In the News: Mammoths and Men

Fig.1. Mammoth skeleton at the George C. Page Museum
(Credit: Russ via Flickr, 2014)

Artifacts, sediment cores, and mammoth bones all connect us to ancient history, either through culture or the natural world. This week in the news, we read about how to examine the past using old collections in new ways:

• Recent research with ice cores, cave records, and rodent middens tell the dynamic history of heat transport in the ocean and atmosphere that can trigger global climate change: “The Past Shows How Abrupt Climate Shifts Affect Earth,” University of Copenhagen News (09 November 2015)

• 3D printing has been at the center of engineering advances, from prosthetic limbs to connecting cultures to their artifacts: “Museums And First Nations Explore 3D Printing As Mechanism For Artifact Repatriation,” 3D Printing News (05 November 2015)

• This ancient collection of mammoth bones tells a tale of catastrophe that happened 66,000 years ago: “What Killed The Mammoths Of Waco?” Smithsonian Magazine (03 December 2015)

• Although coral reefs account for only a fraction of the ocean's area, they support more than 25 percent of marine biodiversity. Sediment cores may be the key to understanding this abundance of life at the bottom of the reef: “Sediment Record In Deep Coral Reefs Studied,” Science Daily (03 December 2015)