Watch as storm chasers drive into the heart of a huge hailstorm
Footage from the Associated Press shows a team of meteorologists setting up radar systems and cameras in the Great Plains in order to monitor the hail and 'make better forecasts'.
Victor Gensi, co-lead scientist of ICECHIP, the first US hail-focused field campaign in over 40 years, said: 'We want to know that a storm is going to produce baseballs and that storm is only going to produce golf balls. And if we can constrain those forecasts, the people receiving that information will be better served.'
Student meteorologist Katie Wargowsky said she has to ignore her 'natural instincts to hide' and 'know that you are changing the world one storm at a time'.
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Boston Globe
7 hours ago
- Boston Globe
A 100,000-year-old burial site in Israel is changing what we know about early humans
'This is an amazing revolutionary innovation for our species,' said Yossi Zaidner, one of the directors of the Tinshemet excavation and a professor of archeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 'It's actually the first time we are starting to use this behavior.' Volunteers worked in Tinshemet Cave, where artifacts and bodies date back 100,000 years. Ariel Schalit/Associated Press Advertisement Archeologists working at Tinshemet since 2016 have discovered the remains of five early humans that date back to around 110,000 to 100,000 years ago, according to various technologies. The skeletons were discovered in pits and carefully arranged in a fetal position, which is known as a burial position, said Zaidner. Many were found with objects, such as basalt pebbles, animal remains, or fragments of ochre, a reddish pigment made from iron-rich rocks. These objects, some sourced from hundreds of miles away, had no known practical use for daily life, so experts believe they were part of rituals meant to honor the dead. Tinshemet Cave is a dark slash in central Israel's rolling hills filled with squeaking fruit bats. Inside and around the cave is an unassuming stone mound that Zaidner calls 'one of the three or four most important sites for study of human evolution and behavior during the Paleolithic time.' Advertisement Fruit bats lined the entry to Tinshemet Cave. Ariel Schalit/Associated Press The Paleolithic era, also known as the Stone Age because of the onset of stone tools, lasted from as early as 3.3 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago. Tinshemet Cave is from the Middle Paleolithic era, roughly between 250,000 to 30,000 years ago. Some of the Tinshemet researchers' core findings were published in March in Nature Human Behavior. A key discovery were the remains of five early humans, including two full skeletons and three isolated skulls with other bones and teeth. Also of note were more than 500 differently sized fragments of red and orange ochre, a pigment created by heating iron-rich stones to a certain temperature — evidence that early humans had the means to create decorative objects. 'Here we see a really complex set of behaviors, not related to just food and surviving,' Zaidner said. Using hand chisels and delicate, pen-sized pneumatic drills that resemble dental tools, archeologists will need many more years to excavate the site. The field work, which started in 2016, is usually done over the summer months. This year, a dozen undergraduate and graduate students fanned out across the site, painstakingly documenting and removing each fragment of tool, object, or bone. At the entrance to the cave, the skull of one of the early humans is slowly emerging from the rock sediment; it will be years before it is fully excavated. Tinshemet is exceptionally important to archeologists because the local climate preserved the bones, tools, and ornaments in good condition, unlike many other parts of the world where these items were lost to time, said Christian Tryon, a professor at the University of Connecticut and a research associate at the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution, who was not involved in the study. Advertisement The skeletons and objects were so well preserved because of ash from frequent fires, likely for rituals. This large amount of ash mixed with rainfall and Israel's acidic limestone, creating optimal conditions for preservation. One skeleton was in such good condition archeologists could see how the fingers were interwoven, hands clasped beneath the head. Tryon said the Tinshemet findings are bolstering earlier discoveries from two similar burial sites dating back to the same period in northern Israel — Skhul Cave and Qafzeh Cave. Skhul Cave was excavated almost 100 years ago, and Qafzeh Cave mostly around 50 years ago, when archeological practices were more haphazard. 