Monthly Science Summary
Monthly Science Summary
🔔 Monthly Science Summary Brief overview of major studies - stay up-to-date
🔭 Sources & Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_in_science
First of all, thank you! <3
Population bottleneck: I'm reading about a bottleneck 900'000 years ago. Isn't humanity only 200'000 years old?
I'm also very interested about the climate conditions and 98.7% of humans "being lost". What climate caused that dying? Does that change somehow relate to today's climate change, and does the risk of population reduction translate as well?
Yes (200k–300.000), that's why it says pre-humans...we didn't arise out of nowhere, it was a continuous evolution and it seems like if those had died out we wouldn't be here. (However, that's not settled, there are substantial reasonable doubts over these results as hinted at with "While alternative explanations are possible" and elaborated in the other comments here.)
Good question, it wasn't a warming and even if it was, I don't think it can easily be translated to today's climate change. They refer to the Early-to-Middle Pleistocene Transition (not much info at that page though). If it's linked, that doesn't mean it caused it – I think people in that regard far too often think of (especially singular) causes instead of contributors within a complex interconnected set of causal factors. Maybe you're interested in this non-included paper from the same month which projects an upcoming large sudden population decline – it's just not substantiated and one can't just compare modern humans with other animal populations.
That one about the human extinction risk bottleneck is far out, man
What happened to LK-99?
It turned out to be an insulator if you can believe it!
See the papers linked here
Wasn't the giant population drop story found to be inconclusive based on a large number of assumptions?
That's why I put "While alternative explanations are possible" there.
I didn't add it to the WP article, and nothing here suggests this to be "conclusive"...it's just really 'significant' which even skeptics of this seem to agree with. Would be interesting if you have a source for "large number of assumptions" though: that doesn't seem to be a good description what people doubting it pointed out / criticized here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/science/human-survival-bottleneck.html I previously had something like "Some peers doubt the study but if correct, [...]" there maybe that would be clearer?
I see. I read a couple articles that mentioned that the species the original finding reports on is unidentified but assumed to be a modern human ancestor, that cumulative assumptions were made coming up with the calculations to determine that 1280 number, and that the report does not incorporate fossil evidence from other regions of the world, so the 1280 might just be a single group rather than representative of the human race, especially since it's difficult to figure out how a group that small and genetically homogenous could have effectively repopulated in health.
I didn't save the articles when I read them, but I'll look for them later and send them over if the concerns seem legitimate under scrutiny.
Ah, what is not to love about using AI to "screen" for things, while people still don't understand what it is and are using it to abuse whatever they can in any way they can.
Here is the study (it both reduced workload and increased effectiveness), I don't think you understood what this was about but that's nothing to criticize with the brevity of text