CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday told investors to steer clear of stocks in the Nasdaq Composite and instead place their bets on names listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
“Even though tech has started the new year strong, and it was crazy good today, the charts, as interpreted by Larry Williams, say you need to be a little bit wary of the show horses in the Nasdaq and bet on the work horses in the Dow,” he said.
Stocks rose on Friday to close out a positive week for all three major indexes. The Nasdaq has climbed 11% this year, as investors have bet on less aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.
To explain Williams’ analysis, Cramer examined the daily chart of the Nasdaq-100 dating back to November 2021.
While some technicians believe it’s a bullish sign that the index has broken above its 200-day moving average over the past two days, Williams points out that the Nasdaq-100 has come back down after breaching the level in the past, according to Cramer.
He then reviewed the daily chart of the Dow going back to February 2022.
Unlike the Nasdaq-100, which Williams believes is a “show horse” index due to how much interest it gets, the Dow is more representative of Main Street, Cramer said.
He added that the blue-chip index broke out above its 200-day moving average back in November and has stayed above it since.
“Williams finds this chart a lot more compelling,” he said.
For more analysis, watch Cramer’s full explanation below.
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Eating at least two portions of oily fish such as mackerel, sardines or herrings a week is linked to a lower risk of chronic kidney disease and a slower decline in the organ’s function, research suggests.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects about 700 million people worldwide. It can lead to kidney failure and death, so there is an urgent need to identify factors that could prevent its onset and progression.
Now a study has found an association between higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids found in oily fish and other seafood, and a reduced risk of kidney problems. The link was not found with higher levels of plant-derived omega 3 fatty acids.
The findings of the international team of researchers, which was led by the George Institute for Global Health and the University of New South Wales, were published in the medical journal the BMJ.
“While we cannot for certain say what specific fishes had the greatest effect on CKD risk, we know that the blood levels of the fatty acids reflect their intake well,” Dr Matti Marklund, a senior research fellow at the George Institute, told the Guardian in an email.
“Among the richest dietary sources of these fatty acids are fatty cold-water fish – for example, salmon, sardines, mackerel, and herrings – and to a less extent shellfish, like oysters, mussels, and crab.”
The findings support guidelines recommending consumption of oily fish and other seafood as part of a healthy diet.
“Current dietary recommendations in most countries suggest at least two servings of fish per week, preferably oily fish, which will provide about 250mg/day of long-chain omega 3s,” said Marklund.
Studies in animals have previously suggested omega 3 fatty acids may help with kidney function, but until now evidence from human research was limited – and relied mostly on dietary questionnaires.
The researchers pooled the results of 19 studies from 12 countries examining links between levels of omega 3 fatty acids and the development of CKD in adults.
About 25,000 people were included in the main analysis, aged between 49 and 77.
After accounting for a range of factors including age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, heart disease and diabetes, higher levels of seafood omega 3 fatty acids were associated with an 8% lower risk of developing CKD.
When participants were split by levels of seafood omega 3 fatty acids consumed, those in the highest fifth had a 13% lower risk of CKD compared with those in the lowest fifth. Higher levels were also associated with a slower annual decline in kidney function.
The researchers pointed out that their findings were observational and therefore did not prove that including more seafood in your diet definitely lowers the risk of CKD. “We need randomised controlled trials to determine that type of causality,” Marklund said.
Nevertheless, results were similar after further analysis, and appeared consistent across age groups. “Higher levels were consistently associated with lower CKD risk,” he added.
Two things can be simultaneously true: Brock Purdy is obliterating expectations for a seventh-round draft rookie, and this version of the 49ers is one of the most quarterback-proof teams in recent memory.
The combined result: In six of the seven games Purdy has played, the 49ers have scored more than 30 points. In the one game that they failed to do so, Purdy was too hurt to even throw in practices leading up to the game.
