These 400,000-Year-Old Mammoth Tusks Carved by Early Humans May Be the Oldest Evidence of Prehistoric Intelligence

Ancient tusk fragments hint at early social learning 400,000 years ago

byTudor Tarita
April 24, 2025

 ZME Science 

The ivory fragments show signs of manipulation by early humans. Credit: Vadim N. Stepanchuk

In the plains of western Ukraine, researchers digging through ancient soil found a handful of small, broken pieces of ivory that might change how we think about early humans.

The fragments—24 in total—came from the tusks of a long-extinct mammoth species. Most were unremarkable at first glance. But as scientists studied them more closely, they noticed patterns and shapes that didn’t seem like they had been accidentally broken.

Some pieces had been chipped in a way that looked deliberate, shaped with a level of care usually seen in stone toolmaking. And that’s what caught their attention.

“We had never seen or heard of ivory artifacts from the Lower Palaeolithic,” Dr. Vadim Stepanchuk, a Ukrainian archaeologist leading the study told the Smithsonian Magazine.

What followed was a long investigation that’s now raising big questions about what early hominins were capable of—long before modern humans appeared.
Ivory, Not Stone

The site, known as Medzhibozh A and located in the Southern Bug Valley about 300 kilometers South of Kyiv, has yielded flint, quartz tools, and the bones of long-extinct creatures: horses, woolly rhinos, large wild cats. But it was the ivory that caught researchers off guard.

“The discovery was indeed unexpected,” Stepanchuk told IFLScience. “We had never seen or heard of ivory artifacts from the Lower Palaeolithic.”

Ivory is softer than stone. It chips, it wears down, and it doesn’t hold a cutting edge. Yet at Medzhibozh A, at least 14 ivory fragments bear the unmistakable signs of human—or rather, pre-human—modification. Researchers identified flake scars, pointed shapes, even a core, all shaped with techniques typically used in stone knapping. One method, known as “bipolar-on-anvil,” involves placing the material on a rock and striking it with another to remove flakes.

This kind of shaping is deliberate. Skilled. Purposeful. And it predates the previous oldest ivory objects by nearly 300,000 years.

Not Quite Tools

Despite the craftsmanship, the pieces don’t appear to have been functional tools.

“We hesitate to call them ‘tools’ in the functional sense,” Stepanchuk told New Scientist. “The lack of any clear practical or technological function suggests these objects may reflect a different kind of activity.”

So what were they?

The scientists propose several possibilities. Perhaps these fragments were used as training tools, made by elders to teach children how to knap. Their shapes mimic real tools, but their fragility makes them useless for real work.

Alternatively, they could have served as early prototypes—an experiment in using a novel material, possibly because good stone was hard to come by. Or maybe, like a child’s crayon drawing pinned to a fridge, they were created not for utility, but out of a desire for expression or imitation.

Gary Haynes, a retired anthropologist at the University of Nevada, who was not involved in the study, said: “If the interpretations are correct, they add to an apparently increasing appreciation of the intelligence of pre-modern humans.”
A Different Kind of Intelligence

If these artifacts were made intentionally, they point to the overlooked intelligence of early hominins—likely Homo heidelbergensis, although no human fossils have yet been found at the site.

“The study of the ivory began without a specific hypothesis,” said Stepanchuk. “But their unusual characteristics, indicative of intentional modification, prompted closer examination.”

To test the theory further, researchers may turn to modern elephants. By analyzing how tusks break during natural behavior, like fights, they can compare those patterns with the ivory from Ukraine. If the differences are stark, it will strengthen the case for human craftsmanship.

Pieces on the left, dated to around 400,000 years old, look similar to pieces on the right, around 120,000 years old. The pieces are all small, as compared to a Canadian dollar. Credit: Vadim N. Stepanchuk

Until now, the earliest known ivory artifacts came from the Upper Paleolithic, between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. A few objects shaped by Neanderthals date to around 120,000 years ago. If confirmed as deliberate, the Medzhibozh ivory fragments push that date back to 400,000 years—deep into the Lower Paleolithic.

It means that even then, some communities experimented, adapted, and taught.

“Even at this early stage, hominins may have engaged in what might be described as imitative or socially motivated activities,” Stepanchuk said.

Perhaps, around a prehistoric campfire, someone picked up a broken tusk and showed a child how to shape it, prehistoric school.

And if so, it may be evidence of one of the earliest lessons ever taught.

The findings were reported in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

16,000-Year-Old Dog-Like Skeleton Found in France Raises Haunting Questions

Cared for like a companion, or killed like prey?

