IFLScience - Break It Down

This week on Break It Down: Tracks left in ancient rock suggest fish crawled out of the seas 10 million years earlier than we thought, a 140,000-year-old child’s skull is the earliest evidence Neanderthals and Homo sapiens got it on yet, a bright orange nurse shark makes history as the first example of xanthism in this species and in the Caribbean Sea, JWST spots a new moon around Uranus, bringing its total up to 29, cave paintings from the French Pyrenees suggest a dangerous “shaman training cave”, and what did ancient people think when they discovered fossils? Griffins, cyclops, or something else entirely? 

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Fossil trackways

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens

Only surviving human species

Bright orange shark

Orange crocs

Uranus’ new moon

Shaman Training Cave

Finding fossils

We Have Questions Podcast

Northern white rhinos

Giraffes are now four species

This week on Break It Down: The discovery of some fossilized human teeth reveals the oldest known members of our genus weren’t alone; their neighbors were a species we’ve never found before. A world-first study reveals that sex reversal is surprisingly common in wild Australian birds. A law of abbreviation that mysteriously fits all human languages also applies to bird song from several species. Orange crocodiles lurking deep within caves in Central Africa have the potential to become a new dwarf species. The lack of a standardized definition is holding back long COVID research. And has anybody ever died by getting hit by a meteorite? The records show: just one.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

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New human species

HUMAN with Ella Al-Shamahi

Tunnel of bones

Sex reversal in wild birds

Zipf’s law applies to birds

Orange crocodiles

Defining long COVID

Death by meteorite

Why do we feel pain? Interview with Chris Hemsworth and Dr BJ Miller

The Big Questions – Will We Ever Get A Universal Flu Vaccine?

We Have Questions

This week on Break It Down: cockatoos have added 17 new dance moves to their official tally, we may finally know where the ancient “hobbit” humans came from, four new species of tarantulas have been discovered with one key difference to other species, science has the answer as to whether you're more likely to be killed by an asteroid or an elephant, RFK Jr uses misinformation to pull millions of dollars from mRNA vaccine research, and we discuss how science fiction is helping scientists explore possible futures. 

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Dancing cockatoos

This week on Break It Down: just a week after the discovery of our third-ever interstellar visitor we may know where it came from, ancient enamel provides a snapshot into the lives of prehistoric rhinos, the moa becomes the fifth species targeted for de-extinction, a robot performs gallbladder surgery – no human required, chimps start a new fashion trend with grass in their ears (and rears), and 100 years since The Scopes (Monkey) Trial, how much has changed?

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Interstellar visitor

Prof Chris Lintott interview

Ancient enamel

Moa de-extinction

Moa foot

Robot surgery

Fashionable chimps

The Scopes (Monkey) Trial

The Big Questions

We Have Questions

Human origins

Malayan tigers

This week on Break It Down: We’ve just seen our third-ever interstellar object whizzing though the Solar System, eating cheese really might give you nightmares (but so might dessert), cavers are rewarded with a treasure trove of blind, mummified invertebrates including the only known cave-adapted wasp, the Neanderthal fat factory is just a delicious as it sounds, orcas caught kissing out in the wild, and if the Moon gets slapped by an asteroid as NASA predicts there’s a 4.1 percent chance it might, it would be a 1-in-5,000-years spectacle for Earth to enjoy (from a safe distance).

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Interstellar object

Cheesy nightmares

Cave of mummified insects

Neanderthal fat factory

Collagen

Smooching orcas

Orcas Giving Humans Food

Asteroid about to slap the Moon

Project Hail Memory

We Have Questions

CURIOUS magazine

The Big Questions

This week on Break It Down: feast your eyes on the stunning first images from the world’s largest digital camera, capturing millions of galaxies and thousands of new asteroids. Why killer whales are rubbing each other luxuriously with seaweed, the world’s oldest rocks aren’t that much younger than the planet, mice born from two dads prove they’re fertile, a French woman becomes the only known person in the world with a new kind of blood type, and we celebrate 50 years of the European Space Agency with a special interview with astronaut Luca Parmitano.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

World’s largest digital camera

Vera C Rubin images of space

Be the first to spot a galaxy

Orcas allokelping

World’s oldest rocks

Mice with two dads

Brand new blood type

Can we make blood?

50 years of ESA

Brain uploads

Bonus episode of We Have Questions

Dolphins help a lost whale

This week on Break It Down: Two spacecraft just created the first ever artificial solar eclipse, thanks to some impressive drone photos we know now dancing dinosaurs might have been leaping around to impress females in Colorado, a child from the world's oldest burial site appears to be a Neanderthal-Homo sapiens hybrid, for the first time we know what a Denisovan face looks like, a medical breakthrough means we could have a vaccine against HIV (if only anyone could buy it), and 50 years after JAWS was released, we take a look at the lasting impact on shark conservation the blockbuster movie made.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Artificial solar eclipse

Dancing dinos

Hybrid child

Denisovan skull

HIV vaccine

JAWS 50 Years On 

Papahānaumokuākea marine conservation

Ghost Elephant

The Big Questions is back!

This week on Break It Down: Seeing the Sun’s south pole for the first time ever, Ice Age puppies frozen in permafrost turn out to be wolves, a world-first fossil discovery reveals a sauropod’s final meal, “razor blade throat” and a traveling nimbus reveal what to expect from the new COVID variant, the deepest map of the universe now reaches 13.5 billion years into the past, and is giving nature a personhood a good way to get it better legal protections? Maybe.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s Break It Down…

Links:

Sun’s butt

Permafrost puppies

Sauropod stomach contents

Her name is ANNE

Tyrannosaur stomach contents

COVID variant

Deepest map of the Universe

Should nature have personhood?

UNDERDOGS

Ed the Zebra

The Big Questions returns

This week on Break It Down: A great big explosion in space is the most energetic since the Big Bang, AI reveals the Dead Sea Scrolls could share the same authors as the Bible, it looks like the Milky Way and Andromeda will not collide in 5 billion years after all, pregnant female mice with low iron levels can lead to the development of male embryos with ovaries, two smiling porpoises are released back into the wild for the first time in a win for conservation, and we take a deep dive into why it's so hard to sex a dinosaur.

Second biggest explosion

This week on Break It Down: The oldest fingerprint in the world might be left by a Neanderthal hoping to complete a face, scientists propose seeding life on Enceladus to see what would happen, we’re starting to understand more about the Incas’ mysterious string writing system, bioacoustics research could pave the way for us to chat to wolves in Yellowstone, prions prove they are just as scary as we always thought when they take over a woman's brain after 50 years, and we explore just how much memory humans really have in these big old noggins of ours.  

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Neanderthal fingerprints