On this day 41 years ago, and in a charming little stint of political theater, the mayor of Rome, Ugo Vettere, and his counterpart Mr. Chedli Klibi in Carthage, Tunisia, met on a mission of goodwill to officially end the Third Punic War, which concluded with the destruction of Carthage 2,132 years ago. The agreement was signed on the anniversary of Carthage’s defeat in the war by the Romans. (1985)
NASA Webb Pushes Boundaries of Observable Universe Closer to Big Bang
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has topped itself once again, delivering the confirmation of a bright galaxy that existed a mere 280 million years after the Big Bang; so close to the beginning of the universe as we understand.
GNN reported on the last such discovery, a galaxy 300 million years after, and scientists are now certain that James Webb will break every such record until the earliest observable light is eventually detected.
The newly confirmed galaxy, MoM-z14, holds intriguing clues to the universe’s historical timeline and just how different a place the early universe was than astronomers expected.
“With Webb, we are able to see farther than humans ever have before, and it looks nothing like what we predicted, which is both challenging and exciting,” said Rohan Naidu of the MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and lead author of a paper on galaxy MoM-z14 published in the Open Journal of Astrophysics.
Due to the expansion of the universe that is driven by dark energy, discussion of physical distances and “years ago” becomes tricky when looking this far. Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers confirmed that MoM-z14 has a cosmological redshift of 14.44, meaning that its light has been travelling through (expanding) space, being stretched and “shifted” to longer, redder wavelengths, for about 13.5 of the universe’s estimated 13.8 billion years of existence.
“We can estimate the distance of galaxies from images, but it’s really important to follow up and confirm with more detailed spectroscopy so that we know exactly what we are seeing, and when,” said Pascal Oesch of the University of Geneva, co-principal investigator of the survey.
MoM-z14 is one of a growing group of surprisingly bright galaxies in the early universe— 100 times more than theoretical studies predicted before the launch of Webb, according to the research team.
“There is a growing chasm between theory and observation related to the early universe, which presents compelling questions to be explored going forward,” said Jacob Shen, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and a member of the research team.
One place researchers and theorists can look for answers is the oldest population of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. A small percentage of these stars have shown high amounts of nitrogen, which is also showing up in some of Webb’s observations of early galaxies, including MoM-z14.
“We can take a page from archeology and look at these ancient stars in our own galaxy like fossils from the early universe, except in astronomy we are lucky enough to have Webb seeing so far that we also have direct information about galaxies during that time. It turns out we are seeing some of the same features, like this unusual nitrogen enrichment,” said Naidu.
With galaxy MoM-z14 existing only 280 million years after the big bang, there was not enough time for generations of stars to produce such high amounts of nitrogen in the way that astronomers would expect. One theory the researchers note is that the dense environment of the early universe resulted in supermassive stars capable of producing more nitrogen than any stars observed in the local universe.
The galaxy MoM-z14 also shows signs of clearing out the thick, primordial hydrogen fog of the early universe in the space around itself. One of the reasons Webb was originally built was to define the timeline for this “clearing” period of cosmic history, which astronomers call reionization. This is when early stars produced light of high enough energy to break through the dense hydrogen gas of the early universe and begin travelling through space, eventually making its way to Webb, and us.
MORE WEBB MAGIC: LOOK at All the Dark Matter in This New Image from the James Webb Telescope
Galaxy MoM-z14 provides another clue for mapping out the timeline of reionization, work that was not possible until Webb lifted the veil on this era of the universe.
As Webb continues to uncover more of these unexpectedly-luminous ancient galaxies, it’s clear that the first few were not a fluke. Astronomers are eagerly anticipating that NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with its combination of high-resolution infrared imaging and extremely wide field of view, will boost the sample of these bright, compact, chemically enriched early galaxies into the thousands.
ON THE EARLY UNIVERSE: Six Enormous Galaxies Detected from the Dawn of Our Universe: ‘Our First Glimpse Back This Far’
“To figure out what is going on in the early universe, we really need more information—more detailed observations with Webb, and more galaxies to see where the common features are, which Roman will be able to provide,” said Yijia Li, a graduate student at the Pennsylvania State University and a member of the research team.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time, with Webb revealing the early universe like never before and showing us how much there still is to discover.”
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Jaguars Recorded Meowing for the First Time Ever (LISTEN)
While searching for their cubs, the females of the world’s third-largest feline will make a sound that’s strikingly similar to what you’ve heard your own cat make.
Weighing in excess of 300 lbs., the jaguar is a ferocious predator that can take large caiman and even cattle, but recent video camera trap footage has revealed they possess a softer side as well.
In Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park, a team of British and Brazilian ecologists made this discovery during a camera trap survey, along with that of 2 other abnormal vocalizations, all of which were documented in 2 female cats on 3 separate occasions.
Panthera species, they detail, cannot purr like a housecat because of larger vocal cords and an ossified bone in their necks, but they can produce a sound that’s very close to a ‘meow.’
“Our results suggest that [jaguars’] vocal repertoire is more complex than what is described in the literature,” the study authors write in the paper published in the journal Behavior.
In contrast to other big cat species around the world, the jaguar isn’t endangered, maintains widespread habitat connectivity, and is resilient in the face of human encroachment. Since 2018, biologists monitoring these cats in the UNESCO World Heritage listed Iguaçu, have relied on camera trap surveys to be their eyes and ears. Every 6 seconds, Smithsonian details, the traps will record audio and video for 15 seconds.
Several instances of jaguar meows were recorded, two of which featured an adult female that appeared to be searching for her cub, while the third captured a one-year-old female cub that was possibly looking for her mother.
CAMERA TRAP DISCOVERIES: Nearly 3x More Encounters With Endangered Sumatran Tigers in Camera Trap Photos Than in Past Years
“As far as we know this is the first time that jaguars have been recorded using this kind of communication, which we are incredibly excited about,” said Dr. Marina Duarte, Research Fellow at the University of Salford.
BIG CAT BEHAVIOR: Ocelot and Opossum Identified as Unlikely Friends After Footage Shows Them Strolling About Together
“This research really deepens our knowledge of how big cats can communicate. We think they are making these sounds to help locate their young but they could also be using them for reproductive purposes too, to find a mate perhaps. It does sound very cute to our ears!”.
“These results highlight the value of long-term monitoring efforts for this iconic Atlantic Forest species and show that there is still much to learn about how jaguars interact and communicate in their natural environment,” says Vania Foster, Head of Research of the Project Jaguars of Iguaçu.
LISTEN to the meows below…
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Record Harvest Dubbed the ‘Potato Flood’ and Prompts Mass Spud Giveaways Across Berlin
From Germany comes the story of mountains of potatoes as far as the eye can see going to feed anyone and everyone in Berlin and nearby towns.
For German potato farmers, the early winter potato harvest has been a bumper crop—no, a banner crop—nay, it’s a full-on food-bank-buster crop.
The “potato flood” as it’s being called has crashed on Berlin, with food banks, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, schools, kindergartens, churches, and even zoos taking a free share of the bounty. Two whole semi-trucks were sent to Ukraine.
“At first I thought it was some AI-generated fake news when I saw it on social media,” Astrid Marz, a schoolteacher from Kaulsdorf, outside Berlin, told the Guardian. “There were pictures of huge mountains of earth apples.”
You can never be too careful these days, but the earth apple mountain was real: so real that Marz stopped counting after she stuffed the 150th potato into an old backpack. She had showed up at a distribution point, where a nonprofit organization called 4000 Tonnen was delivering them to whoever showed up.
Organized by a Berlin newspaper with the help of a German eco-friendly nonprofit search engine, Ecosia, the name 4,000 tons comes from a single Leipzig potato farmer who had a 4,000-ton surplus after a December sale fell through.
4000 Tonnen has visited 174 distribution points across Berlin and its suburbs, welcoming people with bags, boxes, and even wheelbarrows to carry off the spuds. Berlin has been gripped with freezing weather of late, exactly the kind of climate that welcomes a potato and leek soup, potatoes au gratin, or many other preparations that are being shared at the distribution points, the Guardian reports.
MORE EVENTS LIKE THIS: A Free Pop-Up Apple Orchard in the Big Apple Invites You for Free Fruit and Hot Cider
Kate Connolly, reporting in Berlin for the outlet, notes that Germans consume more potatoes per capita than almost any other country—at more than 120 pounds per person per year. During the Prussian imperial days, the “potato edict” commanded farmers to cultivate the South American crop as a new staple, and ever since, kartoffel, has been the pre-eminent vegetable in the country.
BUMPER CROP GIVEAWAYS: A Canadian Farmer Had Millions of Surplus Potatoes and Worked Overtime to Give Them All Away
Celebrity Michelin-starred chef Marco Müller of the Rutz restaurant Berlin has already taken advantage of the event to put the spuds to work in his restaurant—using them to make a luscious potato broth made from the slow-roasted skins.
If not eaten, they will likely be sent to a landfill to decay away into methane gas, which while lasting a fraction of the time in the atmosphere as CO2, has a much stronger contribution to the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere.