\byTudor Tarita
April 24, 2025
ZME Science 
Edited and reviewed by Mihai Andrei

At some point in the late Ice Age, in the depths of a cave in southern France, a dog-like creature met a violent end. Its skeleton, astonishingly well-preserved, would lie undisturbed for millennia—until a team of spelunkers stumbled upon it in 2021. Now, the bones from Baume Traucade are raising provocative questions about how far back the human-canine bond truly stretches—and what it originally looked like.

The animal in question was a female canid, roughly 26 kilograms in weight and about 62 centimeters tall at the shoulder. The skeleton was well preserved, allowing Mietje Germonpré, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, to compare it with those of fossil and modern wolves and dogs.

Those comparisons, laid out in a paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews, point to a surprising conclusion: the Baume Traucade canid shows strong morphological resemblance to a group known as Palaeolithic dogs—early domesticated or semi-domesticated animals that coexisted with Ice Age humans. Yet the story doesn’t end there.

Artists’ rendering of Palaeolithic dogs in human settlements. Credit: John James Audubon & John Bachman

An Uneasy Alliance

Unlike most prehistoric canid finds—which typically consist of a jawbone here, a partial skull there—the Baume Traucade skeleton is almost entirely intact. That rarity gave researchers a unique chance to study the individual as a whole. Analyses of its cranial and limb measurements strongly confirm that the animal belonged within the Paleolithic dog group, with a confidence level topping 96%.

Researchers believe these dogs, which spread from Belgium to Russia, are part of an early and still poorly understood stage of domestication. They are not necessarily the ancestors of modern dogs, but they do bear telltale signs of human influence. These include smaller body size and shorter, broader snouts—traits associated with selective pressures found in human settlements.

“Palaeolithic humans began to collect wolf pups from dens and raise them at home as ‘pets’ in a tamed state,” Loukas Koungoulos, an archaeozoologist at the University of Western Australia, who was not involved in the study, told New Scientist. He suggests that this may have started during the Last Glacial Maximum, when humans and wolves increasingly shared the same ecological spaces.

Indeed, the Baume Traucade canid seems to have lived a life closely entangled with people. Several of its vertebrae had been broken but later healed—evidence, researchers believe, that it received care after being injured.
A Violent End

But care, it seems, did not guarantee protection. The skeleton also revealed two circular puncture wounds on one of its shoulder blades—unhealed at the time of death. According to Koungoulos, “Punctures to the scapula have been observed in hoofed animals hunted during the Mesolithic to early historic times, suggesting that people aimed their projectiles—spears and arrows—at this part of the body.”

The implication is chilling. Humans struck down this animal.

“It is feasible that the individual obtained [its] injuries from being beaten or struck by people,” Koungoulos adds.

The wounds tell a conflicted story. On one hand, there’s the possibility of companionship—an animal cared for through sickness or injury. On the other, the unmistakable signs of lethal violence.

Why was the animal killed? Was it an act of ritual, necessity, or cruelty? These are questions Germonpré and her team hope to explore in future work, including genomic analyses that may reveal whether this Palaeolithic dog was closely related to modern breeds or belonged to an extinct lineage.

The skull of the newly discovered Palaeolithic dog. 

Credit: Jean-Baptiste Fourvrel.

Rewriting the Origins of Domestication

This skeleton joins a sparse but growing list of similar finds across Europe. The Baume Traucade canid dates to just after the Last Glacial Maximum, placing it among the earliest post-Ice Age animals associated with humans. Paleontologists have unearthed comparable remains at sites in France, Germany, and Spain, but few are as complete.

Until now, much of what scientists knew about early dog domestication came from fragmented remains and speculative reconstructions. This discovery offers something different: a full-body portrait of prehistoric man’s best friend.

While still unclear whether these ancient dogs were truly domesticated in the modern sense, they were certainly not entirely wild. They stood at a threshold—no longer wolves, not yet Labradors. The tragic story of this dog offers an important piece of the puzzle.

Cats Came Bearing Gods: Religion and Trade Shaped the Rise of the Domestic Cat in Europe

Two groundbreaking studies challenge the old narrative that cats followed early farmers into Europe.

byMihai Andrei
April 24, 2025
ZME Science

Image credits: Chris Barbalis.

For decades, scientists believed the domestic cat first wandered into European life alongside the continent’s early farmers. But two sweeping genetic studies now suggest something more complex — and more fascinating. Our adorable fluffy companions may be the result not of pragmatic pest control but of religious reverence and Mediterranean trade.