Kyle Shanahan is doing some of the best work in his career as a play designer and play caller, getting receivers wide open. Against the Seahawks in the wild-card round, Purdy’s completion percentage over expected (CPOE) was -0.5 — meaning though he threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, he wasn’t necessarily outperforming his circumstances. When Purdy gets the ball to his playmakers, the 49ers have the best collection of yards-after-catch (YAC) specialists in the league. And to go along with this QB-friendly offense, the 49ers have the NFL’s best defense.
Historically, teams with elite defenses have just needed game managers, like the 2000 Ravens with Trent Dilfer or the 2002 Buccaneers with Brad Johnson. But being a true shutdown defense in this era of passing and the increasing list of defensive penalties is difficult. Against the Seahawks on Saturday, the 49ers’ defense and Purdy were both off for much of the game — and San Francisco still dominated.
Even with the Seahawks focused on stopping the run, the 49ers rushed for 110 yards in the first half. To stop the run, the Seahawks used more base personnel (three defensive linemen, four linebackers, four defensive backs) and got another defender in the box by playing two-deep coverage less frequently than normal. Seattle instead played more traditional spot drop coverages, which Shanahan exploited with play action.
13:14 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10
The 49ers spammed this route combination featuring a deep corner and dig route throughout the game. According to TruMedia, Purdy was 3-of-4 for 99 yards when targeting the dig route, but he also checked the ball down once when the dig was wide open.
Usually, the 49ers would run this combination with a high crosser, but in this game, they had the backside receiver run a dig instead.
The Seahawks ran a spot drop Cover 3 with three deep defenders and four underneath defenders. By running the dig route instead of the crosser, Brandon Aiyuk quickly got depth and got as far behind the underneath defenders as he could before breaking inside. If he were to cross the field earlier, the underneath defenders might have been able to recover and feel him running into their zones.
The Seahawks’ underneath defenders with their eyes on the quarterback had no idea where Aiyuk was because Aiyuk got so much depth. As soon as Aiyuk crossed the spotlighted underneath defender, he had a huge void in the coverage to run into. All Purdy had to do was anticipate that window opening up and deliver the ball.
Purdy threw the ball before Aiyuk cleared the hook defender and hit him in stride.
The fear of the run caused the Seahawks to play this style of defense, and they didn’t adjust fast enough. This concept worked so well that the 49ers used it in the two-minute drill without play action and still hit Aiyuk for a 31-yard gain.
With Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, a short check down can turn into an explosive play. Since Shanahan was hired as the 49ers’ head coach, the 49ers lead the league in YAC per reception. They purposely scout and look for players who can create after the catch, and Shanahan is adept at creating space underneath for his YAC monsters to work. According to TruMedia, Purdy ranks eighth among 39 qualified QBs in the share of his passing yards that come after the catch (51.4 percent), and Jimmy Garoppolo ranks first (59.4 percent).
11:45 remaining in the fourth quarter, first-and-10
On this play-action concept, the Seahawks were once again in their base 3-4 with a safety rotating into the box. Instead of a dig, the 49ers had Samuel run a low crosser and Kittle run a high crosser behind him. This concept was designed to high/low the weak side of the coverage and get the ball to Samuel underneath with space.
Both the weakside linebacker, Tanner Muse, and strong safety, Ryan Neal, bit hard on the play-action fake. Once Muse realized it was a fake, he desperately tried to grab Samuel before Samuel could cross his face, but his attempt was futile. Samuel caught the ball with no defender within 10 yards of him at the 49ers’ 34-yard line and ran the rest of the way for a 74-yard touchdown.
DEEBO SAMUEL 74-YARD TOUCHDOWN. @49ers on 🔥@19problemz #SuperWildCard
📺: #SEAvsSF on FOX 📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/96NMtTe9OX pic.twitter.com/XezJsSHF4B
— NFL (@NFL) January 15, 2023
On a throw-by-throw level, Purdy didn’t play particularly well but settled down in the second half after at first appearing nervous, which is expected for any quarterback starting his first playoff game. It could have been the rain, but Purdy’s ball placement was off, he didn’t see open receivers and he was fidgety in the pocket. His passer rating on third down was 67.1. And the 49ers still scored 41 points.