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Police Officers Use Google Translate to Help Woman Deliver Baby in Backseat of a Car
When an adult male civilian rushed into a New Jersey police station, it’s anyone’s guess what the two officers inside imagined was the matter—a shooting, a fire, a bad car accident.
What they almost certainly would not have guessed—and wouldn’t have known because the man didn’t speak English, was that they would spend a brief few minutes on duty acting as midwives.
Benjamin Haines and Gabriel Chiarelli of New Jersey’s Woodstown Police Department (WPD) followed the man, who was communicating only with shouts and hand gestures to the back of his car.
Opening the door, there was a woman—also unable to speak English—in labor.
“We weren’t really expecting that—especially the baby coming out when we opened the car door,” Chiarelli recalled to 6ABC in early December. Thinking quickly, the officers produced their phones and opened Google Translate to begin giving instructions, and when that failed, used hand gestures instead.
“So we really couldn’t say much, but I just told her to breathe and push, and she did and out came the head,” Haines explained.
After that it was a short few pushes before mom and baby were wrapped in blankets, a healthy girl having been delivered. Medics arrived on scene by the time the officers had concluded their civic duty to take the family to the hospital.
OVERCOMING LANGUAGE BARRIERS: A Waiter in Canada is Learning Cree to Better Serve Customers: ‘Immediately People Would Light Up’
Neither ABC nor People, which later reported on the story, managed to get ahold of the WPD for additional information.
Both men agreed that, despite having no training for such a procedure, it was exactly the kind of thing they signed up to the force to do—help people in need; their station chief agreeing that they responded excellently to the situation.
WATCH the story below from 6ABC…
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“The day, water, sun, moon, and night: I do not have to purchase these things with money.” – Plautus
Quote of the Day: “The day, water, sun, moon, and night: I do not have to purchase these things with money.” – Plautus
Photo by: Elizabeth Nelson
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Good News in History, February 4
Happy 53rd Birthday to Oscar De La Hoya, nicknamed the “Golden Boy of Boxing,” and winner of many world titles at lightweight, super lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight. De La Hoya had won 17 title bouts, either for claiming belts or retaining them, before he tasted the first defeat of his career, a reign of dominance that stretched from 1994 to 1999. READ more about the “Golden Boy’s” career… (1972)
Successful World First: Baby Treated with Personalized CRISPR Gene Therapy for Rare Disease is Now ‘Thriving’
CRISPR has been used to create a genetic therapy option for a child born in Pennsylvania with a rare metabolic disorder.
Unable to convert ammonia to urea, newborn KJ was in serious risk of brain or liver damage, and had to be kept on medications and an extremely restrictive diet to avoid protein metabolism.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) doctors believed they could use CRISPR to develop a treatment to correct a faulty gene in KJ’s genome that would essentially cure him.
KJ’s parents, Nicole and Kyle Muldoon, decided to place their son’s wellbeing in the hands of two pioneering genetic therapists, Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Dr. Kiran Musunru, who crafted a bespoke treatment that has successfully corrected the genetic defect.
“Years and years of progress in gene editing and collaboration between researchers and clinicians made this moment possible, and while KJ is just one patient, we hope he is the first of many to benefit from a methodology that can be scaled to fit an individual patient’s needs,” said Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, MD, PhD, director of the Gene Therapy for Inherited Metabolic Disorders Frontier Program (GTIMD) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
She, along with Dr. Musunru, are members of the NIH-funded Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium, and have spent years developing the science of using CRISPR to create individual treatment doses for the rarest of diseases.
So far, the only FDA-approved and standardized CRISPR therapies target two diseases found in tens of thousands of patients. CRISPR is an incredibly complex tool and expensive to wield, leaving its magic beyond the reach of millions of children and adults worldwide who collectively suffer from extremely rare genetic disorders.
One such disorder is called severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency, and it creates the inability to properly convert ammonia into urea to be excreted through urine. Ammonia is created in the body through protein metabolism. CPS1 is created in the liver to turn it into urea so as to avoid the toxic effects of the former.
KJ’s body cannot, so excess protein metabolism creates a buildup of ammonia in his liver that could be fatal. Nitrogen scavenging medication and a protein-deficient diet can keep a patient going until a liver transplant can be found, but at just months old, KJ’s body isn’t capable of enduring the procedure.
