nova-linnaeus

[nova-linnaeus]

International Chess Day: A Global Celebration of Chess

International Chess Day, observed each year on 20 July, unites millions of players across cultures and generations. The date honors the founding meeting of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in Paris on 20 July 1924. In 1966 UNESCO encouraged its worldwide observance, and in 2019 the United Nations General Assembly officially proclaimed 20 July “World Chess Day,” recognizing chess as a catalyst…

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Dark Matter and the Cosmic Baryon Census

Introduction Background explainer (for casual readers): In everyday terms, a baryon is a “building‑block” particle—made of three quarks—out of which nearly all familiar matter is built. The two lightest baryons are the proton (two “up” quarks + one “down”) and the neutron (one up + two downs); together they make up the nuclei of every atom and, by extension, people, planets, and pizza. Because…

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Research Summary: Integrating Population Genomics and Environmental Data in Tibetan macaques

Introduction Teng et al. (2025) integrate high‑coverage population genomics, environmental modelling and conservation forecasting to ask whether post‑bottleneck Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) can adapt fast enough to accelerating climate change. The team sequenced 26 wild individuals (average 26.5× depth, 99 % genome coverage) and mined ~40 million SNPs, providing the first range‑wide…

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Melting Glaciers, Ignited Volcanoes

Introduction Recent research suggests that as climate change strips away Earth’s ice, long-dormant volcanoes could spring back to life. When colossal ice sheets retreat, the immense weight they once pressed on the crust is lifted, allowing magma and gases to expand and explode to the surface. When you take the load off, it’s just like opening a Coca-Cola bottle or a champagne bottle, says…

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Sinkites: Unraveling North Sea’s Subsurface Mysteries

Introduction In July 2025, geologists announced a startling discovery under the deep North Sea: huge sand mounds they have dubbed “sinkites.” These feature inverted sedimentary layers on a previously unseen scale. Normally, younger sediments lie atop older rocks, but sinkites violate this rule (the geological law of superposition). High-resolution 3D seismic imaging (supplemented by core…

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Mars Express: Extended Mission, Water Discoveries, and a Legacy of Longevity

Launched in 2003, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has now been circling Mars for more than 20 years, delivering an unprecedented stream of high‑resolution data. Its High Resolution Stereo Camera HRSC has mapped nearly the entire planet, producing a virtual global 3D map. For example, on its 25 000th orbit in October 2023 Mars Express captured a slice of Mars spanning the Tharsis volcanoes and even…

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Atavistic Evolution: When Lost Traits Reappear

Below is the cleaned version of the file—with URLs, HTML‑style entities, and Markdown formatting symbols removed, while preserving all of the original wording and arranging the content into clear paragraphs. Introduction Atavism is the phenomenon of an ancestral trait re‑emerging in a modern organism after being absent for many generations. Such evolutionary “throwbacks” remind us that dormant…

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Evolutionary Biology Since Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002)

Stephen Jay Gould’s 1,400‑page magnum opus The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) argued that evolutionary theory needed a broader, more pluralistic structure than classical Neo‑Darwinism. He emphasized three departures from strict Darwinism: a hierarchy of selection (multiple units of selection beyond just individuals), the importance of forces other than selection (for example,…

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Neanderthals’ “Fat Grease Factory”: A 125,000-Year-Old Lakeside Site Redefines their Ingenuity

Uncovering a Prehistoric “Fat Factory” in Germany In a stunning archaeological revelation, scientists have identified a 125,000‑year‑old site in central Germany where Neanderthals operated what can only be described as a prehistoric “fat grease factory.” At the Neumark‑Nord 2 site, a lakeside area dating to a warm interglacial period, researchers unearthed a dense concentration of shattered…

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Thunder Moon Rises: Exploring July 2025’s Full “Thunder Moon”

INTRODUCTION Every mid-summer, the first full moon of July climbs into the night sky and reminds people why ancient cultures watched the heavens so closely. In 2025 that moment comes Thursday, 10 July at 20:36 UTC—4:36 p.m. in New York, 9:37 p.m. in London, and just after moon-rise for much of the Americas. Called the Thunder Moon by Algonquin peoples because July’s heat breeds booming storms,…