at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee has unearthed a 3,000-year-old Canaanite temple in Tel Lachish National Park.

Aerial view of the newly found temple at Tel Lachish [Credit: Emil Eljem]



In a study published last month in Levant, Garfinkel and his co-authors revealed, for the first time ever, extensive ruins of a Canaanite temple dating to the 12th century BCE that they uncovered in National Park Tel Lachish, a large Bronze Age-era settlement near the present-day Israeli city of Kiryat Gat.



Some of the pottery uncovered in the temple [Credit: C. Amit/IAA]
Lachish was one of the most important Canaanite cities in the Land of Israel during the Middle and late Bronze Ages; its people controlled large parts of the Judean lowlands. The city was built around 1800 BCE and later destroyed by the Egyptians around 1550 BCE. It was rebuilt and destroyed twice more, succumbing for good around 1150 BCE. The settlement is mentioned in both the Bible and in various Egyptian sources and was one of the few Canaanite cities to survive into the 12th century BCE.



Weapons and jewellery found near the temple inner sanctum: beads, earrings, an arrowhead,
a dagger and an axe head [Credit: T. Rogovski]



"This excavation has been breath-taking,” shared Garfinkel. “Only once every 30 or 40 years do we get the chance to excavate a Canaanite temple in Israel. What we found sheds new light on ancient life in the region. It would be hard to overstate the importance of these findings.”



Two ancient figurines found at the temple in Tel Lachish likely represent Baal and Resheph,
deities worshipped by the Canaanites [Credit: T. Rogovski]
The layout of the temple is similar to other Canaanite temples in northern Israel, among them Shechem [Nablus], Megiddo and Hazor. The front of the compound is marked by two columns and two towers leading to a large hall. The inner sanctum has four supporting columns and several unhewn “standing stones” that may have served as representations of temple deities. The Lachish temple is more square in shape and has several side rooms, typical of later temples including Solomon’s Temple.



Bronze cauldron found at Tel Lachish [Credit: T. Rogovski]



In addition to these archaeological ruins, the team unearthed a trove of artifacts including, bronze cauldrons, Hathor-inspired jewellery, daggers and axe-heads adorned with bird images, scarabs, and a gold-plated bottle inscribed with the name Ramses II, one of Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs. Near the temple’s holy of holies, the team found two bronze figurines. Unlike the winged cherubs in Solomon’s Temple, the Lachish figurines were armed “smiting gods”.



An extremely rare find found at Tel Lachish shows a Caananite inscription and the oldest-known
example of the letter “samekh” (highlighted) [Credit: T. Rogovski]
Of particular interest was a pottery sherd engraved with ancient Canaanite script. There, the letter “samek” appears, marked by an elongated vertical line crossed by three perpendicular shorter lines. This makes it the oldest known example of the letter and a unique specimen for the study of ancient alphabets.

Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs [February 17, 2020]

Over 6,000 bodies found in Burundi's mass graves

Reuters•February 15, 2020



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Over 6,000 bodies found in Burundi's mass graves
A Burundian worker from the Ttruth and Reconciliation Commission extracts the skull of an unidentified person from a mass grave in the Bukirasazi hill in Karusi Province

(Reuters) - Burundi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found more than 6,000 bodies in six mass graves in Karusi Province, the largest finding since the government launched a nationwide excavation in January.

The commission chairman Pierre Claver Ndayicariye told journalists on Friday that the remains of 6,032 victims as well as thousands of bullets were recovered. Clothes, glasses and rosaries were used to identify some of the victims.

The tiny East African nation is struggling to come to terms with a violent past, characterized by suffered colonial occupation, civil war and decades of intermittent massacres.

Referring to a massacre which is believed to have targeted people from the Hutu ethnic group, Ndayicariye said families of the victims were able to "break the silence" that was imposed 48 years ago.

Burundi’s population is divided between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups. The civil war - which killed 300,000 people before it ended in 2005 - had ethnic overtones.

The government-run commission was set up in 2014 to investigate atrocities from 1885, when foreigners arrived in Burundi, until 2008, when a stalled peace deal to end the civil war was fully implemented.

So far it has mapped over 4,000 mass graves across the country and identified more than 142,000 victims of violence.

Its mandate does not cover most of the rule of the current president, Pierre Nkurunziza, who took office in 2005.

The United Nations has warned that human rights abuses might increase again ahead of May 2020 elections. Since 2015, when Nkurunziza ran for a third, disputed term in office, hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces.