A pair of new investigations, one led by Sean Doherty and colleagues from the University of Exeter and another by Claudio Ottoni’s team at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, have redrawn the ancient map of feline history. Together, they overturn long-held assumptions about how and when cats entered Europe.

Surprisingly Recent Events

For years, the tale of how cats became our purring companions went something like this: thousands of years ago, wildcats slinked into early farming villages in the Middle East, drawn by mice feasting on stored grain. Humans, in turn, tolerated the cats’ company—and even tossed them the occasional scrap. It was a classic case of mutual convenience, the thinking went. Cats handled the vermin, humans provided shelter, and before long, the felines had earned a spot by the fire. It was a tidy, practical story.

But it’s probably wrong.

For years, archaeologists pointed to a 9,500-year-old grave in Cyprus, where a cat was buried near a human, as the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It fit neatly with the idea that cats were attracted to Neolithic settlements for their rodent-rich grain stores, gradually taming themselves in the process.

But “our results do not support a Neolithic origin for domestic cats,” Doherty’s team writes. Their work shows that the animal in Cyprus may have been a European wildcat brought over from Anatolia — not a tamed African wildcat as long assumed. “Instead, our results suggest that the closening of human-cat relationships occurred more recently, in the first-millennium BCE. This timeframe suggests that Egypt was the locus of domestication, especially in light of the cultural evidence.”

Ottoni’s group reached the same conclusion. Their genome-wide analysis of cat remains from 225 archaeological sites found no trace of true domestic cats in Neolithic Europe. Cats with the “domestic” mitochondrial signature IV-A, they report, were in fact European wildcats that had interbred with African wildcats in the distant past.

In other words, cats didn’t sneak into Europe as freeloaders in Neolithic barns. They marched in with empires — and with gods.

“I see no god here but myself” — this cat, probably. Image via Unsplash.

Bastet’s Children

The turning point in the cat’s story appears to come in the first millennium BCE. That’s when depictions of the Egyptian goddess Bastet began to shift. Once shown with a lion’s head, Bastet evolved into a goddess with the face of an African wildcat. Around the same time, temples began mummifying millions of cats as religious offerings.

“This would have provided the context for the tighter relationship between people and cats that led to the wildcat’s domestication, motivated by their newly acquired divine status,” writes Doherty’s team.

Religion has often propelled animal dispersal. The cults of Artemis and Diana helped spread fallow deer. Chickens were tied to Roman and Persian gods. So it’s plausible that sacred cats traveled with the cult of Bastet, hitching rides with Phoenician traders, Egyptian pilgrims, and later, Roman conquerors.

Ottoni’s analysis bolsters this view. They found that the first wave of domestic cats entered Europe not with early farmers but with Roman legions and merchants. The oldest fully domestic European cat in their study dates to just before the Common Era, from Mautern, Austria — an imperial frontier town.

Once inside Europe, cats spread fast. Doherty’s data trace successive waves of feline migration — first from Egypt, later from Romanized North Africa, and finally with Viking traders from Scandinavia. Each wave carried distinct mitochondrial DNA signatures, allowing researchers to track the flow of genes and geography alike.

By the 4th century BCE, domestic cats had reached Britain. At Gussage All Saints, archaeologists uncovered five kitten skeletons buried together, likely a deliberate human act. “The genetic result appears to confirm their original identification as domestic cats,” the authors note. One even left its paw print in a clay pot — perhaps a mischievous gesture that’s become an ancient artifact.

By the Viking Age, cats with a new genetic haplogroup, IV-D, show up in York, Orkney, and even Galway, Ireland. The Norse carried cats on their ships to control rats, but they also revered them as companions of the goddess Freyja. White cat fur, a symbol of her blessing, was prized enough to encourage selective breeding.
Affecting Wildcats

The rise of the domestic cat may have come at a cost to Europe’s native wildcats.

Ottoni and Doherty both document a sharp decline in European wildcats starting in the Roman period — centuries before habitat loss or hunting peaked. Competition, disease, and hybridization with domestic cats all likely played a role.

“Archaeological evidence suggests that the decline in wildcat abundance began earlier than previously believed,” Doherty’s team writes. And that shift was likely accelerated by the domestic cat’s arrival.

Today, wildcats face extinction across much of Europe, their genetic legacy muddled by interbreeding. These studies provide a crucial baseline for conservation, showing how hybridization began thousands of years ago — and how complex the human-animal bond truly is.

They also remind us that domestication isn’t always about utility. Sometimes, animals become sacred. Sometimes, they spread not because they help us farm, but because they help us pray.

