A scientist at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, performing an autopsy of the remains of a puppy, which died 12,460 years ago and was discovered in the northern Russia region of Yakutia.
Credit: AFP
Scientists are probing the remains of two Ice Age puppies found perfectly preserved in Russia’s far northeast region of Yakutia and dating back 12,460 years that could offer clues about the origin of domesticated dogs.
“To find a carnivorous mammal intact with skin, fur and internal organs — this has never happened before in history,” said Sergei Fyodorov, head of exhibitions at the Mammoth Museum of the North-Eastern Federal University in the regional capital of Yakutsk, Agence France-Presse reported Monday.
The mummified dogs were found by hunters searching for mammoth tusks in a riverbank by a deposit of ancient bones in remote Arctic tundra, […]
While heart attacks may be traditionally associated with seniors and individuals with severe health problems, a new report from the Cleveland Clinic suggests the trend is changing. For the first time in generations, the average age of victims suffering severe heart attacks has actually fallen. And in more instances than every before, obesity is cited as a direct cause of the attacks.
In short, younger and fatter Americans are falling victim to life-threatening heart attacks at a much higher rate.
In addition, the same report noted that obesity is now a factor in no less than 40% of all severe heart attacks in the US. It was also found that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, high blood pressure and tobacco use are causing considerably more heart attack than they were two decades ago.
Along with facing a dangerously elevated heart attack risk, obesity is known it increase a person’s likelihood of developing a variety of other serious illnesses, […]
A high-speed train in Beijing.
Credit: Reuters/China Daily
“After a half century of neglect, America now has a railroad system that the Bolivians would be ashamed of,” wrote James Howard Kunstler, the piercing writer who introduced me to urbanism, in 2006. “There isn’t another project we could do that would have a greater impact on our oil consumption than fixing our rail system and restoring passenger service.”
Ten years later, little has changed. A new ranking of high-speed rail networks by nation from GoEuro, a travel search engine, puts the U.S. at 19th out of the 20 countries assessed. Bolivia isn’t on the list, but the U.S. does rank below Turkey and Uzbekistan.
GoEuro ranked all countries with high-speed rail lines (as defined by its slightly complex criteria) and made some arbitrary choices as to which factors matter most. It put the biggest emphasis on population coverage, as it should, but its second most important factor was record speed, which is silly. America would benefit […]
Credit: Blue Skies Campaign
Montana communities won a victory against one of the world’s biggest coal companies earlier this month, when Arch Coal abandoned the Otter Creek mine – the largest proposed new coal strip mine in North America. The story of how the project imploded is one of people power triumphing over a company once thought to be nearly invincible.
To many observers, the Otter Creek project once seemed unstoppable. It certainly appeared that way in 2011, the year I moved to Missoula, Montana for graduate school. Then-Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer enthusiastically supported the mine, and coal more generally. Forrest Mars, Jr., the billionaire heir to the Mars candy fortune, had just joined Arch and BNSF Railways in backing a proposed railroad spur meant to service Otter Creek. Arch and politicians like Schweitzer predicted a boom in coal demand from economies in Asia.
But what they weren’t counting on was a vocal and active region-wide opposition. The coming together of ordinary people — first in southeast Montana, then an ever-growing number of communities throughout […]