15:00 remaining in the fourth quarter, second-and-11
At the start of the fourth quarter, the 49ers were only up six points. Shanahan called one of his signature shot plays: leak. Although the deep route usually comes from a player lined up away from the play fake, this version featured deep route on the same side as the play-action fake.
Rookie cornerback Tariq Woolen bit hard on the play fake even though he was responsible for covering deep, leaving Jauan Jennings open down the sideline.
The free safety in the middle of the field was the only defender who could have made a play on the ball. Purdy should have thrown the ball down the sideline but instead led Jennings inside, which allowed the free safety to almost make a play on the ball or put a big hit on Jennings.
What a throw from @BrockPurdy13 to Jauan Jennings! #SuperWildCard
📺: #SEAvsSF on FOX 📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/96NMtTe9OX pic.twitter.com/yai3prvPVS
— NFL (@NFL) January 14, 2023
In the end, the pass was completed, but it’s details like this that Purdy will want to iron out before the divisional round of the playoffs.
Purdy’s ability to play out of structure has been a clear advantage over Garoppolo. Including the playoffs, on dropbacks in which he took more than three seconds to throw, Purdy ranks fourth in success rate (47.1 percent). Garoppolo’s success rate on such dropbacks (35.1 percent) ranks 24th.
However, Purdy has to manage the pocket better than he did against the Seahawks. He might have had trouble seeing over the line, but he needs to step up in the pocket more often and resist his instinct to bail outside.
41 seconds remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10
On this play, Kittle ran a divide route right down the middle of the defense, but he was likely an “alert,” meaning Purdy would only look at him if he liked the pre-snap look or peeked at him after the snap.
Purdy’s first read is McCaffrey on the choice route, followed by Jennings running a stick China route.
After the snap, free safety Quandre Diggs left the middle and jumped outside. He might have thought Kittle was going to run a corner route and guessed wrong. Kittle was wide open down the middle of the field, but Purdy didn’t see him.
Based on the pre-snap look, it might have been difficult to predict Kittle breaking wide open. Purdy looked to McCaffrey, but the “lurk” defender helped on McCaffrey.
Purdy seemed to look to his next read, Jennings, but didn’t pull the trigger. Purdy had a clean pocket and plenty of room to step up but instead ran backward, bailed to his left and eventually threw the ball away.
Overall, Purdy’s ability to extend led to two touchdown passes, and he should have had another spectacular touchdown throw to Aiyuk that was dropped.
San Francisco offensive tackle Trent Williams had a fair assessment of Purdy after the game.
“I love the fact that Brock is getting the attention he deserves. He is a good player, man. And I think anybody who watches football can see that,” Williams said. “I’m not saying that he’s the next Aaron Rodgers or Pat Mahomes, but he does everything that we need him to do and more. I think we can continue to win with him, obviously.”
Purdy is playing at arguably a higher level than Garoppolo. But it’s noteworthy that his final stat line from Saturday (18-of-30 for 332 yards and three passing touchdowns, along with a rushing touchdown) isn’t reflective of his game overall. This 49ers team — including the coaching staff — is incredibly well constructed, providing Purdy with ideal surroundings.
But this is the playoffs, and better teams lie ahead, starting with the Cowboys on Sunday. The Shanahan training wheels will have to eventually come off, and Purdy will be asked to win in the straight dropback game to lead San Francisco to a Super Bowl. It might not be fair to ask this of a rookie, but will Purdy be able to succeed where his predecessor failed?
Destiny is and always has been a game with annual expansions since its release in 2014, with smaller expansions (House of Wolves, Warmind, etc) releasing in between. However, with the launch of Destiny 2’s first major expansion — Forsaken, Bungie changed the model from two smaller expansions to seasons, releasing a total of four seasons per year. And now, it looks like the developer is experimenting with a premium subscription service for the game, as some references are found in the game files.
