This week’s science news was full of surprising stories about ecological change. Topping the list was the discovery that China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert that it has turned one of the world’s largest and driest places into a carbon sink that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits.
The effort is part of China’s Great Wall, which aims to stop the expansion of the Gobi Desert. To date, China has planted approximately 88 million acres (36 million hectares) of forest and 66 billion trees, demonstrating that human-driven interventions can transform natural landscapes for the better. This was evident when China banned fishing in the Yangtze River and fish populations recovered.
A ‘giant’ who underwent brain surgery is buried in a Viking Age mass grave
A Viking-era mass grave in England filled with the dismembered remains of 10 people also included the skeleton of a very tall man who had undergone brain surgery, we reported this week.
During an excavation in Wandlebury Country Park, south of Cambridge, in the summer of 2025, archaeologists unearthed four complete human bones and scattered heads and limbs. Evidence strongly suggests that the occupant of this pit met a violent end. It is most likely that these buried bones are related to a conflict between Saxons and Vikings in the 9th century, when Cambridge was a frontier area.
As for this giant, scientists speculate that he may have experienced pituitary gigantism, which causes an overproduction of growth hormone. This may have caused the skull to swell, requiring a brain surgery called trepanation, in which a hole is made in the skull.
More archeology news
—The world’s oldest known sewn garment may have been sewn together from pieces of Ice Age skin unearthed in an Oregon cave.
– Old Inuit people braved icy waters to reach a remote island in Greenland 4,500 years ago, archaeologists discover
– Underground tunnels discovered in a Stone Age tomb in Germany that may have been used for medieval cult rituals
life’s little mysteries
A lineage of ghosts sounds pretty spooky, but you don’t need Tyler Henry to contact them. All you need is a good geneticist. These extinct populations left no fossils, but their traces have been unearthed from humans and other animals.
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Scientists carry out the beginning of a dream
The role of dreams and the unconscious in our waking cognition has long been a pervasive mystery. Take the example of 19th century German chemist August Kekulé. He famously claimed to have discovered the ring structure of the benzene molecule after dreaming that a snake swallowed his own tail.
This week we reported on an interesting study that seems to prove that dreams can help solve difficult problems. But this time the solution was deliberately inserted into the sleeping minds of the participants using musical cues, not far from the dream manipulation used in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Inception.
And yes, it actually improved the volunteer’s ability to solve previously encountered puzzles.
See more health news
— Early research suggests ‘DNA origami’ could be the key to making an effective HIV vaccine
– The risk of dying from pregnancy in the U.S. is 44 times higher than the risk of dying from abortion, new analysis finds
-Diagnostic dilemma: Teen infected with rare ‘welder’s anthrax’, ninth known case ever reported
Also featured in this week’s science news
—NASA telescope discovers components of life ejected from comet 3I/ATLAS
— Radio signals discovered at the center of our galaxy could test Einstein’s theory of relativity
—Are you a night owl or an early riser?
—During the Voyager flight 40 years ago, something supercharged Uranus with radiation. Scientists know it now.
—Antarctica’s ‘ghost particle’ observatory receives major upgrade that could ‘pave the way’ for physics breakthroughs
science reading material
By 37,000 years ago, this horrific act was already being performed. In the El Sorto region of southeastern Spain, the last remnants of Neanderthals lived out their days unaware that they would be the last members of their species. But what drove our evolutionary cousins to extinction? In this long read, Live Science sought answers to the most mysterious sleuths of human prehistory. The question is: Who killed the Neanderthals? Reader, was that us?
something for the weekend
If you’re looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best analysis, history of science, and crosswords published this week.
‘There’s no reason to ban us from playing’: Analysis debunks the idea that transgender women have an inherent physical advantage in sports [Analysis]
History of Science: “Father of Modern Genetics” Describes Experiments with Peas That Prove Heredity is Transmitted in Discrete Units – February 8, 1865 [Science history]
Live Science Crossword Puzzle #29: “Middle Period” of Dinosaurs — 13 [Crossword]
Science news in pictures
Forgot to give that special someone a romantic gift this Valentine’s Day? Give them some table salt and tell them it came from this lake.
Salinas Las Barrancas is an Argentine lake photographed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station drifting overhead, and its pink color is due to microorganisms that thrive on salt deposits within the lake. Humans also use salt. Each year, 330,000 tonnes (300,000 tonnes) of this is mined from plains. The salt is then expected to be replenished by the next heavy rain, allowing mining to continue for the next 5,000 years.
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