Young adults support Bernie Sanders because they want to benefit from 'boomer socialism' that older Americans already enjoy

jzeballos@businessinsider.com (Joseph Zeballos-Roig),
Business Insider•February 16, 2020

Bernie Sanders calls out rival Mike Bloomberg
The Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally at the University of Minnesotas Williams Arena on November 3.

Scott Heins/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders is drawing strong support among young voters, particularly those ages 18 to 29, as a result of his pledges to enact universal healthcare and wipe out student debt.

But older voters are mostly absent from the Sanders coalition, and many hold unfavorable views of socialism.

One economist has said older Americans benefit from "boomer socialism."

It's led younger adults to seek a greater share of the economic pie and call for the federal government to widen the social safety net for them.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is solidifying his standing as the frontrunner of the Democratic presidential race after a victory in the New Hampshire primary and a strong finish in the Iowa caucuses. The self-proclaimed democratic socialist seeks to enact universal healthcare in the US, wipe out student debt, and fight climate change.

Combined with promises to take on the political and financial elite, the ambitious proposals are helping generate a wave of enthusiasm among younger voters that's propelling his unabashedly progressive campaign, similar to 2016.

Business Insider recently reviewed exit polls from the New Hampshire primary on February 11, and they indicated that Sanders drew nearly half of voters ages 18 to 29, more than the other four major Democrats on the ballot combined.

But conspicuously missing from his nascent coalition of voters was older Americans, long a force at the voting booth. Exit polls from New Hampshire indicated that Sanders drew only 15% of voters over age 65.

Put simply, older voters aren't flocking to back Sanders in similar numbers as young voters. A CNN poll last month found the Vermont senator's support from registered voters who leaned Democratic to be 31 percentage points higher among those under the age of 45 than it was among those over 65.

Part of the reason is the unpopularity of socialism, which an October Gallup poll found was viewed negatively by two out of three respondents born before 1975. The same poll found young adults' views of capitalism had soured over the past decade, with 47% of those ages 18 to 34 saying they had a positive view of it, compared with 52% who said they had a positive view of socialism.


The rising price tags of healthcare, education, and homeownership have left many young people feeling marginalized from the economy, leading to calls for drastic reform that levels the playing field for them and curbs widening inequality. Sanders has pledged to deliver transformational change that deals with their deepening anxieties.

"Unless we turn this around, young people are going to be on a lower standard of living than their parents," the Vermont senator told the New York Times editorial board. "That means they are leaving school deeply in debt."

He went on: "The jobs they're getting may not necessarily in real dollars be equivalent to what their parents had. They can't afford housing. This is a generation that is struggling, and we have to address that."

Tuition and fees at colleges and universities have grown faster than wages, helping to leave one in three adults in their 20s to pay off student debt. Healthcare costs are swelling, and millennials have long been found to have lower rates of homeownership than their parents' generations.

Sanders has vowed to remake the economy and redistribute its riches through higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for an array of expansive plans. They add up to over $50 trillion in federal spending and would usher in a profound expansion of the welfare state benefiting millions of people.

But Sanders has long struggled with older voters who tend to link socialism with Soviet communism and distrust his platform.

The economist Ed Glaeser, though, has argued that older Americans already benefit from a group of policies he's called "boomer socialism."

"In many cases, there seems to be a sense in which insiders have managed to stack the deck against outsiders," Glaeser told The Wall Street Journal.

Glaeser pointed out that groups of people — like retirees and homeowners — had locked in benefits for themselves and made it more difficult for newcomers, whether young people or immigrants, to obtain similar chances of prosperity.

Here are three federal programs that mostly benefit older Americans, per The Atlantic's Derek Thompson:


Medicare represents a form of single-payer healthcare for people ages 65 and over, insuring almost 60 million Americans, or one in five people in the US.


Social Security is a program that operates similarly to universal basic income, guaranteeing monthly payments to elderly and disabled Americans.


The mortgage-interest deduction cuts a person's tax bill by the amount of interest paid on a home loan. In other words, it's a tax break for homeowners, who skew older.

Young adults are pressing to widen the reach of government benefits to include them. A key reason is that the traditional stepping stones toward a life of prosperity are no longer easy to secure. Higher education, affordable housing, and quality healthcare are out of reach for many.

As Thompson put it, Sanders seeks to expand the "existing social contract" that older people already enjoy to include a new generation of Americans.

Still, the Vermont senator's call for a progressive revolution appears to have its limits.

