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Tag Archives: Trove
‘It’s as if we found oil’: Tuscan town savours discovery of spa trove | Italy
Since she was a child, Martina Canuti has been venturing down the steep hill flanking the Tuscan town of San Casciano dei Bagni, known by residents as “the sacred mountain”, to take a dip in the two ancient hot springs famed for their therapeutic benefits.
Little did she know that just a few metres away lay a sanctuary built by the Etruscans in the second century BC, containing a trove of treasures that could now reverse the fortunes of this relatively isolated town of 1,400 inhabitants near Siena.
“We used to gather at the springs for parties too,” said Canuti. “It is odd to think that these treasures were so close by, but then again we were always curious as to why nothing relevant had ever been found. This is an area rich in spas built by the Etruscans and Romans, and plenty of relics had been found in towns nearby, so why not in San Casciano dei Bagni?”
Agnese Carletti, the town’s mayor, was curious too. Supported by funding from the government and private donors, she helped to set in motion an archaeological project that led to the discovery of 24 bronze statues, mostly dedicated to the gods, buried by mud and boiling water in the ruins of a network of thermal springs that had been a place of worship for both the Etruscans and Romans.
“It’s as if we found oil,” Carletti said. “Maybe all these gods are now bringing us some good fortune.” She said she hoped the find would trigger a tourism boost in a town facing economic challenges because of depopulation.
The bronzes – the largest discovery of their kind in Italy – included a sleeping ephebe lying next to Hygeia, the goddess of health, with a snake wrapped around her arm, and a statue dedicated to Apollo, the god of sun and light.
The statues, which experts have said were commissioned by wealthy families in the area, once adorned the rim of the oval-shaped baths before being immersed into the water in a ceremony believed to have occurred in the first century AD.
Excavations have also unearthed 6,000 coins, along with an array of votives. These include small figurines depicting the palm of a hand holding money, a penis, a pair of breasts and a child wrapped in swaddling clothes that would have been offered up to the gods and holy water in the hope of bringing conception or general good luck.
The project, which residents have affectionately likened to one that might have been undertaken by Indiana Jones, is led by Dr Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor at the University for Foreigners in Siena.
He said the sanctuary, which was made more opulent during the Roman period, when it was frequented by emperors including Augustus, remained active until the 5th century AD, before being closed down, but not destroyed, during Christian times. The pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars while the divine statues were left in the water, which was rich in minerals, including calcium and magnesium.
“This water was considered great for the liver, for treating facial pain, for helping with fertility,” said Tabolli. “There was a lot of ritualistic practice connected to pregnancy, so the theme of natality was extremely important. But this was definitely not drinkable water, as it’s poisonous.”
Etruscan and Roman inscriptions have also been found at the site, and Tabolli said the artefacts uncovered so far represented an important testament to the transition between the two historical periods, with the baths being considered a haven of peace.
The Christian era put paid to the site being used for pagan rituals, but the baths next to the sanctuary and others dotted around the Tuscan countryside attracted visitors from across Europe during Renaissance times.
In 1585, the Medicis created a structure at the site and during excavations they found relics, including altars, that were then brought to the nearby Roman baths of Fontaverde, where the Florentine banking family built a palace, which today is a five-star wellness resort.
Fontaverde has captured most of the hot-spring fame to date, but the discoveries at San Casciano dei Bagni are creating a buzz in the town. The relics will be restored and further studies undertaken over the next few months before eventually being housed in a museum that will be created in a 16th-century building recently bought by the Italian ministry of culture.
More treasures are expected to be discovered when excavations resume next summer, with the site eventually being turned into an archaeological park.
Bathing in the thermal springs under the light of a full moon on Thursday, the existence of the adjacent cordoned-off archaeological delight also came as a surprise to Sabrina Lepri, a visitor from Perugia.
“I was wondering what was behind the fence,” she said. “I’ve been coming here for 25 years, I love the springs for their natural wildness. Every time I emerge from the baths my skin feels incredible, as if I’ve had a massage. I hope the newfound fame doesn’t change things too much.”
‘Exceptional’ trove of 24 ancient statues found immersed in Tuscan spa | Italy
An “exceptional” trove of bronze statues preserved for thousands of years by mud and boiling water have been discovered in a network of baths built by the Etruscans in Tuscany.