It appears that Bungie was testing a monthly subscription model (similar to games like Final Fantasy XIV) for Destiny 2’s upcoming Lightfall expansion and season 20 which was later scrapped(?) for some reason, uncovered in the game files. Elliott over in the D2 Datamines Discord server shared some file strings with TGP that feature four types of subscriptions for the game.
As we can see, this clearly suggests that at some point there was a subscription service planned for Lightfall and season 20. The file description says that the subscription model would include “Lightfall, two new dungeons and raids, 1 month of premium content in Destiny 2 Year 6, a new Exotic Sparrow, Quicksilver Storm catalyst and ornament, and Rahool’s Secret Stash: four Exotic accessories and premium materials pack delivered throughout Year 6″.
“Enhance your journey as a New Light with a premium subscription to Destiny 2. Try out the first missions and destinations from Destiny 2: Lightfall, The Witch Queen, Beyond Light and Shadowkeep for free.”
“Prevent the apocalypse by racing Emperor Calus to the edge of the solar system. Brave a new campaign and master Strand, a new subclass. Pre-order now to instantly unlock Quicksilver Storm Exotic weapon and exclusive bonuses.”
Placeholder for Destiny 2 Lightfall Premium. Image: Bungie via Elliott
We don’t know when this was added in the game files but considering it’s for Lightfall and season 20, the best guess is with the launch of Season of Plunder, after the Lightfall showcase event.
Now, even with some direct references to a Destiny 2 subscription service in the game files, we don’t know if this will come to fruition by The Final Shape, or if this is something Bungie plans on adding to the next saga of Destiny. In short, take it with a grain of salt.
As of right now, Bungie has not announced any sort of Destiny 2 premium subscription model for Lightfall or Year 6 in general. The community has been asking for a seasonal revamp in Destiny 2 due to its repetitive level grinding, power creep, and vendor upgrades for months now.
Destiny 2’s Season of the Seraph is going in full swing right now, with its third exotic Revision Zero, now available as part of the new exotic mission that went live earlier this week.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday said there could be an opportunity to buy stocks ahead of a possible rally.
“The charts, as interpreted by Larry Williams, suggest that Christmas is not going to be canceled for Wall Street — he thinks we still have a Santa Claus rally coming, and the ideal time to buy is sometime around this Thursday,” he said.
related investing news
Stocks fell for a fourth consecutive trading session on Monday, weighed down by mounting recession fears.
Cramer said that the market’s recent downturn is the perfect setup for a Santa Claus rally, which describes U.S. stocks’ tendency to rise near the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. For Williams, it’s a matter of when, not if, stocks will run up, according to Cramer.
To explain Williams’ analysis, he examined the daily chart of the S&P 500 futures from November 2021 to January 2022.
The blue line at the bottom is Williams’ seasonal forecast, and suggests the best buying opportunities come in mid-to-late December, with the Santa Claus rally tending to last through January 10. The chart shows that stocks rallied from December 20 through the end of the year, in line with the forecast.
Cramer then compared these findings to the data shown in the daily chart of the S&P futures from September of this year until now.
The chart suggests that the market just entered the “seasonal sweet spot,” Cramer said. He added that Thursday’s trading session would be the ideal moment to buy ahead of a potential rally, according to Williams.
“I know it’s hard to believe that the market’s ready to run, but that’s how it always is with Larry’s calls. Although it’s possible this year will be different, historically, betting against him has been a real bad strategy,” he said.
For more analysis, watch Cramer’s full explanation below.
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With its huge feet, long neck and penchant for plants, the diplodocus may be one of history’s biggest vegetarians. But research has revealed the sauropod’s ancestors may have had a taste for flesh.
Scientists studying the teeth of some of the earliest dinosaurs to roam the Earth say they have uncovered telltale clues as to what they ate.
Dr Antonio Ballell Mayoral, the lead author of the research from the University of Bristol, said that while omnivores, herbivores and carnivores all existed by the Triassic period, their predecessors did not necessarily share the same diets.
“The earliest members of the two main veggie dinosaur lineages were not exclusively herbivorous,” he said.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, Ballell and colleagues report how they analysed the teeth of 11 early dinosaurs including Ngwevu intloko, a long-necked ancestor of sauropods, and Lesothosaurus diagnosticus, an early “bird-hipped” dinosaur, both of which lived about 200m years ago.
“Teeth can give good clues about what an animal eats because they are our tools to break down food,” said Ballell.
As well as looking at the shape and function of the dinosaurs’ teeth, the team made computer models of how stress would be distributed across them when biting.
Scientists found that early relatives of sauropods appear to have been carnivores based on their curved and bladed teeth. Photograph: Antonio Ballell
The team then fed the results into machine-learning algorithms based on the dental features and diets of 47 living reptiles such as iguanas, geckoes, snakes and crocodiles. This allowed the researchers to investigate the types of food that the early dinosaurs were likely to have tucked into.
The results reveal that while Ngwevu intloko and other early relatives of sauropodswere likely to have been herbivores, those that lived even earlier – such as Buriolestes schultzi, which roamed up to 237m years ago – appear to have been carnivores based on their curved and bladed teeth, similar to those of today’s Komodo dragon, together with how these teeth handled feeding-related forces.
It also seems that the ancestors of the bird-hipped dinosaurs known as ornithischians– a largely plant-eating group that includes horn-faced dinosaurs such as triceratops and armoured dinosaurs such as stegosaurus – might also have been familiar with the taste of meat. As the authors note, Lesothosaurus diagnosticushad teeth that had greater mechanical resistance than those typical of carnivores, suggesting that while it could have been a herbivore it is also possible it was an omnivore.
The early dietary diversity of dinosaurs was fundamental in their rise and later dominance, allowing them to adapt to changing climates and food resources, wrote the researchers.
Ballell said that while it had traditionally been thought the very earliest dinosaurs were carnivorous, more recent discoveries challenged this. However, the Bristol research suggests carnivory is likely to be ancestral.
Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the work, described the research as innovative and inspiring.
“We’ve long wondered how the earliest dinosaurs were able to outlast their competitors and sweep around the world. This new study uses cutting-edge methods to study the diets of the oldest dinosaurs in never-before-seen detail,” he said.
“It looks like the first dinosaurs were probably meat-eaters, and that different groups of dinosaurs changed their diets over time, and this may have helped drive their diversification,” Brusatte added. “Some of the oldest dinosaurs already were experimenting with a wide variety of foods and feeding styles, and I am sure this must have played an important role in helping dinosaurs fill so many niches and become so successful.”
Enlarge / One of the rifts in the Cerebrus Fossae area, potentially created by the stretching of the crust driven by a mantle plume.
The Mars InSight lander included the first seismograph placed on the red planet, and it has picked up everything from marsquakes to impacts and provided lots of new information on Mars’ interior. But perhaps its most striking finding has been that almost all of Mars’ seismic activity appears to originate from a single location, a site called Elysium Planitia.
That area is also the site of the most recent volcanic activity we’ve detected on Mars. In a paper released this week, scientists argue that both derive from a single source: a plume of hot material rising through the mantle. It’s the sort of geological activity that creates hotspots like Iceland and Yellowstone on Earth, but it had been thought that Mars had cooled too much to support those activities.
Building a case
Elysium Planitia is a generally flat region covering roughly a million square kilometers. It’s just at the edge of Mars’ northern lowlands, but it sits nearly a kilometer above them. Many of its features are old, including a series of ridges thought to be caused by the compression of Mars’ interior as it cooled. But it also has signs of recent volcanic activity, though not nearly as much as the nearby Tharsis region, which contains Mars’ largest volcanoes.
Instead, there are signs of large floods of volcanic material released from large fissures in Elysium Planitia. There are also signs of pyroclastic flows that appear to be the product of the most recent volcanic activity on the red planet, dating from less than 200,000 years ago.
Those signs made it interesting to scientists and one of the reasons that the InSight lander was sent to the area. And, as far as we’ve been able to tell, all of the significant marsquakes come from this area.
Obviously, the volcanic activity and marsquakes are likely to be connected. The question is how.
There are some potential explanations for these and other features of Elysium Planitia, but the researchers argue that a hot mantle plume is the only one that makes sense. “While alternative explanations may exist for some of these observations,” they write, “only an active mantle plume can account for all of them.”
It’s a plume
As mentioned above, Elysium Planitia has a series of fractures that are typically associated with compression, and these are thought to be a product of old terrain that’s subsiding as the interior of Mars cools. But Elysium Planitia is also nearly a kilometer higher than the surrounding lowland terrain, suggesting that it might have been elevated by tectonic forces. There’s also the Cerberus Fossae, a series of what appear to be volcanic vents, and the deposits that derive from them.
Those deposits are extensive, suggesting a major source of magma fed the activity in the region, which rules out some potential sources of the rock. While they’re widespread, the deposits typically aren’t thicker than about 100 meters, meaning they can’t account for the area’s elevation. And measures of the local variations in gravitational pull suggest the Elysium Planitia’s elevation is supported from deep within the crust. Finally, the volcanic material in the area has much higher levels of iron than other areas of Mars, a feature found in volcanism driven by mantle plumes on Earth.
So the researchers suggest that the region had been undergoing the normal contraction faulting that appears widespread across the surface of Mars. But more recently, a mantle plume reached the crust below it, elevating the region and adding the sorts of faults associated with the volcanic vents of Cerberus Fossae.
So they built a model of a mantle plume and adjusted it until it fit the region’s various surface features and seismic data. Based on the model, they estimate the plume is about 4,000 kilometers in diameter, and it’s about 200 to 500 kilometers thick in the area immediately beneath the crust. They also estimate that it’s from 100 to 300 Kelvin hotter than the surrounding material.
How did this happen?
The activity levels found in Elysium Planitia are much lower than hotspot-driven sites elsewhere on Mars, and they’re at the low end of what you’d see at similar sites on Earth. But the surprise is that it’s happening at all. Earlier activity driven by mantle plumes should have removed some of the water from Mars’ interior, making it more difficult for rocks to melt. The prior compression of the region should also make it more difficult for molten rock to force its way to the surface.
But, more critically, Mars’ interior should have cooled significantly from the period when Mars built the massive volcanoes of Tharsis. In fact, some models of Mars’ interior have suggested that this sort of activity should have ended by this point in the planet’s history. So understanding what’s going on here may be critical to improving those models.
Unfortunately, this is where the big glitch with InSight makes things difficult. It was supposed to deploy an implement that measures the heat flow from Mars’ interior to its surface, which should have shed light on any hot material nearby (the InSight landing site is right on top of the proposed mantle plume). But the lander team couldn’t get the instrument inserted into Mars and eventually abandoned attempts to get it to work.
But the new paper definitely suggests that Elysium Planitia is worth an additional look.
Explorers wriggling through cramped, pitch-black caves in South Africa claim to have discovered evidence that a human relative with a brain only one-third the size of ours used fire for light and cooking a few hundred thousand years ago. The unpublished findings — which add new wrinkles to the story of human evolution — have been met with both excitement and skepticism.
South African paleoanthropologist and National Geographic explorer Lee Berger described finding soot-covered walls, fragments of charcoal, burned antelope bones and rocks arranged as hearths in the Rising Star cave system, where nine years earlier the team uncovered the bones of a new member of the human family, Homo naledi.
Control of fire is considered a crucial milestone in human evolution, providing light to navigate dark places, enabling activity at night and leading to the cooking of food, and a subsequent increase in body mass. When exactly the breakthrough occurred, however, has been one of the most contested questions in all of paleoanthropology.