In this year's New Hampshire primary, the share of Democratic voters ages 18 to 29 dropped from 2016, The Washington Post reported. Turnout was also lower in the disastrous Iowa caucuses.

Whether that trend continues as the primaries head south and west could be decisive for Sanders, who has pinned his presidential ambitions on turning out young adults in record numbers.

Topless dairy industry protesters crashed the stage at a Bernie Sanders rally
Ellen Cranley,Business Insider•February 16, 2020
 
Protesters calling for Sen. Bernie Sanders to cut his support for the dairy industry crashed his Carson City, Nevada rally on Sunday afternoon. One protester grabbed a microphone to say she was Sanders' "biggest supporter" but pleaded that he "stop pumping up the dairy industry." While she was speaking, three topless women took the stage with "let dairy die" written on their chests. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Topless protesters crashed the stage at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday afternoon to protest his involvement with the dairy industry. The Democratic presidential hopeful was taking the microphone from his wife Jane, whom he called "the next first lady," at a rally in Carson City, Nevada. But then protesters took the stage. "Bernie, I'm your biggest supporter, and I'm here to ask you to stop pumping up the dairy industry and to stop pumping up animal agriculture," one protester said. "I believe in you…" she added, before the mic cut out and security appeared to approach her on stage. A tweet with video from the event's livestream tagged activist Priya Sawhney and animal-rights group Direct Action Everywhere. —AJ Jivdaya (@bunnydad_aj) February 16, 2020 Other photos posted online showed at least two topless protesters onstage who appeared to have "LET DAIRY DIE" written on their chests. They also appeared to pour milk on themselves. Sawhney was not arrested, but the three women who were topless were arrested and charged with indecent exposure. They are currently being held on $2,500 bond each, according to a press release from Direct Action Everywhere. "I love Bernie, but we must hold abusive industries accountable, not shield and subsidize them. Animal farming is an industry which gives welfare payments to millionaires," Sawhney said in a statement included in the release. "People are fed up. Like the Sanders campaign itself, animal rights is a burgeoning mass movement." The same release cited their disagreement with Sanders' "decades-long legislative history of protecting the dairy industry," including writing a 2009 amendment providing dairy with $350 million in aid and approving the 2018 Farm Bill, which the group writes "approved over $100 billion in subsidies while rejecting activist requests to prevent handouts to millionaires and billionaires." Sanders didn't seem fazed by the interruption. "This is Nevada, there's always a little bit of excitement at no extra cost," he said, according to the New York Post. Read more:








Protesters calling for Sen. Bernie Sanders to cut his support for the dairy industry crashed his Carson City, Nevada rally on Sunday afternoon.

One protester grabbed a microphone to say she was Sanders' "biggest supporter" but pleaded that he "stop pumping up the dairy industry."

While she was speaking, three topless women took the stage with "let dairy die" written on their chests.

Topless protesters crashed the stage at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday afternoon to protest his involvement with the dairy industry.

The Democratic presidential hopeful was taking the microphone from his wife Jane, whom he called "the next first lady," at a rally in Carson City, Nevada. But then protesters took the stage.

"Bernie, I'm your biggest supporter, and I'm here to ask you to stop pumping up the dairy industry and to stop pumping up animal agriculture," one protester said. "I believe in you…" she added, before the mic cut out and security appeared to approach her on stage.

A tweet with video from the event's livestream tagged activist Priya Sawhney and animal-rights group Direct Action Everywhere.
—AJ Jivdaya (@bunnydad_aj) February 16, 2020

Other photos posted online showed at least two topless protesters onstage who appeared to have "LET DAIRY DIE" written on their chests. They also appeared to pour milk on themselves.

Sawhney was not arrested, but the three women who were topless were arrested and charged with indecent exposure. They are currently being held on $2,500 bond each, according to a press release from Direct Action Everywhere.

"I love Bernie, but we must hold abusive industries accountable, not shield and subsidize them. Animal farming is an industry which gives welfare payments to millionaires," Sawhney said in a statement included in the release. "People are fed up. Like the Sanders campaign itself, animal rights is a burgeoning mass movement."

The same release cited their disagreement with Sanders' "decades-long legislative history of protecting the dairy industry," including writing a 2009 amendment providing dairy with $350 million in aid and approving the 2018 Farm Bill, which the group writes "approved over $100 billion in subsidies while rejecting activist requests to prevent handouts to millionaires and billionaires."

Sanders didn't seem fazed by the interruption.

"This is Nevada, there's always a little bit of excitement at no extra cost," he said, according to the New York Post.