So, the next time your cat knocks a cup off the table, consider this: it’s not just a house pet. It’s the descendant of an ancient god.

Journal References:

The dispersal of domestic cats from Northern Africa and their introduction to Europe over the last two millennia

Redefining the timing and circumstances of cat domestication, their dispersal trajectories, and the extirpation of European wildcats
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Mihai Andrei
Dr. Andrei Mihai is a geophysicist and founder of ZME Science. He has a Ph.D. in geophysics and archaeology and has completed courses from prestigious universities (with programs ranging from climate and astronomy to chemistry and geology). He is passionate about making research more accessible to everyone and communicating news and features to a broad audience.

Around one-quarter of those who meditate experience unpleasant symptoms — we don’t know why

The subconscious is long and full of terrors.

byAlexandru Micu
ZME Science 





About a quarter of those trying meditation report having at least one ‘particularly unpleasant’ psychological experience regarding this practice.

Image credits Sasin Tipchai.


Meditation gets a lot of attention these days, and there is some data to support their beneficial effect. But it’s not all mantras and roses, a new study found — a sizeable chunk of those who try their hand at the practice reported experiencing unpleasant effects.

The deep within


“These findings point to the importance of widening the public and scientific understanding of meditation beyond that of a health-promoting technique,” says first author Marco Schlosser, a researcher at the University College London (UCL) Division of Psychiatry.

“Very little is known about why, when, and how such meditation-related difficulties can occur: more research is now needed to understand the nature of these experiences. When are unpleasant experiences important elements of meditative development, and when are they merely negative effects to be avoided?”


These ‘particularly unpleasant’ experiences include feelings of fear and distorted emotions, the team reports. People who only practice deconstructive types of meditation — for example Vipassana (insight) and Koan practice (used in Zen Buddhism) — were more likely to experience such effects, as were those with higher levels of repetitive negative thinking, the team reports. However, female participants and those with religious beliefs were less likely to go through an unpleasant meditation-related experience.

The team used an online survey through which they questioned 1,232 people across the world who had at least two months’ meditation experience. Researchers at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, also participated in the study. They wanted to understand why some people experience unpleasant psychological effects during meditative practice — a trend illustrated by a growing number of research reports and case studies, they add. A collection of traditional Buddhist texts also tell of similar experiences in practitioners of yore, which further piqued the team’s interest.

Participants were asked whether they have “ever had any particularly unpleasant experiences (e.g. anxiety, fear, distorted emotions or thoughts, altered sense of self or the world), which you think may have been caused by your meditation practice?” They were also asked about how long they’ve been practicing meditation, the frequency with which they practice, whether or not they had attended a meditation retreat at any point in their life, and what form of meditation they practiced (attentional, constructive, or deconstructive). They also completed measures of repetitive negative thinking and self-compassion.

The results

Of the 1,232 participants:25.6% said that they had previously encountered particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences.
More male participants experienced a particularly unpleasant experience than female participants (28.5% vs 23% ).
More of those who did not have a religious belief had a particularly unpleasant experience, compared to those who had a religious belief (30.6% vs 22%).
29.2% of the participants who practiced only deconstructive types of meditation reported a particularly unpleasant experience, compared to 20.3% who only engaged in other meditation types.
29% of those who had been on a meditation retreat (at any point in life) had a particularly unpleasant experience, compared to 19.6%, who had never been on a retreat.


“Most research on meditation has focused on its benefits, however, the range of meditative experiences studied by scientists needs to be expanded,” Schlosser adds.

“It is important at this point not to draw premature conclusions about the potential negative effects of meditation. Longitudinal studies will help to learn when, for whom, and under what circumstances these unpleasant experiences arise, and whether they can have long-term effects. This future research could inform clinical guidelines, mindfulness manuals, and meditation teacher training.”


It’s important to note that the present study doesn’t provide any indication of what these ‘unpleasant experiences’ were. In other words, it doesn’t have any way to quantify their severity and impact — which is a common limitation of self-reported data. Furthermore, the team writes that their inclusion of a list of specific examples (i.e., anxiety, fear, distorted emotions or thoughts, altered sense of self or the world) in the questionnaire may have biased participants’ responses towards recalling these particular experiences over others. The study also didn’t assess possible pre-existing mental health problems, which could have confounded the prevalence estimate of particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences.

In less-fancy, less-science speak, this study cannot and should not be used as an indication that meditation caused these unpleasant experiences. However, it does show that the two can go hand-in-hand, and do so for a meaningful number of participants. Exactly why, how, and what that means, however, is something we still have to work to understand.

