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Ancient Body Paint May Have Been Prehistoric Sunscreen, Study Says

Ancient Body Paint May Have Been Prehistoric Sunscreen, Study Says

Yahoo25-04-2025
Ochre body paint may have been a form of prehistoric sunscreen that helped early humans survive a sudden increase in ultraviolet (UV) radiation around 41,000 years ago.
That's a fascinating new hypothesis recently put forward by an international team of geoscientists and anthropologists, led by researchers at the University of Michigan.
Their study reconstructs the global space environment during the end of the Last Glacial Period, and it finds that when Earth's magnetic field suddenly hiccuped all those millennia ago, it had a profound impact on our planet's protective solar shield.
Scientists already knew of this distinct geomagnetic tantrum in Earth's history, called the Laschamp event, when the poles suddenly and briefly went haywire and underwent a partial flip before settling back into their original positions.
But the new model is more detailed than ever before, and it shows that over the course of thousands of years, while the event was underway, the strength of Earth's geomagnetic field plummeted, reaching just 10 percent of what it is today.
At the same time, the poles where magnetic field lines meet expanded and tilted by over 75 degrees relative to Earth's rotational axis.
The South Pole shifted away from Antarctica and settled over Australia and New Zealand, while the North Pole wandered out of the Arctic into Western Eurasia, Northern Africa, and the northwestern Sahara.
"Vast expanses of both hemispheres were enveloped by expansive open field line regions, unleashing a substantial barrage of auroral precipitation on a global scale," the authors write.
That's where the sunscreen comes in handy.
Auroras are caused by charged particles from the Sun, which are guided along Earth's magnetic field lines to the poles, where they are dumped out and interact with our planet's atmosphere.
If the magnetic field lines are weakened, though, all that cosmic radiation enters the atmosphere earlier and deeper, which can be disastrous for the ozone layer below. As this protective layer weakens, it in turn admits more harmful UV light.
During the Laschamp weakening, if some parts of the world let in more UV radiation, then early humans, including our own species and Neanderthals, were likely affected.
Scientists have previously suggested our species' adaptations to the Laschamp event may have allowed us to survive where other humans could not.
The new study, led by space physicist Agnit Mukhopadhyay, adds to that idea.
"In the study, we combined all of the regions where the magnetic field would not have been connected, allowing cosmic radiation, or any kind of energetic particles from the Sun, to seep all the way in to the ground," explains Mukhopadhyay.
While speculative, the authors point out that many of the areas likely exposed to increased ultraviolet radiation matched closely with changes in human activity more than 40,000 years ago, including more tools for tailoring clothing, an increase in cave art, and the use of ochre, which some studies suggest is a natural prehistoric sunscreen.
These behaviors may reflect humanity's attempt to minimize exposure to ultraviolet radiation. To this day, the Himba community in northern Namibia, for instance, use ochre as sunscreen, and Indigenous Australians have similar customs.
"There have been some experimental tests that show [ochre] has sunscreen-like properties. It's a pretty effective sunscreen, and there are also ethnographic populations that have used it primarily for that purpose," confirms anthropologist Raven Garvey of the University of Michigan.
"Its increased production and its association primarily with anatomically modern humans (during the Laschamp) is also suggestive of people's having used it for this purpose as well."
The timing is certainly intriguing, but the fossil record is not a complete one, and it needs to be interpreted with caution. There are likely many factors that led to our species' survival – and to the demise of our cousins.
The disappearance of the Neanderthals, for instance, largely coincides with the Laschamp event, which has led some to propose that it is what killed our early relatives.
Today, however, there is now some archaeological evidence of Neanderthals making tools for clothing, using ochre, and making cave art. Perhaps they didn't do this to the same level of sophistication as our own species, but they may have been adapting to the times, too. Historically, scientists have tended to underestimate our ancient cousins and what they were capable of.
In 2021, archaeologist Anna Goldfield wrote a piece for Sapiens that argued that "headlines trumpeting that a magnetic pole switch killed off our ancient relatives are vastly oversimplifying the tremendously complex system in which Neanderthals and our Homo sapiens ancestors lived."
The new study was published in Science Advances.
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Weight Loss Jab Found To Shrink Breast Cancer Tumors
Weight Loss Jab Found To Shrink Breast Cancer Tumors

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Weight Loss Jab Found To Shrink Breast Cancer Tumors

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Should You Sunscreen Your Cat?
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Should You Sunscreen Your Cat?