MORE RARE DISEASE RECOVERIES: UPDATE Long-Term Follow-up in Babies Born with ‘Bubble Boy Disease’ Still Seem Cured
A news release from CHOP reports that Ahrens-Nicklas and Musunuru targeted KJ’s specific variant of CPS1 after years of work with similar disease-causing variants. Within 6 months, their team designed and manufactured a base editing therapy delivered via lipid nanoparticles to the liver in order to correct KJ’s faulty enzyme.
In late February, 2025, KJ received his first infusion of this experimental therapy, and since then has received follow-up doses in March and April 2025, the release details. In the newly published New England Journal of Medicine paper, the researchers, along with their academic and industry collaborators, describe the customized CRISPR gene editing therapy that was rigorously yet speedily developed for administration to KJ.
WHISPER ABOUT CRISPR: Always Fatal Huntington’s Disease is Successfully Treated for First Time With Gene Therapy
KJ has received 3 doses, and suffered no side effects. He’s been able to halt medication and work some protein back into his diet, though he will need careful monitoring the rest of his life.
“We thought it was our responsibility to help our child, so when the doctors came to us with their idea, we put our trust in them in the hopes that it could help not just KJ but other families in our position,” his mother, Nicole, told CHOP.
SHARE This Incredible Recovery Story For A Baby In Serious Danger…
13-year-old Ditches Lifejacket and Makes ‘Superhuman’ Swim to Save Family Swept out to Sea
A 13-year-old boy has been hailed as a hero after swimming 4 hours through rough seas to rescue his family.
A family of 4 was enjoying a holiday in Australia’s southwest coast near Quindalup when strong winds blew their inflatable paddleboards out to sea. The boy was separated from his mom and 2 siblings before his canoe began to take on water.
Wearing a life-jacket, he began to swim against the wind towards the shore, knowing every second counted in the race to get help to save his family.
Commander Paul Bresland with the volunteer organization Cape Naturaliste Marine Rescue told ABC News that the boy swam for 2 hours with his life jacket on.
“And the brave fella thought he’s not going to make it with a life jacket on, so he ditched it, and he swam the next 2 hours without a life jacket,” said Bresland. “I thought, ‘Mate, that is incredible.'”
Once ashore he successfully raised the alarm and a multi-agency search and rescue operation was mobilized, including Western Australia state Water Police and its rescue helicopter. The teen provided detailed descriptions of the paddleboards, and within the hour, his family was rescued by boat, having drifted 7 miles out into the Indian Ocean.
When rescuers arrived, the 47-year-old mother was struggling to keep a daughter, 8, and an eldest son, 14, firmly affixed to the paddleboard in the choppy waters.
“Physically, she just said, ‘I’m struggling, I can’t,’ but she just said they’re looking her in the eye, and she just kept going and kept them together,” Mr. Bresland said, adding she deserved enormous praise for her perseverance.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Seizures Bar Him from Swimming–So He Saves a Drowning Girl with His Drone
ABC reported that the family were assessed at a local hospital and quickly discharged, before taking the time to visit the rescue organization to thank them in person.
South West Police Inspector James Bradley said the story highlights some important ocean safety aspects: all members of the family were wearing life jackets—a key positive. Wind speeds near shore should always be carefully monitored as well.
SHARE This Brave Fella’s Incredible Determination To Save His Family…
Study Shows Vaporizing E-Waste Makes it Easy to Recover Precious Metals at 13-Times Lower Costs
By instantaneously heating electronics to 3,000°C via an electrical current, scientists have found a way to extract decent grades of precious metals without creating hazardous waste.
According to their analysis, relying on e-waste for a precious metals supply could be 13-times cheaper than mining them from the ground. However, previous methods have involved throwing this or that broken gizmo into a furnace powered by copious amounts of energy while also releasing toxic substances into air.
By contrast, “flash joule heating,” a way of using electrical currents to vaporizing the valuable metals from the materials that hold electronics together is between 80 and 500-times more energy efficient.
One 2008 study calculated that one ton of mobile phones without batteries contains about 130kg of copper, 3.5kg of silver, 340 grams of gold, and 140 grams of palladium.
Those totals, if assayed as part of a drilling survey at a mine, would be considered world class results in the 99th percentile of grades.
Most open pit mining operations will run at a rate of between 0.5 and 1.8 grams per-ton gold and 100 to 180 grams per-ton silver. Some 40 million tons of e-waste is produced annually, so some simple mathematics reveals the potential economy to be found in harvesting e-waste for metals—a process termed “urban mining” by scientists.
Scientists at Rice University shredded a printed circuit board for their experiments, and mixed it with carbon black as a conductive additive. Once in the flash joule chamber, the current applied is so high that the precious metals, like rhodium, copper, and gold, turn briefly to vapor, while the carbon-based components like the plastic, are carbonized. This same process has been used to turn plastic into diamonds.
ON THE SUBJECT OF METALS:
- Samsung’s 600-Mile-Range Batteries That Charge in 9 Minutes Ready for Production/Sale Next Year
- Recyclers Switch from Smelting to Solvents, Recovering Precious Metals from E-waste with Fewer Emissions
- Graphene Dream Becomes a Reality as Miracle Material Enters Production for Better Chips, Batteries
- Chinese Scientists Produce ‘Impossible’ Steel to Line Nuclear Fusion Reactors in Major Breakthrough
Mining companies for base and precious metals use a variety of patented recovery processes to separate gold, zinc, or nickel from the ore body.
Just like in mining, additives enhanced the recovery percentage of the metals from their vaporized form, including halides or fluorine-based substances. These brought the recovery of rhodium up to greater than 80%, and palladium to 70%. Bleach and other chlorine-based compounds brought the silver recovery rate up to greater than 80% as well.
With the prices of these metals skyrocketing of late, new and cheaper supplies will be crucial to ensure important industries remain intact and competitive.
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Farmers’ Kids Cuddle Up with New Born Calf on the Couch After She Nearly Froze Outside
Over last weekend, a Kentucky farming family welcomed a new calf into a frigid world of single digit temperatures, and quickly realized it wasn’t going to last the night.
So being a mother as well as a farmer, Macey Sorrell decided to bring the calf into their home where she was certain it would be okay. Falling asleep on the couch next to her two children, Sorrell snapped a photo that has the internet fawning.
On the last Saturday in January, Sorrell and her husband Tanner went to check on their pregnant cow as dusk gathered around their property in Mount Sterling. To their surprise, she had already given birth.
“She was just frozen. Her umbilical cord looked like a popsicle,” Sorrell said. “It was just frozen.”
They decided, having lost a calf last year to frostbite, to take precautionary measures.
“When we brought her in, she had ice on her. The afterbirth was still on her, I had to wipe all that off,” Sorrell said. “I took out the blow dryer and warmed her up, and got her all fluffed out.”
It was somehow sort of a surprise and not a surprise that their son, 3-year-old Gregory, went to cuddle with the calf who had been placed on the couch—as if it were “just the most normal thing.”
KIDS AND THEIR FRIENDS:
- Rescued Crow Is Boy’s Best Friend, Waiting for Him to Get Home from School Every Day: ‘We’re his flock’
- Girl With Cleft Lip Adopts Dog Born With the Same Feature
- 8-year-old Boy Trades His Skateboard for the Feral Kitten Kids Were Picking on
- Girl Hatches a Quail From a Supermarket Egg And Now Has a Devoted Pet (Video)
Sorrell said she and her family are used to bringing the occasional farm animal into their house, and it’s clearly rubbed off on their children.
Gregory named the calf Sally, who after her harrowing night, rejoined her mother in the paddock after sunrise, healthy and ready to explore her new world.
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“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo Galilei
Quote of the Day: “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo Galilei
Photo by: SWNS news agency
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Good News in History, February 3
40 years ago today, a group of computer animators started Pixar Animation Studios out of a corporate spin-off from Lucasfilm. Pixar would go on to make their first film Toy Story, 9 years later, and over the following 20 years become the most critically admired animation studio in the world. After being turned down 45 times by 36 venture capitalists, George Lucas eventually found the financial backing for Pixar in one Steve Jobs, who had recently been edged out of Apple. With films like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., and Up, Pixar ruled the early 2000s animation space and has picked up 23 Academy Awards. WATCH their 35 years of animation in a special video… (1986)
January 14th Marked the Longest Period Without a Nuclear Detonation Since the Atomic Age Began
8 years, 4 months, and 29 days—that’s how long it’s been since the last nuclear weapon was detonated on Earth—and it’s also the longest such timespan since the nuclear age began.
Since that fateful day in the sands of America’s southwest in 1945, it’s actually rather mind-boggling how many nuclear weapons have been donated.
Dylan Spaulding, a senior member at the Union of Concerned Scientists who saw fit to mark this long, inter-detonation period with a blog post, explained that since the Trinity test, 2,000 nuclear weapons have been detonated by 8 nations.
Being that the 21st century has been largely explosion-less, that means that some of those early Cold War Years would have seen over a hundred nuclear test explosions in a single year; two did, in fact.
Yet January 14th marked the longest period humankind has gone without one or another part of the whole exploding one of these deadly weapons, stretching back to the last North Korean test in September, 2017. All other nuclear armed states conducted their last nuclear tests between 1990 and 1998 when Pakistan ceased its nuclear testing.
“In 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signatures and has since been signed by 187 nations and ratified by 178—an overwhelming global majority,” reports Spauling, describing the result of the CTBT as creating one of the strongest “taboos” in modern statecraft.
An actor (North Korea being the only such example) who violates the test ban treaty is labeled a rogue state and excluded from the vast majority of world affairs. Though the United States has signed, but never ratified the treaty, it nevertheless has maintained the ban on supercritical testing of any kind.
Any potential benefits from posturing or technical expertise gained from a nuclear test is certain to be outweighed by the detriment to national reputation and future diplomatic leverage against developing or aspiring actors.
When discussing nuclear weapons policy, it’s important to keep a long frame of mind. Today, despite this long period without a detonation, there are many reasons to be fearful of nuclear exchanges between armed states. That has always been the fear because then, as now, there were plenty of reasons to be thusly fearful.
There was more than one occasion, if the mind permits the thought, when nuclear war between the USSR/China and NATO was a reality that stood just minutes away, or was separated by the mere click of a single button, by a chance malfunction, or by the split second decision-making of a stressed-out commanding officer.
EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE WORLD:
- Nobel-Worthy Prime Minister Attempts to End Century of Ethnic Hatred for Armenians
- These Trees Survived Hiroshima: Group Plants Their Seeds Worldwide to Preserve Their Memory
- A Tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev – The Man Who Ended The Cold War (1931–2022)
The world is never that far from those days, but substantial progress has been made, and more still could be made if—just as back in the day—cooler heads prevail.
As for nuclear testing and the documented, deleterious health effects that accompany it, every day that goes by can be celebrated as a new record, and a new reason to continue to hope that cooler heads can, will, and someday—perhaps ultimately—prevail.
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At 67,800-years-old, These Handprints Just Discovered in Indonesia Are Oldest Example of Rock Art
The discovery of stylized handprints dating back at least 67,800 years in a limestone cave in Indonesia has broken the country’s own record for the world’s oldest-known example of rock art.
It provides direct evidence that humans have been crossing the sea intentionally for nearly 70,000 years, as Man traveled from the Asian continent across Australasia to the land Down Under and beyond.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher at the BRIN Research Center for Archaeometry, revealed that the minimum age of the rock art is 16,600 years older than the previously discovered rock art from Muna Island, which GNN reported on in 2024.
This rock art is also 1,100 years older than the handprints from Spain that were previously associated with Neanderthals and had long been considered the oldest cave art in the world, and 22,200 years older than the depiction of the Sulawesi warty pig, discovered on the same island as the other two, in 2021.
In other words, in the last five years, 3 of the 4 oldest cave artworks ever found on Earth were identified on the same small island off Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Oktaviana explained that to determine the age of this rock art, the research team applied the laser-ablation uranium-series (LA-U-series) dating technique to the microscopic calcite layer covering the cave paintings and produced a date that would be the earliest possible production time of the handprints.
As news releases that regarded the previous two discoveries stated, the artworks elevate Indonesia to one of the most important centers in the early history of symbolic art and modern human sea exploration in the world.
This discovery confirms that Wallacea, a sunken landmass that exists above sea level today as the Indo-Pacific, was not only a route to Australia, but also a major habitat for early modern humans. It also reinforces the long chronological model, which states that humans reached the Sahul landmass (Australia–Papua) at least 65,000 years ago.
“It is very likely that the creators of these paintings were part of a population that later spread further east and eventually reached Australia,” said Oktaviana. “This research provides the oldest direct evidence of modern humans on the northern migration route to Sahul, which involved sea exploration between Kalimantan (Borneo) and Papua—an area that remains relatively unexplored archaeologically.”
AWESOME ROCK ART:
- 5,000-year-old Rock Art of Boats and Cattle Unearthed in the Sahara Shows Grassland Came Before Desert
- Newly Discovered Rock Art Panels Depict How Ancient Ancestors Envisioned Creation and Adapted to Change
- Incredible Cave Paintings 8 Miles-Long Revealed Deep in Amazon Forest: The Sistine Chapel of Ancients
Meanwhile, Professor Adam Brumm from the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Griffith University, said that the handprints found in the rock art on Muna Island also have globally unique characteristics, with modifications that narrow the shape of the fingers to resemble claws, reflecting a mature symbolic expression. According to him, the symbolic meaning of this narrowing of the finger shape is still speculative.
“However, this art could symbolize the idea that humans and animals have a very close relationship. This is already evident in the earliest paintings in Sulawesi, including at least one scene that we interpret as a representation of a half-human, half-animal creature,” he explained.