The paper “Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations” has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Bridging Science and Humanity: Yuri Milner’s Eureka Manifesto as a Blueprint for Our Cosmic Future

byAlexandra Gerea
 April 24, 2025
in Book Reviews
ZME Science 

Credit: Yuri Milner.

Global divisions and existential challenges threaten humanity’s progress at precisely the moment when unified purpose is most needed. Against this backdrop, Yuri Milner’s Eureka Manifesto presents a transformative vision—positioning scientific advancement as the universal language that can unite our fractured world.

Through this profound work, Yuri Milner, the tech investor turned science philanthropist, articulates how our shared cosmic curiosity can transcend artificial boundaries of nationality, culture, and ideology. His blueprint offers pathways not just for technological advancement but for extending our species’ existence far beyond its expected lifespan.

This vision isn’t merely theoretical—as founder of the Breakthrough Prize, the Breakthrough Initiatives, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, and Tech For Refugees, Milner has translated philosophical aspiration into concrete programs with global impact.

Yuri Milner’s Cosmic Awakening

The manifesto presents a striking vision: humanity might represent just a fragment of the cosmos, but we are an extraordinary one. As far as we currently know, we are either the only—or one of very few—civilizations capable of investigating and comprehending the universe. Through our intelligence and curiosity, we have the power to awaken the cosmos from its long sleep, to document its past, and to help shape its future.

This perspective transforms our role from passive inhabitants of a small planet to active participants in the universe’s story. Whether we were “chosen” for this role doesn’t matter—we find ourselves here, now, with the unique ability to peer across space and time, to understand what we see, and to pass this knowledge on to future generations.

Yuri Milner demonstrates his commitment to this responsibility through concrete actions. The Breakthrough Initiatives represent humanity’s most ambitious attempt to search for other conscious beings in the cosmos, scanning millions of stars and hundreds of galaxies for signs that we might not be alone in our cosmic awakening. These initiatives exemplify how Milner has translated the philosophical vision of his Eureka Manifesto into practical scientific programs with global impact.

The Three Fundamental Themes

Eureka Manifesto centers on three fundamental themes that shape humanity’s path forward: exploration beyond Earth, unity in science, and a shared vision for the future. Each component builds upon our unique position as possibly the only beings capable of investigating and understanding the universe.

Exploration Beyond Earth

The manifesto frames space exploration not just as an adventure but as humanity’s destiny. Yuri Milner articulates a compelling vision where our species’ natural curiosity and drive to explore find their ultimate expression in the cosmic frontier. This vision recognizes that just as our ancestors ventured across oceans and continents, our generation must now chart a course across the stars.

Through initiatives like the Breakthrough Initiatives, Yuri Milner has already begun translating this vision into action. This ambitious program encompasses multiple projects aimed at pushing the boundaries of space exploration, from searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence to developing new technologies for interstellar travel. Programs like Breakthrough Listen, which conducts the world’s largest search for extraterrestrial intelligence, demonstrate how Milner’s philosophical framework in the Eureka Manifesto translates into practical scientific endeavors.
Unity in Science

The Universe faces consistent threats, some natural and some self-generated. From asteroid collisions to global war, bioterrorism, and climate change, these threats pose risks to our entire species. If humanity comes together to share in a mission prioritizing our Universe, our self-generated threats can fall away.


The manifesto suggests that our role as cosmic investigators requires us to move beyond short-term thinking and petty conflicts. When we truly grasp our position as the universe’s conscious observers, our earthly divisions begin to seem increasingly arbitrary. This realization could help us address the existential threats we face, from asteroid impacts to climate change, bioterrorism, and global warfare.
A Shared Vision for the Future

Exploring beyond our planet may feel like an overwhelming task. Where should we begin? Milner has mapped out a five-part plan of action to get humanity on its way, thriving and evolving in harmony with the Universe.
The Five-Part Action Plan

At the heart of Eureka Manifesto lies a practical five-step plan for advancing humanity’s cosmic mission:Invest resources into fundamental science and space exploration: Fundamental research is most fertile for discoveries and technologies. Because of this, Milner suggests we start investing our resources here.
Make use of AI to accelerate scientific progress: As AI improves, this could shave years off research processes, unveiling the Universe’s secrets much quicker.
Treat scientists as heroes, making sure they have a public presence: Since Stephen Hawking passed away, it’s difficult for many of us to even name the world’s current biggest scientists. If we celebrate the people who are changing the world, we’ll encourage the next generation to follow in their footsteps.
Provide education on the Universal Story: We currently teach fragmented elements of the Universe. If we teach the full Universal Story — the history of Earth and humanity at the intersection of science and technology — we will give children the bigger picture. Using art to teach would be especially helpful here. When science isn’t always accessible, art can express concepts of the Universal Story in ways that inspire and resonate.
Encourage everyone to contribute to a shared knowledge pool: Only a few individuals will make pioneering discoveries that change our understanding of the Universe forever. However, we need everyone to contribute for these discoveries to be made. When we cultivate a society where everyone values critical thinking, rational argument, and knowledge, we can create a new Enlightenment.

