Researchers Have a Controversial New Hypothesis For How Civilization First Started [Science Alert, April 2022]

Title:

Researchers Have a Controversial New Hypothesis For How Civilization First Started

 

Author:

Carly Cassella

 

Published:

Science Alert, 15 April 2022

https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-new-hypothesis-for-how-human-civilizations-first-got-started

 

From the article:

The dawn of human civilization is often pinned down to the rise of farming. As food production grew, so did human populations, trade, and tax.  

 

Or so the prevailing story goes.  

 

Economists have now put forward a competing hypothesis, and it suggests a surplus of food on its own was not enough to drive the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to the hierarchical states that eventually led to civilization as we know it. 

 

Note:

This study was published in the Journal of Political Economy.

Rhodes University, South Africa - How colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of biodiversity

Title:

How colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of biodiversity

Published:

Rhodes University, 16 February 2022

https://www.ru.ac.za/latestnews/howcolonialhistoryandglobaleconomicsdistortourunderstandingofbiodivers.html

From the news article:

In an article published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Rhodes University PhD student Aviwe Matiwane shows, along with six other researchers, how colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity.

Scholarly Article (West Virginia University, 2020) - Teaching with Digital 3D Models of Minerals and Rocks

Title:
Teaching with Digital 3D Models of Minerals and Rocks

Authors:
Graham DM Andrews, Gabrielle Labishak, Sarah Brown, Shelby L Isom, Holly Danielle Pettus & Trevor Byers

Published:
West Virginia University, Faculty & Staff Scholarship, Fall 2020
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/2915/

Abstract:
The disruption to geoscience curricula due to the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the difficulty of making mineral and rock samples accessible to students online rather than through traditional lab classes. In spring 2020, our community had to adapt rapidly to remote instruction; this transition amplified existing disparities in access to geoscience education but can be a catalyst to increase accessibility and flexibility in instruction permanently. Fortunately, a rich collection of 3D mineral and rock samples is being generated by a community of digital modelers (e.g., Perkins et al., 2019).

Columbia University - Deep-Earth Structures Discovered That May Signal Enormous Hidden Metal Lodes

Title:
Deep-Earth Structures Discovered That May Signal Enormous Hidden Metal Lodes

By:
Earth Institute at Columbia University

Published:
SciTechDaily, 30 July 2020
https://scitechdaily.com/deep-earth-structures-discovered-that-may-signal-enormous-hidden-metal-lodes/

From the article:
If the world is to maintain a sustainable economy and fend off the worst effects of climate change, at least one industry will soon have to ramp up dramatically: the mining of metals needed to create a vast infrastructure for renewable power generation, storage, transmission, and usage. The problem is, demand for such metals is likely to far outstrip currently both known deposits and the existing technology used to find more ore bodies.

Now, in a new study, scientists have discovered previously unrecognized structural lines 100 miles or more down in the Earth that appear to signal the locations of giant deposits of copper, lead, zinc and other vital metals lying close enough to the surface to be mined, but too far down to be found using current exploration methods. The discovery could greatly narrow down search areas, and reduce the footprint of future mines, the authors say. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience.