Secret cave chamber may be one of the last Neanderthal hideouts

Secret cave chamber may be one of the last Neanderthal hideouts | Scientists solve the mystery of the Etruscans’ origins | 'Mad Max'-like dust storm envelops Brazilian city in cloud of doom Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( September 29, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Top Science News [] [Secret cave chamber may be one of the last Neanderthal hideouts]( [Secret cave chamber may be one of the last Neanderthal hideouts]( (Gibraltar National Museum) A cave chamber sealed off by sand for some 40,000 years has been discovered in Vanguard Cave in Gibraltar — a finding that could reveal more about the Neanderthals who lived in the area around that time. "Given that the sand sealing the chamber was [40,000] years old, and that the chamber was therefore older, it must have been Neanderthals," who lived in Eurasia from about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago and were likely using the cave, Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar National Museum, told Live Science in an email. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/29) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] History & Archaeology [] [Scientists solve the mystery of the Etruscans’ origins]( [Scientists solve the mystery of the Etruscans’ origins]( (Albert Ceolan / De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images) A new genetic analysis may have finally revealed the origin of the Etruscans — a mysterious people whose civilization thrived in Italy centuries before the founding of Rome. It turns out the enigmatic Etruscans were local to the area, with nearly identical genetics to their Latin-speaking neighbors. This finding contradicts earlier theories that the Etruscans — who for centuries spoke a now extinct, non-Indo-European language that was remarkably different from others in the region — came from somewhere different from their Latin-speaking neighbors. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/28) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Amazing Earth [] ['Mad Max'-like dust storm envelops Brazilian city in cloud of doom]( ['Mad Max'-like dust storm envelops Brazilian city in cloud of doom]( (Clima au Vivo) A towering wave of orange dust filled the horizon and whooshed over a neighborhood in a recent video of a rare sandstorm in northwestern São Paulo, Brazil. As the choking cloud rushed past the camera, it transformed the city skyline into a scene that would have looked right at home in the arid wasteland of the post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" movies. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/29) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Climate Change [] [Vanishing ice is warping Earth's crust]( [Vanishing ice is warping Earth's crust]( (Jason Edwards/Getty Images) The melting of Earth's polar ice is warping the planet's crust. This shape change is subtle, but it occurs many hundreds of miles away from the ice sheets. Researchers may be able to monitor the shift as part of research to understand how climate change will affect sea level; understanding the warping is also important, because scientists need to be able to correct for this ground motion when measuring other types of geological processes, the study authors wrote in the August issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/28) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] In the Sky [] [Superbright aurora lights up Earth’s night side in incredible image from space]( [Superbright aurora lights up Earth’s night side in incredible image from space]( (Thomas Pesquet/ESA/NASA) An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) captured a stunning new photo of the luminous green and red lights of an aurora hugging clouds swirling around Earth's night side. "Another aurora but this one is special as it is so bright," European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet wrote on Instagram and Twitter. "It is the full Moon lighting up the shadow side of Earth almost like daylight." Pesquet snapped the photo on Aug. 20. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/29) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Astronomy & Astrophysics [] [Jupiter's Great Red Spot is not only shrinking. Its winds are also speeding up.]( [Jupiter's Great Red Spot is not only shrinking. Its winds are also speeding up.]( (NASA/ESA/Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley)) A decade of Jovian storm-chasing paid off for the Hubble Space Telescope. The long-running telescope has been studying the Great Red Spot — a major storm on Jupiter — that is shrinking for mysterious reasons. Alongside that, researchers just uncovered huge changes in wind speeds within the massive storm. Jupiter takes 12 Earth years to orbit the sun. During the Jovian year between 2009 and 2020, Hubble found, wind speeds in the outer ring of the Great Red Spot increased by up to 8%. While the wind speed varied depending on when Hubble was looking at the storm, the telescope did track long-term increases in the rotation speed of the outer ring. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/28) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Will humans ever be immortal? 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