“We are probably looking at the culture of another species,” said Berger, who dispensed with scientific convention by reporting the discoveries not in a peer-reviewed journal but in a press release and a Carnegie Science lecture at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington on Thursday. In an interview with The Washington Post, Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said formal papers are under review and added, “There are a series of major discoveries coming out over the next month.”
He stressed that his team’s discoveries this summer answer a critical question raised when they announced the initial trove of 1,500 fossil bones: How did this ancient species find its way into a cave system about 100 to 130 feet below ground, a place that is devilishly hard to reach and, in his words, “horrifically dangerous”?
The research team now believes H. naledi used small fires in chambers throughout the cave system to light their way. Berger based the claim in part on his personal journey through the cave’s narrow passages, which required him to shed 55 pounds.
Moreover, he argued that use of fire by a human relative with a brain little bigger than a large orange upsets the traditional story of our development. For years, experts portrayed evolution as “a ladder” that moved ever-upward toward species with larger brains and greater intelligence, while leaving smaller-brained species to perish.
But evidence has been building that the process may have been messier than thought, a view that would be bolstered if indeed this smaller-brained contemporary of early Homo sapiens was advanced enough to use fire.
Berger’s lecture, accompanied by photographs from the cave but not by carbon dating and other traditional scientific methods, drew criticism, as have some of his previous assertions about the H. naledi fossils.
“There’s a long history of claims about the use of fire in South African caves,” said Tim D. White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley, who is a past critic of Berger’s. “Any claim about the presence of controlled fire is going to be received rather skeptically if it comes via press release as opposed to data.”
Past reports of humankind’s early use of fire, even those accompanied by scientific evidence, have proved contentious. In 2012, archaeologists using advanced technology reported “unambiguous evidence in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains that burning events took place in Wonderwerk Cave” in South Africa roughly 1 million years ago. Critics questioned that age estimate, and scientists revised the date to at least 900,000 years old after using a complex technique called cosmogenic nuclide dating.
White said rigorous studies must date both the evidence of fire and the H. naledi bones if Berger’s team is to demonstrate that both come from the same period. Other studies must show not just the presence of fire, but its controlled use. Testing would need to establish that the material believed to be soot actually is soot and not discoloration caused by chemicals or other factors.
Berger acknowledged that one of the major challenges facing him and his colleagues will be dating the materials they’ve found. So far, they’ve said the H. naledi bones date to between 230,000 and 330,000 year ago, though Berger stressed that those dates should not be viewed as the first or last appearances of the species.
White appeared most skeptical about the lack of stone tools found in the caves. He said archaeologists would expect to find thousands of stone tools in a place where human relatives were using fire for light and cooking.
“I will tell you at this stage there are no stone tools that we’ve found in the presence of a hearth,” Berger said in the interview. “That is an odd thing.” Nonetheless, he told the audience at the Carnegie Science lecture, “Fires don’t spontaneously start 250 meters into a wet cave, and animals don’t just wander into the fires and get burned.”
He said stone tools have been found in the general landscape outside the caves. He also pushed back against criticism that what the team has found does not constitute proof of an ancient hearth.
“We found dozens of hearths, not just one,” Berger said when asked about the evidence during the interview. “It’s 100 percent. There’s no doubt. … We’re now entering a phase where this goes from just bones to a rich understanding of the environment they lived in.”
Berger previously ran into controversy during the initial announcement of the discovery of H. naledi, when he suggested that these ancient relatives were deliberately using the caves as a place to lay their dead. Despite the debate, Berger repeated the claim at several points during the lecture, acknowledging that it was “perhaps not very well received by most of the academy.”
Other researchers said that even though much testing remains to be done, the latest finds at Rising Star are impressive.
“I think it’s terrific. It looks very convincing,” said Richard W. Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and author of the 2009 book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.”
“Of course it’s fascinating because of the small and generally mysterious nature of these people.”
Wrangham said that when the discovery of H. naledi was announced, he was discussing the dark caves where the bones were found with one of Berger’s colleagues and remarked, “Surely this must mean that they had light.”