Real-World Implementation of Yuri Milner’s Vision

The blueprint’s practical application is already visible through several major initiatives founded by Yuri Milner and supported through his Giving Pledge commitment. The Breakthrough Prize, often called the “Oscars of Science,” celebrates scientific achievement through televised award ceremonies featuring A-list celebrities. The 2024 laureates received recognition for advancing treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis, and Parkinson’s disease, while others expanded human knowledge in quantum field theories and differential geometry.


The Breakthrough Junior Challenge exemplifies the manifesto’s educational vision, encouraging teenagers worldwide to create engaging videos explaining complex scientific concepts. Winners receive life-changing prizes, including college scholarships, school science labs, and substantial rewards for inspiring teachers. In 2024 alone, over 2,300 teenagers from more than 200 countries submitted nearly 30,000 videos, demonstrating the global reach of Milner’s educational initiative.

These scientific programs align with broader humanitarian goals, as demonstrated by Tech For Refugees, which applies technological innovation to address global challenges. Founded by Yuri Milner and other tech leaders, this initiative funds leading technology organizations to advance refugee relief efforts through education, information access, logistics, and direct support services.
Technology as a Bridge

The manifesto recognizes that technology serves as our bridge to cosmic understanding. From the telescopes of the Breakthrough Initiatives to the humanitarian innovations of Tech for Refugees, technological advancement enables us to both explore the cosmos and address immediate human needs. This dual purpose reflects the manifesto’s vision of harmonizing our cosmic mission with our earthly responsibilities.


While acknowledging technology’s potential pitfalls, the Eureka Manifesto presents an optimistic view of how technological advancement can bring people together. This vision is exemplified by initiatives like Tech for Refugees, which harnesses innovation to address humanitarian challenges and demonstrate how technology can be deployed for the greater good.

Milner’s manifesto emphasizes that technological progress should serve human connection rather than replace it. By focusing on how scientific advancement can address shared human challenges, the manifesto presents a framework for using technology to strengthen the bonds between people and communities.
Looking to the Stars, Grounded in Humanity

Perhaps most powerfully, the Eureka Manifesto connects humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos with our need to better understand ourselves. Yuri Milner argues that when we look to the stars, we gain perspective on our shared identity as inhabitants of Earth. This cosmic viewpoint naturally encourages us to think beyond our immediate differences and consider our common destiny as a species.

The manifesto suggests that our ability to investigate the universe might be the key to extending humanity’s existence far beyond its expected lifespan. By embracing our role as cosmic investigators, we might secure not just our survival but our flourishing as a species among the stars.


This vision of humanity’s future carries profound philosophical implications. We are not merely inhabitants of Earth but potential guardians of cosmic consciousness. Our investigations could represent the universe’s first attempts to understand itself, to document its own history, and to consciously influence its future development.
A Call to Action

The Eureka Manifesto’s message is ultimately one of hope and possibility. Yuri Milner presents a future where scientific advancement serves as the foundation for human unity—where our shared curiosity about the universe brings us together in ways that transcend traditional divisions.

As we face an uncertain future, the manifesto’s call for scientific collaboration and shared purpose becomes increasingly relevant. It reminds us that our greatest achievements come not from competition but from cooperation, not from division but from unity, and not from fear but from curiosity about the unknown.

Through this visionary work, Yuri Milner invites us all to participate in humanity’s greatest adventure: the quest to understand our universe and our place within it. In doing so, he presents a compelling case for how science can serve not just as a tool for technological progress, but as a beacon of hope for human unity and collective advancement.


The path forward requires us to think both globally and cosmically, using our understanding of the universe to inform our approach to Earth’s problems while using our earthly challenges to drive innovation for space exploration. In this way, we can turn our greatest challenges into opportunities for advancement, unity, and discovery.