The 24 partly submerged statues, which date back 2,300 years and have been hailed as the most significant find of their kind in 50 years, include a sleeping ephebe lying next to Hygeia, the goddess of health, with a snake wrapped around her arm.
Archaeologists came across the statues during excavations at the ancient spa in San Casciano dei Bagni, near Siena. The modern-day spa, which contains 42 hot springs, is close to the ancient site and is one of Italy’s most popular spa destinations.
Close to the ephebe (an adolescent male, typically 17-18 years old) and Hygeia was a statue of Apollo and a host of others representing matrons, children and emperors.
Believed to have been built by the Etruscans in the third century BC, the baths, which include fountains and altars, were made more opulent during the Roman period, with emperors including Augustus frequenting the springs for their health and therapeutic benefits.
Alongside the 24 bronze statues, five of which are almost a metre tall, archaeologists found thousands of coins as well as Etruscan and Latin inscriptions. Visitors are said to have thrown coins into the baths as a gesture for good luck for their health.
Massimo Osanna, the director general of museums at the Italian culture ministry, said the relics were the most significant discovery of their kind since two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors were found off the Calabrian coast near Riace in 1972. “It is certainly one of the most significant discoveries of bronzes in the history of the ancient Mediterranean,” Osanna told the Italian news agency Ansa.
The excavation project at San Casciano dei Bagni has been led by the archaeologist Jacopo Tabolli since 2019. In August, several artefacts, including fertility statues that were thought to have been used as dedications to the gods, were found at the site. Tabolli, a professor at the University for Foreigners of Siena, described the latest discovery as “absolutely unique”.
The Etruscan civilisation thrived in Italy, mostly in the central regions of Tuscany and Umbria, for 500 years before the arrival of the Roman Republic. The Etruscans had a strong influence on Roman cultural and artistic traditions.
Initial analysis of the 24 statues, believed to have been made by local craftsmen between the second and first centuries BC, as well as countless votive offerings discovered at the site, indicates that the relics perhaps originally belonged to elite Etruscan and Roman families, landowners, local lords and Roman emperors.
Tabolli told Ansa that the hot springs, rich in minerals including calcium and magnesium, remained active until the fifth century, before being closed down, but not destroyed, during Christian times. The pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars while the divine statues were left in the sacred water.
The treasure trove was found after archaeologists removed the covering. “It is the greatest store of statues from ancient Italy and is the only one whose context we can wholly reconstruct,” said Tabolli.
The recently appointed Italian culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, said the “exceptional discovery” confirms once again that “Italy is a country full of huge and unique treasures”.
The relics represent an important testament to the transition between the Etruscan and Roman periods, with the baths being considered a haven of peace.
“Even in historical epochs in which the most awful conflicts were raging outside, inside these pools and on these altars the two worlds, the Etruscan and Roman ones, appear to have coexisted without problems,” said Tabolli.
Excavations at the site will resume next spring, while the winter period will be used to restore and conduct further studies on the relics.
The artefacts will be housed in a 16th-century building recently bought by the culture ministry in the town of San Casciano, near Florence. The site of the ancient baths will also be developed into an archaeological park.
“All of this will be enhanced and harmonised, and could represent a further opportunity for the spiritual growth of our culture, and also of the cultural industry of our country,” said Sangiuliano.
A ‘trove’ of black hole discoveries emerge from dwarf galaxies
Weeks after astronomers released a historic image of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, a separate study showed how it is probing the evolution of black holes in dwarf galaxies.
A new analysis of dwarf galaxy surveys suggests black holes pop up far more commonly within these small galaxies than previously thought. The study team said this study could be a missing link in learning more about how more massive black holes evolve.
“This result really blew my mind, because these black holes were previously hiding in plain sight,” lead author Mugdha Polimera, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said in a university statement (opens in new tab) Tuesday (May 24).
Related: Sagittarius A* in pictures: The 1st photo of the Milky Way’s monster black hole explained in images
The Milky Way’s massive Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) black hole is thought to have come together from gradual mergers of smaller dwarf galaxies over time, just like the Magellanic Clouds that are currently within view of us and spiraling towards an eventual merger.
“Each dwarf that falls in may bring with it a central massive black hole, tens or hundreds of thousands of times the mass of our sun, potentially destined to be swallowed by the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole,” the university added.