However, Wrangham said he remained puzzled on one matter: “How did they put up with the smoke? Was there a draft that pulled smoke out of the cave?”
Wrangham said he is willing to take Berger at his word about the use of fire, based on the early evidence. He said the strongest evidence for early control of fire, however, comes from an archaeological site in Israel called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, where experts say early human relatives used fire to cook fish about 780,000 years ago.
During the lecture, Berger also shared vivid descriptions of some of the 50 H. naledi individuals the team has found.
He described the fossil bones of a hand “curled into a death grip”; the skull of a child found sitting atop a shelf in the rock; and the skeleton of another child tucked into an alcove in one of the chambers. The dramatic images required an equally dramatic journey through a slit in the dolomite that narrows to just seven inches and requires extreme contortion of an explorer’s body.
“You’re basically kissing the ground,” said Keneiloe Molopyane, a 35-year-old researcher at the South African university’s Center for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey. Explorers, she continued, emerge onto a perilous ridge about 65 feet above the cave floor. Inside, it’s pitch black, with “bats whizzing by you on either side. If you fall, you belong to the cave.”
The reward, however, is a feeling Molopyane vividly recalled from her first descent into the cave system: “Oh, God. I am the first person to see these remains in I don’t know how many thousands of years, and now I am touching them.”
Berger said roughly 150 scientists around the world are taking part in the effort to excavate, date and study the remains and artifacts found at the Rising Star cave system.
Asked to speculate on the interactions and possible conflicts that may have taken place between H. naledi and H. sapiens, Berger replied, “Everything you just asked, within the next 36 months, we will have answers.”
A common injection for treating arthritis may be speeding up the onset of the disease rather than preventing it, according to new studies.
Both of the studies were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
FILE: Osteoarthritis of the knee. Wear then destruction of cartilage in various areas of the knee joint. Frontal MRI scan of the knees. (BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In the first study, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, studied patients who had been diagnoses osteoarthritis, the most common form of the disease, affecting more than 32 million adults in the U.S.
Among the subjects, 70 received intraarticular injections, while 140 did not during a two-year period. Statistical analysis showed that corticosteroid knee injections were “significantly associated” with the overall progression of osteoarthritis in the knee.
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The group who received hyaluronic injections showed a decreased progression of osteoarthritis, specifically in marrow lesions, according to the study.
In the second study, researchers at the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science studied the progression of osteoarthritis in patients who received injections of corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid.
Patients injected with corticosteroids had “significantly more” osteoarthritis progression – including medial joint space narrowing – than patients who received an injection of hyaluronic acid.
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“The results suggest that hyaluronic acid injections should be further explored for the management of knee osteoarthritis symptoms, and that steroid injections should be utilized with more caution,” researcher and medical student Azad Darbandi said in a statement.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday said that the S&P 500 is at a critical moment that could send it higher or cut its upward trajectory short.
“The charts, as interpreted by Carolyn Boroden, suggest that the S&P 500 could be due for some near-term turbulence if it can’t break out above last week’s highs,” he said.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed down on Tuesday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up slightly, with stocks struggling to rebound from the previous day’s losses driven by protests against Covid restrictions in China.
To explain Boroden’s analysis, Cramer examined the daily chart of the S&P 500.
The technical analyst sees the index approaching an important hurdle that could pose a real problem for its ability to continue gaining, according to Cramer.
More specifically, the S&P 500’s recent run from the mid-October lows is similar in scale to its rally from late 2021 through early January 2022, he explained. When the rally that started late last year peaked on Jan. 4, the index saw a “nightmare” 1327-point decline into last month’s lows.
“She’s not saying that the rally’s toast. But Boroden says the S&P needs to clear this hurdle — it needs to break out above last week’s high,” he said, adding, “In short, she sees this as a make-or-break moment for the S&P 500, at least in the near-term.”
For more analysis, watch Cramer’s full explanation below.
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