With the discovery of Pleistocene rock art sites in the karst region of Sulawesi, this brings a great responsibility in preserving irreplaceable cultural heritage. Therefore, researchers are calling for the protection of karst areas containing ancient rock art sites to be an integral part of spatial planning and natural resource management policies.
WATCH Professor Brumm explain…
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New Ultrasonic Imaging System Can Detect Deadly Defects in All Types of Concrete
If a physician needs to see what’s gone wrong inside a human body, it’s easy enough to order an ultrasound scan. But if the structural engineer wants to do the same in a block of concrete, his options are of limited effectiveness.
The range of materials that concrete contains, such as stone, clay, chalk, slate, iron ore, and sand, scatters normal sound waves, making clear images difficult to obtain.
Now, Japanese and American scientists have teamed up to develop a system that can identify interior defects in concrete buildings and bridges without destroying their structure.
Team members explain in a news release that their method sends sound waves into the material and captures the waves that echo back to create images of what’s inside, just like an ultrasound.
“In our approach, the ultrasonic wave is broadband, using a wide range of ultrasonic frequencies rather than operating around a single, fixed frequency,” said Professor Yoshikazu Ohara from Tohoku University in Japan.
“The receiver is capable of accepting an even broader range of frequencies. By automatically adapting the frequency to the material, our system improves the contrast between defects and background material in concrete.”
Tohoku and his colleagues joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Texas A&M University to create the system.
A chief challenge is that it’s hard to know which frequencies of sound waves will survive traveling through concrete, as different material therein may interfere with different wavelengths.
To accommodate the uncertainty, the team used two devices: one to generate a wide range of frequencies to send into the material and another, called a vibrometer, to capture the outcoming waves.
MORE PHYSICS: Spider-Inspired Design Makes Metal Tubes ‘Unsinkable’–A Breakthrough in Maritime Engineering
The system, described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, can handle a wide range of frequencies, which means that even if ultrasonic waves are scattered by materials in the concrete, those that do make it through are still detected, regardless of what frequency they are.
“As the concrete filters out certain frequencies, the laser Doppler vibrometer simply captures whatever frequencies remain,” said Professor Ohara. “Unlike conventional systems, we don’t have to swap transducers or adjust the frequency beforehand. The system adapts automatically.”
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The result is a high-resolution 3D image of the defect and its location in the concrete.
For a repair planner or field technician, this provides ‘concrete’ information: how deep the defect is from the surface, how large it is, and how it extends in three dimensions, making it possible to plan repairs more efficiently.
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Astonishing 1,400-year-old Tomb Featuring Giant Owl Sculpture Discovered in Mexico
It’s being called the most significant archaeological discovery in a decade: a tomb dating back 1,400 years decorated with murals and carvings of exquisite preservation.
Belonging to one of Mexico’s non-Mayan native cultures, the Zapotecs, its most striking feature is a frieze of an enormous owl head, with a man’s face trapped in its beak.
The Zapotecs are a pre-Colombian people who inhabited areas making up the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca as far back as the 6th century BCE, around the time this tomb dates to.
The earliest Spanish chronicles speak of the Zapotecs existing in a state of war with the Aztecs, and today, their descendants make up a recognized racial group in the modern Mexican state numbering in the hundreds of thousands, speaking a language of the same name.
Located in San Pablo Huitzo, the tomb is decorated with murals in green, white, blue, and red pigments that show scenes associated with funerary traditions, a statement from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) explains.
“It’s the most significant archaeological discovery of the last decade in Mexico due to the level of preservation and the information it provides,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum in a press briefing in the days following the discovery’s announcement.
The standout detail by far is the owl sculpture. In Zapotec myth, owls were symbols of both the night and death, and the beak of the bird contains a stone head—perhaps representing the one belonging to the man buried in the tomb, INAH said.
At the threshold to the burial chamber there are carvings of two human figures holding various artifacts in their hands, who may have been the guardians of the tomb, according to the INAH.
GNN recently reported on a LiDAR study that identified a collection of structures on the hills near the modern town of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec was actually a Zapotec fortress, complete with ball courts.
Pedro Guillermo Ramón Celis, organizer of a LiDAR survey, plans to return to conduct more research there, telling the press team at McGill University that as a point of reference and pride for the Zapotec people, the fortress could provide key insights into their ancestors’ ways of living, as well as an example of a civilization that resisted the Aztec’s conquering push southward.