Finding the black holes was a key challenge of the study, given that we can only see them through the radiation that they produce. At times, the high energy we see from growing black holes can look very similar to newborn stars, making it difficult to tell which is which absent a detailed spectrum.
The solution scientists proposed was to use the all-sky Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s emission line catalog; “emission lines” refer to the bright lines visible in the spectra of stars. The astronomers focused on a phenomenon known as photoionization, which happens when an atom is electrically charged as radiant energy is absorbed.
The authors used two sets of astronomical surveys from the catalog that contain large groups of dwarf galaxies, rather than focusing on those galaxies that are the biggest and brightest.
By examining the hydrogen and helium that tends to be prevalent in dwarf galaxies, the astronomers compared various elemental combinations and confirmed the work with theoretical simulations. The authors say their tests closely matched predictions for which dwarf galaxies have black holes within them.
A study (opens in new tab) based on the research was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal.
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Astronomers Discover Hidden Trove of Massive Black Holes – “We All Got Nervous”
The newly discovered massive black holes reside in dwarf galaxies, where their radiation competes with the light of abundant young stars. Credit: Original image by NASA & ESA/Hubble, artistic conception of a black hole with jet by M. Polimera
Newfound black holes in dwarf galaxies shed light on the origin of our galaxy’s supermassive
Hiding in plain sight
As a giant spiral galaxy, the Milky Way is believed to have been built up from mergers of many smaller dwarf galaxies. For example, the Magellanic Clouds seen in the southern sky are dwarf galaxies that will merge into the Milky Way. Each dwarf that falls in may bring with it a central massive black hole, tens or hundreds of thousands of times the mass of our sun, potentially destined to be swallowed by the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole.
But how often dwarf galaxies contain a massive black hole is unknown, leaving a key gap in our understanding of how black holes and galaxies grow together. New research published in the Astrophysical Journal on May 24, 2022, helps to fill in this gap by revealing that massive black holes are many times more common in dwarf galaxies than previously thought.
“This result really blew my mind because these black holes were previously hiding in plain sight,” said Mugdha Polimera, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
Sending mixed messages
Black holes are typically detected when they are actively growing by consuming gas and stardust swirling around them, which makes them glow intensely.
Professor Sheila Kannappan, Polimera’s Ph.D. advisor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and coauthor of the study, compared black holes to fireflies. “Just like fireflies, we see black holes only when they’re lit up — when they’re growing — and the lit-up ones give us a clue to how many we can’t see.”
The problem is, while growing black holes glow with distinctive high-energy radiation, young newborn stars can too. Traditionally, astronomers have differentiated growing black holes from new star formation using diagnostic tests that rely on detailed features of each galaxy’s visible light when spread out into a spectrum like a rainbow.
“We all got nervous. The first question that came to my mind was: Have we missed a way that extreme star formation alone could explain these galaxies?” — Mugdha Polimera
The path to discovery began when undergraduate students working with Kannappan tried to apply these traditional tests to galaxy survey data. The team realized that some of the galaxies were sending mixed messages — two tests would indicate growing black holes, but a third would indicate only star formation.
“Previous work had just rejected ambiguous cases like these from statistical analysis, but I had a hunch they might be undiscovered black holes in dwarf galaxies,” Kannappan said. She suspected that the third, sometimes contradictory, test was more sensitive than the other two to typical properties of dwarfs: their simple elemental composition (mainly primordial hydrogen and helium from the
More than 80 percent of all growing black holes she found in dwarf galaxies belonged to the new type.
The result seemed too good. “We all got nervous,” Polimera said. “The first question that came to my mind was: Have we missed a way that extreme star formation alone could explain these galaxies?” She led an exhaustive search for alternative explanations involving star formation, modeling uncertainties, or exotic astrophysics. In the end, the team was forced to conclude that the newly identified black holes were real.
“We’re still pinching ourselves,” Kannappan said. “We’re excited to pursue a zillion follow-up ideas. The black holes we’ve found are the basic building blocks of supermassive black holes like the one in our own Milky Way. There’s so much we want to learn about them.”
Reference: “RESOLVE and ECO: Finding Low-metallicity z ~ 0 Dwarf AGN Candidates Using Optimized Emission-line Diagnostics” by Mugdha S. Polimera, Sheila J. Kannappan, Chris T. Richardson, Ashley S. Bittner, Carlynn Ferguson, Amanda J. Moffett, Kathleen D. Eckert, Jillian M. Bellovary and Mark A. Norris, 24 May 2022, The Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac6595
This research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.
Glowing Spider Fossils Prompt Breakthrough Research on Treasure Trove of Amazingly Well-Preserved Specimens
Fossilized spider from the Aix-en-Provence Formation in France seen in hand sample overlain with fluorescent microscopy image of the same fossil. Under normal lighting the spider fossil is hard to differentiate from the surrounding rock matrix, but when the fossil is excited by UV-illumination its chemical composition causes it to autofluorescence brightly, revealing additional details of its preservation. Credit: Olcott et al.
Glowing spider fossils prompt breakthrough study of how they were preserved at Aix-en-Provence.
A geologic formation near Aix-en-Provence, France, is renowned as one of the world’s most important treasure troves of Cenozoic Era fossil species. Scientists have been uncovering exceptionally well-preserved fossilized plants and animals there since the late 1700s.
“Most life doesn’t become a fossil.” — Alison Olcott
The Aix-en-Provence formation is particularly famous for its fossilized terrestrial arthropods from the Oligocene Period (between roughly 23-34 million years ago). Because arthropods — animals with exoskeletons like spiders — are rarely fossilized, their abundance at Aix-en-Provence is astounding.
A new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on April 21, 2022, from researchers at the University of Kansas is the first to ask: What are the unique chemical and geological processes at Aix-en-Provence that preserve spiders from the Oligocene Period so exquisitely?
“Most life doesn’t become a fossil,” said lead author Alison Olcott, associate professor of geology and director of the Center for Undergraduate Research at KU. “It’s hard to become a fossil. You have to die under very specific circumstances, and one of the easiest ways to become a fossil is to have hard parts like bones, horns, and teeth. So, our record of soft-body life and terrestrial life, like spiders, is spotty — but we have these periods of exceptional preservation when all circumstances were harmonious for preservation to happen.”
Scanning electron image of fossilized spider abdomen revealing a black polymer on the fossil and the presence of two kinds of microalgae: a mat of straight diatoms on the fossil and dispersed centric diatoms in the surrounding matrix. This image is overlain by chemical maps of sulfur (yellow) and silica (pink) revealing that while the microalgae are siliceous, the polymer covering the fossil is sulfur-rich. Credit: Olcott et al.
Olcott and her KU co-authors Matthew Downen — then a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geology and now the assistant director at Center for Undergraduate Research — and Paul Selden, KU distinguished professor emeritus, along with James Schiffbauer of the University of Missouri, sought to discover the exact processes at Aix-en-Provence that provided a pathway for preservation for the spider fossils.
“Matt was working on describing these fossils, and we decided — more or less on a whim — to stick them under the fluorescent microscope to see what happened,” Olcott said. “To our surprise they glowed, and so we got very interested in what the chemistry of these fossils was that made them glow. If you just look at the fossil on the rock, they’re almost indistinguishable from the rock itself, but they glowed a different color under the fluorescent scope. So, we started exploring the chemistry and discovered the fossils themselves contain a black polymer made of carbon and sulfur that, under the microscope, looks like the tar you see on the road. We also noticed there were just thousands and thousands and thousands of microalgae all around the fossils and coating the fossils themselves.”
Spider fossil from the Aix-en-Provence Formation with white box indicating location of scanning electron microscopy image and chemical map of sulfur (yellow) and silica (pink) seen in upper left. Together these reveal a black sulfur-rich polymer on the fossil and the presence of two kinds of siliceous microalgae: a mat of straight diatoms on the fossil and dispersed centric diatoms in the surrounding matrix. Credit: Olcott et al.
Olcott and her colleagues hypothesize that the extracellular substance these microalgae, called diatoms, are known to produce would have protected the spiders from oxygen and promoted sulfurization of the spiders, a chemical change that would explain preservation of the fossils as carbonaceous films over the millions of ensuing years.
“These microalgae make the sticky, viscous gloop — that’s how they stick together,” the KU researcher said. “I hypothesized the chemistry of those microalgae, and the stuff they were extruding, actually made it possible for this chemical reaction to preserve the spiders. Basically, the chemistry of the microalgae and the chemistry of the spiders work together to have this unique preservation happen.”
Indeed, this sulfurization phenomenon is the same as a common industrial treatment used to preserve rubber.
“Vulcanization is a naturally occurring process — we do it ourselves to cure rubber in a well-known process,” Olcott said. “Sulfurization takes carbon and cross-links it with sulfur and stabilizes the carbon, which is why we do it to rubber to make it last longer. What I think happened here chemically is the spider exoskeleton is chitin, which is composed of long polymers with carbon units near each other, and it’s a perfect environment to have the sulfur bridges come in and really stabilize things.”
Olcott said the presence of diatomic mats may potentially act as a guide to find more deposits of well-preserved fossils in the future.
“The next step is expanding these techniques to other deposits to see if preservation is tied to diatom mats,” she said. “Of all the other exceptional fossil preservation sites in the world in the Cenozoic Era, something like 80 percent of them are found in association with these microalgae. So, we’re wondering if this explains most of these fossil sites that we have in this time — basically from soon after the dinosaurs went extinct until now. This mechanism could be responsible for giving us information to explore the evolution of insects and other terrestrial life post-dinosaurs and to understand climate change, because there’s a period of rapid climate change and these terrestrial organisms help us understand what happened to life last time climate started shifting.”
Olcott and her colleagues are the first to parse the chemistry of preservation at Aix-en-Provence, a fact she chalks up in part to challenges of carrying out science during
Reference: “The exceptional preservation of Aix-en-Provence spider fossils could have been facilitated by diatoms” by Alison N. Olcott, Matthew R. Downen, James D. Schiffbauer and Paul A. Selden, 21 April 2022, Communications Earth & Environment.
DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00424-7
The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. The university’s mission is to lift students and society by educating leaders, building healthy communities and making discoveries that change the world. The KU News Service is the central public relations office for the Lawrence campus.
Cancer breakthrough as scientists find a ‘treasure trove’ of genetic clues
Analysis of thousands of tumours from NHS patients has identified a ‘treasure trove’ of new clues about the causes of cancer.
In the biggest study of its kind, researchers at Cambridge University Hospitals looked at the genomes of more than 12,000 people with cancer in England.
They spotted 58 new patterns in their DNA, called mutational signatures, suggesting there are causes that scientists are not yet aware of.
The researchers hope the discovery will allow future studies to work out the root of these cancer-causing mutations.
Scientists were aware of just 51 mutational signatures before the new find, including changes caused by smoking or UV light.
Identifying these signatures also allow doctors to look at each patient’s tumour and match it to specific treatments and medications.
However, the patterns can only be detected in cancer patients who have had their whole genome sequenced by scientists — which isn’t routinely done.
Professor Serena Nik-Zainal, a genomic expert who led the study, said these patterns are like ‘fingerprints at a crime scene’.
She said the findings could indicate an ‘Achilles heel’ in individual cancers that could be targeted with treatment.
Cambridge University researchers studied the genetic make-up of more than 12,000 people with cancer in England, which allows them to see the origins of the tumour. They spotted 58 new patterns in the DNA of cancer, suggesting there are causes that scientists are not yet aware of
Around 375,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK every year, while 1.7million are confirmed in the US.
Cancer is caused by mutations in the genome of cells, which causes cells to multiply out of control until they form a tumour.
The latest study, published in the journal Science, analysed the whole genome of 12,222 NHS cancer patients as part of the 100,000 Genomes Project in England.
Genome sequencing looks at all of the thousands of DNA building blocks within each tumour, showing the mutations that contribute to each person’s cancer.
Some of the new mutational patterns observed were present across many different cancer patients, while some were more rare.
Cancers are thought to have a finite amount of mutational processes, fuelling the search to identify them all and what causes them.
Knowing the signatures are present within a tumour helps to figure out the root cause of them and point towards whether the mutation was caused by environmental factors or a genetic problem.
Professor Nik-Zainal told MailOnline: ‘I sometimes use the analogy of footprints in sand where the mutational signatures are the footprints.
‘When you look across a beach, there could be footprints everywhere (analogous to cancer, mutations look a bit random, they are everywhere).
‘But if you study the footprints in detail, there are characteristics that tell you whether the footprints are an animal or a human.’
She added: ‘Mutational signatures are like those footprints. We can start to figure out whether something is due to external or cellular factors by studying the mutation patterns in detail.’
The researchers used their findings to develop an algorithm called Signature Fit Multi-Step (FitMS) that can spot mutational signatures in new cancer genome samples.