As Yuri Milner continues to implement his vision through the Breakthrough Prize, Breakthrough Initiatives, Breakthrough Junior Challenge, and Tech For Refugees, we see the Eureka Manifesto’s philosophy transforming from abstract ideals into concrete actions that advance human knowledge, inspire future generations, and address pressing global challenges. This comprehensive approach to philanthropy, grounded in Milner’s Giving Pledge commitment, demonstrates how one visionary’s blueprint can catalyze transformative change across multiple dimensions of human endeavor.

 

Cybersecurity educators should share resources to teach students important technical and non-technical skills

One-semester class can train for the workplace

Carnegie Mellon University

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The complex and evolving nature of the cyber domain requires that cybersecurity professionals have both technical skills and social intelligence. In a new article, researchers argue that cybersecurity educators need to share teaching resources to teach students critical technical and non-technical skills, and they describe a course they created that allows for such sharing to take place.

The article, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Community College of Allegheny Co., appears in the Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM—the Association for Computing Machinery—is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society.

“Most cybersecurity education at the postsecondary level is focused on technical knowledge and skills without enough attention to vital non-technical skills,” says Lee Branstetter, professor of public policy and economics at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College, who coauthored the article. “Cybersecurity education has to integrate teaching and practicing non-technical competencies alongside technical knowledge and skills to ensure that both technical and non-technical skills transfer to cybersecurity workplaces.”

Cybersecurity professionals say that collaboration and written and verbal communication abilities are some of the most valuable skills in the workplace. But efforts to incorporate social, business, and other non-technical competencies with technical skills in postsecondary cybersecurity curricula are rare and face challenges.

For example, ACM and the Office of Personnel Management have urged institutions of higher education to incorporate non-technical competencies into postsecondary cybersecurity curricula, but in practice, cybersecurity certification exams often shape course content in ways that run counter to this aim. As a result, students typically encounter unrealistically pristine environments with unlimited access to systems, unconstrained authority to make changes, and little attention to how their actions could affect business operations or social dynamics.

Community colleges play a significant role in increasing the number of entry-level cybersecurity professionals and providing pathways to jobs for learners for whom a four-year degree is not a desirable option.

In this work, after identifying specific learning outcomes, researchers suggest research-based pedagogical approaches to support learning and transfer. In particular, they describe a cybersecurity lab they developed that uses experiential learning, role play, collaborative learning, technical simulation, and metacognitive engagement to support the learning outcomes they deem important.

The CyberSim Lab is a one-semester class that can be taught alongside classes on ethical hacking. In the lab, students work in small groups to identify system vulnerabilities, assess the extent of the weaknesses, develop a change management plan to address issues they have discovered, present their plan to upper management, incorporate feedback, and make necessary changes to the network.

“Gaps in the cybersecurity workforce threaten national security, commercial innovation, and the nature of public discourse in the digital age,” explains Judeth Oden Choi, a researcher who recently received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute, who coauthored the article. “The CyberSim Lab serves as a curricular bridge between the classroom and the workplace, supporting cybersecurity curriculum designers by sharing learning outcomes and teaching strategies drawn from the educational research literature and tailored to the cybersecurity educational context.”

“The resources we identify are especially useful for under-resourced cybersecurity programs, such as those in community colleges,” adds Rotem Guttman, a Ph.D. student at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon, who coauthored the article.

The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Southwest AP Build Back Better Initiative.

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DOI

10.1145/3641554.3701834 

Article Title

Bridging the Community College Cybersecurity Classroom and Workplace with the CyberSim Lab

Trawling-induced sediment resuspension reduces CO2 uptake

ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO END TRAWLING

GEOMAR study investigates the impact of sediment resuspension induced by trawling and other natural processes in Kiel Bight

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

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The resuspension of seafloor sediments – triggered by human activities such as bottom trawling as well as natural processes like storms and tides – can significantly increase the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. When these sediments are exposed to oxygen-rich seawater, large-scale oxidation of pyrite occurs. This reaction plays a much greater role in CO2 emissions than previously assumed, exceeding the contribution from the oxidation of organic carbon. The new study provides the first quantitative evidence of this effect in the western Baltic Sea.

“Fine-grained, muddy sediments are important reservoirs of organic carbon and pyrite,” says lead author Habeeb Thanveer Kalapurakkal, a PhD student in the Benthic Biogeochemistry working group at GEOMAR. “We already knew that sediment resuspension can release significant amounts of CO2 into the water column. But until now, it was believed that this was mainly due to organic carbon oxidation.” The new study now shows that the major part of the CO2 release is caused by pyrite oxidation.