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Regarding the owl-fronted tomb, Mexico’s culture secretary, Claudia Curiel de Icaza said something similar, noting how the Zapotecs alive today will be eager to hear what the tomb and its murals and carvings will tell of their ancestors’ social organization, funerial rituals and belief system.
For now, critical conservation work will be undertaken first, as the tomb and its artworks are at risk of insects, tree roots, and deleterious effects from exposure to the local climate.
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“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder the firm resolve of a determined soul.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Quote of the Day: “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder the firm resolve of a determined soul.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Photo by: Aidamarie Photography (public domain)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Good News in History, February 2
150 years ago today, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed. The older of the two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US and Canada, it is the oldest professional team sports league still in existence in the world. The American League was founded 25 years later and after much consternation, they agreed to recognize each other as major leagues. They drafted rules and each established a team in New York City, and they decided to compete against each other (beginning in the Fall of 1903) in a championship tournament—the first “World Series”. READ the league charter clubs… (1876)
Nebraska Woman Learns to Row, Then Becomes First Female to Cross the Atlantic Alone in 3,000 Mile Race
The ocean dreams took hold of Taryn Smith when she was living in landlocked Nebraska, craving open-water adventures as a young adult in Omaha.
Smith, who’s now 25, read an article about an all-female rowing team that set a world record in the Great Pacific Race in 2022, rowing from Monterrey, California to Hawaii in just 34 days—and something stirred deeply within Smith.
“I just remember thinking it sounded like the most amazing thing in the entire world,” Taryn told PEOPLE, recapturing her thoughts about the rowing team’s record. “I wanted to do something big in my 20s. I wanted to spend the rest of my life knowing that I was capable of something like this.”
Smith started researching opportunities that might present an equally daunting challenge and soon discovered the World’s Toughest Row—a 3,000-mile rowing race from the Canary Islands on the western edge of Africa to Antigua in the Caribbean Sea.
Taryn was going to do it alone.
Her grandparents both had sailing experience, but she had a lot to learn. She quit her job in human resources and trained for three years, spending time in the United Kingdom, and living exclusively on her rowboat for several weeks at a time.
She needed to become one with the water because that would soon be her only company.
“Taryn seems to know no fear,” Shelly Smith, Taryn’s mother, told Nebraska Public Media. “She has always been a kid that thrives on adventure. She just really likes that challenge.”
And so, on December 14, Taryn faced 42 other teams from 20 different countries at the starting line of a race across the Atlantic. The journey was expected to take about two months, with Taryn rowing 10 to 12 hours by herself each day.
Obstacles arose every day—but Day 27 pushed her to the brink. She developed hives from sun exposure and hadn’t slept soundly for two straight nights. She spent the morning sobbing, fighting the fatigue and exhaustion, as her boat bounced up and down on waves that kept growing bigger from an impending storm. (Watch a video at the bottom…)
“Absolutely, huge waves,” she said in an Instagram video from Day 27. “A wave would come just gushing over the deck and would literally knock me out of my shoes. It was scary. It was really, really, scary. I think this is the first day I felt properly terrified since being out here.”
And to make matters worse, a menacing marlin stalked her boat and oars for miles. Nevertheless, she persisted. By day’s end, she had overcome every last challenge the Atlantic could muster, while still making considerable progress.
“It’s been a really hard day, but I am really proud of the effort that I put in today because it’s been a fast day and I’ve covered a lot of ground and I kept rowing and now it’s more comfortable to row than it is to try to sleep,” she said on Instagram at the end of the day.
“I’m listening to Harry Potter (in my headphones). So all in all, life is good…”
She partnered with Girls on the Run throughout her journey, raising money for the nonprofit that empowers girls in grades 3-8 through running, physical activity, and confidence-building programs.
With each row, Taryn was unleashing a powerful example of what those girls can do with a goal in front of them and the grit to chase it.
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She arrived in Antigua on January 29th, becoming the first female to finish the World’s Toughest Row alone. She even beat her own expectations in the process, finishing the race in 46 days, three hours, and 37 minutes, a few days before her own optimistic predictions.
Taryn pulled into the harbor with a flare in her hand as an American flag billowed behind her on the boat. (Watch the video below…)
The girl from the landlocked plains of the midwest had just completed a bold 3,000-mile crossing of the Atlantic—and her ocean dreams that began with a magazine article had become a reality, and a powerful reminder of the untapped potential that lies inside us all.
“Everything is more within reach than we think,” Taryn told PEOPLE. “I hope people understand that you should take on your biggest challenges, even if it means being alone. Even if it’s scary. You can do it—and you probably won’t be alone for very long.”
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