Only patients who have had their cancers whole genome sequenced will be able to benefit from this tool, but the team believes it can be rolled out to them ‘very quickly’.
As it stands, only cancers in children, specific leukaemias and sarcomas — rare cancers affecting the body’s tissues — are sequenced through the NHS but experts expect this list to be widened in the coming years.
FitMS will spot the mutational signatures in these patients’ cancer, which scientists hope will speed up the ability to match them to a more specific treatment.
Professor Nik-Zainal said: ‘The reason it is important to identify mutational signatures is because they are like fingerprints at a crime scene — they help to pinpoint cancer culprits.
‘Some mutational signatures have clinical or treatment implications — they can highlight abnormalities that may be targeted with specific drugs or may indicate a potential “Achilles heel” in individual cancers.’
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This study shows how powerful whole genome sequencing tests can be in giving clues into how the cancer may have developed, how it will behave and what treatment options would work best.’
The results can ‘potentially be used within the NHS to improve the treatment and care for people with cancer’, she added.
Professor Matt Brown, chief scientific officer of Genomics England, said applying the mutational clues to patients ‘could improve the diagnosis and management of cancer patients’.
Humble Bundle Removing Mac, Linux Games From Trove Library
Humble Bundle has announced that Mac and Linux versions of games in its “Humble Trove” collection will no longer be available to subscribers come February.
Today subscribers to Humble Bundle’s Humble Choice service received an email giving a heads up that they would soon lose access to Mac and Linux games in Humble Trove, which is a library of 70+ games all subscribers have ongoing access to, not unlike Xbox Game Pass.
Choice subscribers who wish to keep Mac or Linux versions of current Humble Trove games must download them before February 1. Humble Bundle’s email added that Windows PC versions of the games will continue to remain available to download going forward.
Read More: Despite Backlash, Humble Bundle’s Donation Limit Returns
Today’s news follows a January 11 blog post in which Humble Bundle announced that it would be making changes to Humble Choice to make the paid service “simpler” for members. Subscribers will no longer choose a number of games to keep each month; instead, they will always keep all the monthly games.
In addition, a new set of games called the “Humble Games Collection” will become available to current subscribers. If this sounds exactly like Trove, you’re not wrong, and the company says “many” of the Trove games will end up in the new Collection. As for Trove’s fate, there’s no clear word yet.
However, part of Humble Choice’s newfound “simplicity” comes in the introduction of a new Windows-only client that’s required to access subscriber benefits, including the Humble Games Collection. It doesn’t take a big leap to arrive at the conclusion that Choice subscribers are losing access to the Mac and Linux versions of Trove games because the service’s new client only works on Windows.
The removal of Mac and Linux versions of games is the latest in a series of moves that have left many onlookers displeased. This past July, Humble Bundle doubled down on its previously stated intention to cap the amount customers would be able to donate to charities while purchasing games. In the past, customers were able to donate 100 percent of their purchases to charitable causes, but now Humble Bundle takes a 15-30 percent cut of every sale.
With today’s announcement, some Reddit gamers who prefer Mac and Linux games feel left behind. For some, the removal of Mac and Linux games from Trove / Humble Games Collection flies in the face of Humble Bundle advertising itself as a storefront where gamers can “download and keep games forever.” While some Redditors are weighing whether they will choose to stick around or cancel their subscriptions come February, others see Humble Bundle’s latest updates as the “final nail in the coffin” for their time with the service/store.
In r/humblebundles, Redditor KlatsBoem posted:
Ever since Humble’s main features shifted away from the Indie bundles, I’ve come to no longer see them as a champion for Linux gaming. Same goes for DRM-free, I first look at itch.io and then GOG.com, Humble no longer makes part of that equation. It was already clear to me that their vision on the future of games does not align with mine. This move of theirs only cements that idea.
Kotaku reached out to Humble Bundle for comment, but didn’t hear back by the time of publication.
Incredible Dinosaur Treasure Trove in Italy Rewrites History, Geography, and Evolution
An adult and two juvenile individuals of the dinosaur Tethyshadros insularis showing the different appearances exhibited by immature and mature specimens in the ancient environment of Villaggio del Pescatore, the first locality in Italy preserving many dinosaur individuals of the same species. Credit: Davide Bonadonna
A dinosaur trove in Italy rewrites the history, geography, and evolution of the ancient Mediterranean area.