Kiel Bight: A Critical Carbon Sink at Risk

The study focused on Kiel Bight, a coastal region in the western Baltic Sea located between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish islands. This area features a range of sediment types: coarse sandy sediments in shallower waters and fine-grained mud in deeper regions. These muddy sediments are rich in organic matter and play a central role in the carbon cycle of the Baltic Sea. They are affected both by natural forces such as storms and by anthropogenic impacts like bottom trawling.

Laboratory Experiments Reveal New Insights

To study the effects of sediment resuspension, the researchers conducted sediment slurry incubations. They collected sediment samples from different sites in Kiel Bight — ranging from coarse sandy to fine grained muddy sediments — and stirred them in laboratory containers filled with seawater. The experiments simulated both oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor conditions. During the incubation period, the team monitored changes in key chemical parameters, including CO₂ concentrations, pH, sulfate, nutrients and isotope concentrations. These measurements allowed them to identify the underlying processes and assess their impact on the local carbon cycle. The laboratory data were then integrated into a biogeochemical model to better understand the effects of sediment resuspension and oxygen availability.

Pyrite Oxidation: A Key Factor in CO2 Release

The results show that sediment resuspension leads to substantially greater CO₂ emissions than previously thought — mainly due to the oxidation of pyrite. When this iron-containing mineral, typically found in oxygen-poor, muddy seafloor sediments, is disturbed it reacts with oxygen in the water. This reaction generates acid that converts climate-neutral bicarbonate into the greenhouse gas CO2. A large fraction of the CO2 generated by pyrite oxidation is subsequently released into the atmosphere. Modeling results suggest that these processes could significantly reduce the region’s CO2 uptake capacity. In other words, resuspension can turn the seafloor temporarily from a carbon sink into a carbon source.

Protecting Sensitive Seafloor Areas to Preserve CO2 Uptake

“Kiel Bight, like other parts of the Baltic Sea, acts as an important sink for atmospheric CO₂,” says Kalapurakkal. “Our experiments and model simulations show that activities such as bottom trawling significantly reduce this capacity by promoting pyrite oxidation and acidification.” The findings underscore the need to protect seafloor areas with fine-grained, muddy sediments — regions typically rich in pyrite. Kalapurakkal: “These areas need to be protected to maintain the CO2 uptake capacity of the Baltic Sea.”

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02132-4 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

Sediment resuspension in muddy sediments enhances pyrite oxidation and carbon dioxide emissions in Kiel Bight.

GREENWASHING

Nature positive: Lots of rhetoric, little reality

New research argues the term 'nature positive' is being adopted more for political rhetoric and less for real-life improvement in nature conservation, posing a new risk to biodiversity.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Griffith University

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New research led by Griffith University argues that the term nature positive is being adopted more for political rhetoric and less for any real-life improvement in nature conservation, posing a new risk to biodiversity. 

The study, published in Nature Portfolio Journal njpBiodiversity explores the tourism sector as an example. 

The team, led by Emeritus Professor Ralf Buckley with coauthors from universities in Australia, Chile, China and Japan, analysed the fine-scale political processes in the lead-up to CBD COP16, the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which started in late 2024 and resumed in early 2025. 

They distinguish “small-t tourism” - such as visitors and mobile tours in national parks - from “Big Tourism”, which consists of multi-billion-dollar global corporations and political associations.   

“Only 0.01% of the global tourism sector makes net positive contributions to conservation,” Professor Buckley said.   

“Big Tourism, which is largely owned by the US$13 trillion private equity sector, has net negative effects via land grabs.” 

According to the researchers, few tourism enterprises make net positive contributions to conservation, and “nature positive” terms were being used for “marketing greenwash, to delay and avoid environmental fees and regulations, and to lobby for land grabs in public protected areas”. 

Professor Buckley suggests Australia has adopted “nature positive” political terminology, but in practice has failed to implement past promises to establish a new independent Environment Protection Agency. 

“These findings are very timely in the lead-up to the Australian federal election, given the importance of environmental concerns to the electorate, but the very low performance by both major parties,” Professor Buckley said.    

"Despite nature positive political rhetoric, in reality the government significantly weakened its flagship environmental legislation just two days before the start of the election caretaker period.”  

The study ‘Nature positive rhetoric, risk and reality: sector-scale political ecology at CBDCOP16’ has been published in njpBiodiverstiy. 

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Journal

npj Biodiversity

DOI

10.1038/s44185-025-00087-5 

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Nature positive rhetoric, risk and reality: sector-scalepoliticalecologyatCBDCOP16

Article Publication Date

24-Apr-2025