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Crypto billionaire Justin Sun will fly on Blue Origin's next space tourism launch
Crypto billionaire Justin Sun will fly on Blue Origin's next space tourism launch

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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Four years after he paid $28 million for a spacecraft seat, Justin Sun will finally fly to the final frontier. In June 2021, Sun — the billionaire founder of the blockchain platform Tron — won an auction for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first-ever crewed spaceflight. That mission launched on July 20 of that year, carrying Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and three other people to and from suborbital space on the company's reusable New Shepard vehicle. Sun was not on board, however; he had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, the company said at the time. Sun had not identified himself as the winning bidder when that flight lifted off. The big reveal came in December 2021, when the crypto billionaire went public and said he now planned to fly in 2022 with five other "space warriors." That didn't happen, either. But Sun's long-deferred spaceflight is now just around the corner: He is officially on the manifest for NS-34, New Shepard's next human spaceflight, Blue Origin announced on Monday (July 21). The company has not yet disclosed a target launch date for the flight but is expected to do so soon. Here's a brief profile of the 34-year-old Sun and his five NS-34 crewmates, using information provided by Blue Origin. Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, a real estate investor and adventurer who was born in India but is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has visited every country in the world, as well as both the north and south poles. Gökhan Erdem, a Turkish businessman, photographer and space enthusiast who "dreams of one day traveling to the International Space Station and possibly even beyond," Blue Origin wrote. Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico who has taken a microgravity-inducing airplane flight and reported on a number of space missions, including NASA's Artemis 1 moon flight. She's also a Solar System Ambassador for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Lionel Pitchford, an Englishman who has long lived in Spain and traveled the world. After losing his sister and her family in a 1992 plane crash in Nepal, he founded a nonprofit in the nation devoted to helping disadvantaged children. Pitchford has also run an orphanage in Kathmandu for the last 30 years. James (J.D.) Russell, an entrepreneur who founded the venture capital firm Alpha Funds. He also established the Victoria Russell Foundation, a nonprofit that honors the memory of his deceased daughter by "supporting children's education and assisting the families of first responders," Blue Origin wrote. Unlike the other NS-34 passengers, Russell is not a spaceflight rookie; he flew on the NS-28 mission in November 2024. Justin Sun, who is worth about $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. In addition to his Tron work, Sun is the ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and serves as an advisor to the HTX crypto exchange. "A protege of Alibaba's Jack Ma, Sun was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in April 2025, where he was recognized as one of the most dynamic and outspoken figures in crypto and earning the moniker 'Crypto's Billionaire Barker' for his bold approach to innovation, advocacy and industry leadership," Blue Origin wrote. Sun's winning $28 million bid for the New Shepard seat in 2021 was donated to Club for the Future, Blue Origin's education nonprofit. Related Stories: — Winner of Blue Origin's $28 million auction to fly with 5 'space warriors' next year — Facts about New Shepard, Blue Origin's rocket for space tourism — Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight NS-34 will be the 14th crewed New Shepard flight to date, and the fifth such mission of 2025. The most recent, NS-33, lifted off on June 29. New Shepard missions fly from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas, near the town of Van Horn. Each one lasts 10 to 12 minutes from launch to the parachute-aided touchdown of the New Shepard crew capsule. (New Shepard's rocket also comes back down to Earth for a safe landing and eventual reuse.) New Shepard is an autonomous vehicle, so the passengers can sit back and simply enjoy the flight. That experience includes a few minutes of weightlessness and great views of Earth against the blackness of space, from an altitude of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers). Solve the daily Crossword

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