'There were so many uncertainties with those sites, but this is confirming it's a pattern we know, and they're really nailing down the dates,' Tryon said. Tinshemet has helped archeologists conclude that burial practices started to become more widespread during this time, representing a shift in how early humans treated their dead. Some archeologists believe intentional burials started earlier. In South Africa, the Homo naledi species — an ancient cousin of Homo sapiens — In ancient times, Israel was a bridge between Neanderthals from Europe and Homo sapiens from Africa. Archeologists have identified other subgroups of early humans in the area, and believe the groups interacted and may have interbred. Advertisement Experts have been studying the two full skeletons brought from Tinshemet for years, but it's still unclear if they were Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, a hybrid population, or another group altogether. The mix of subgroups created opportunities for different groups of early humans to exchange knowledge or express identity, said Zaidner. It's around this time that archeologists first see examples of early jewelry or body painting, which could be ways early humans started outwardly belonging to a certain group, drawing boundaries between 'us' and 'them,' he said. Israel Hershkovitz, a physical anthropologist at Tel Aviv University and the co-director of the Tinshemet site, said the concept of cemeteries in prehistoric life is important because it symbolizes 'a kind of a territory.' He said that same kind of claim over land where ancestors are buried still echoes in the region. 'It's a kind of claim you make to the neighbors, saying 'this is my territory, this part of the land belongs to my father and my forefather' and so on and so on.'
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Washington Post
Heavy storms in northern Vietnam leave 1 dead, as Wipha weakens into a tropical depression
HANOI, Vietnam — Heavy storms in northern Vietnam left one person dead and another missing, police said Wednesday, as Wipha weakened from a tropical storm into a depression. A 59-year-old man was killed in Nghe An province when a tree fell on his house on Sunday before the storm made landfall, police said. Nghe An, which stretches from the coast to the mountainous Laos border, was among the areas hit hardest by heavy rain and floods. Another woman was swept away by floodwaters and remains missing. Four other people were injured. Flooding damaged hundreds of homes, destroyed crops and cut off remote communities, officials said. Nearly 400 households were evacuated from the province's landslide-prone areas, and several upland communities remain isolated without electricity or communication, officials said. Heavy rains triggered landslides that damaged roads, collapsed part of a school building and destroyed crops and forest. The storm made landfall Tuesday morning with sustained winds of up to 102 kilometers per hour (63 mph) before weakening as it moved inland. It caused power outages, disrupted farming operations and forced temporary airport closures in northern provinces. In neighboring Thailand, heavy rain from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning triggered flooding in several northern provinces, swelling rivers and inundating homes. Authorities said more than 350 people were affected, though no casualties have been reported. They warned of possible flash floods and landslides. ___ Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report. ___ Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receive support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Heavy storms in northern Vietnam leave 1 dead, as Wipha weakens into a tropical depression
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Heavy storms in northern Vietnam left one person dead and another missing, police said Wednesday, as Wipha weakened from a tropical storm into a depression. A 59-year-old man was killed in Nghe An province when a tree fell on his house on Sunday before the storm made landfall, police said. Nghe An, which stretches from the coast to the mountainous Laos border, was among the areas hit hardest by heavy rain and floods. Another woman was swept away by floodwaters and remains missing. Four other people were injured. Flooding damaged hundreds of homes, destroyed crops and cut off remote communities, officials said. Nearly 400 households were evacuated from the province's landslide-prone areas, and several upland communities remain isolated without electricity or communication, officials said. Heavy rains triggered landslides that damaged roads, collapsed part of a school building and destroyed crops and forest. The storm made landfall Tuesday morning with sustained winds of up to 102 kilometers per hour (63 mph) before weakening as it moved inland. It caused power outages, disrupted farming operations and forced temporary airport closures in northern provinces. In neighboring Thailand, heavy rain from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning triggered flooding in several northern provinces, swelling rivers and inundating homes. Authorities said more than 350 people were affected, though no casualties have been reported. They warned of possible flash floods and landslides. ___ Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receive support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