Italy is not exactly renowned for dinosaurs. In comparison to its excellent artistic and archaeological heritage, dinosaur fossils are very rare. Not surprisingly, the discovery of the first isolated remains from these animals, in the early 1990s, generated quite an excitement, but were shortly after considered nothing more than an exception to a general rule. During the reign of dinosaurs, between 230 and 66 million years ago, the ancient Mediterranean area would have been hard to map, formed by countless small islands far from all major mainlands – Europe, Africa, and Asia – unsuitable to sustain large animals like the dinosaurs. Or so we believed.
Now, a new study published on Scientific Reports and coordinated by researchers from the University of Bologna unveils the first palaeontological site with multiple, exceptionally complete dinosaur skeletons from Italy: the Villaggio del Pescatore site, located in the Duino-Aurisina municipality, near Trieste, in north-eastern Italy.
The skeleton of Bruno, an adult individual of the dinosaur Tethyshadros insularis described in this new study. Credit: P. Ferrieri (courtesy of Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli-Venezia Giulia)
These beautiful skeletons belong to the species Tethyshadros insularis and represent the biggest and most complete dinosaur ever found in this Country. The team describes the skeletons of some of the most beautiful and pristine dinosaurs from the site (in particular of a new individual nicknamed “Bruno”) and highlights the occurrence of seven (probably eleven) individuals at the Villaggio del Pescatore.
Skeletal reconstructions of the two individuals of Tethyshadros insularis, with the immature specimen nicknamed “Antonio” (above) and the mature, newly described skeleton of “Bruno” below. Credit: University of Bologna
Dinosaurs are not the only fossil remains from the site: fish, crocodiles, flying reptiles and even small crustaceans provide a vivid picture of an ancient ecosystem that has no equal worldwide. The unique fossils collected from the Villaggio del Pescatore can be admired in Trieste at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, granted on deposit by the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The palaeontological site of Villaggio del Pescatore, with people from ZOIC working to extract the fossils from this astounding dinosaur trove. Credit: ZOIC s.r.l.
The study also reviews and rewrites many evolutionary hypotheses to interpret the ancient Mediterranean context. Originally, geologists interpreted the area that today is the Villaggio del Pescatore site as part of an island in the middle of a “proto-Mediterranean” ocean called Tethys. This supported the incorrect interpretation that the relatively small, first dinosaur skeleton found at the site (nicknamed “Antonio”), was actually a “dwarf” species, an example of the so-called “island rule” (the evolutionary miniaturization of bigger animals in an insular environment due to the scarcity of resources).
The bones of “Antonio” under the microscope, showing the bone cells (black, circled dots): the fossilized bone tissues were analyzed to infer the relative age of the dinosaur skeletons at the time of their death. Credit: University of Bologna
In this new study, the research team documents that “Antonio” is an immature individual, whereas “Bruno,” which is bigger in size, represents an older individual – and that could have been still growing at the time of its death.
The skull of “Bruno,” the newly described skeleton of the dinosaur Tethyshadros insularis. Credit: A. Giamborino (courtesy of Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli-Venezia Giulia)
New geological data gathered by the team also provided the age of the site and its fossils: approximately 80 million years ago, in the 
A simplified evolutionary tree showing where Tethyshadros would fit between its hadrosauriform relatives, the so-called duck-bill dinosaurs. Credit: University of Bologna
This new research highlights not just a first in terms of exceptional findings, but most importantly the pivotal role of the Italian dinosaur fossil record for evaluating important scientific hypotheses on these ancient animals. As the site is already protected from the Italian institutions, new research and didactic activities may represent an opportunity to include the geological and paleontological heritage in the “must see” list while visiting the “Belpaese.”
Reference: “An Italian dinosaur Lagerstätte reveals the tempo and mode of hadrosauriform body size evolution” 2 December 2021, Scientific Reports.
The researchers involved in the study are: Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza (University of Vigo), Matteo Fabbri (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), Lorenzo Consorti (University of Trieste and Geological Survey of Italy – ISPRA), Juan Cantalapiedra (Universidad de Alcalá), David Evans (Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto), Federico Fanti and Marco Muscioni (University of Bologna).
Facebook documents offer a treasure trove for Washington’s antitrust war
Haugen’s disclosures, along with her role in a series of Wall Street Journal investigative articles and her appearances in a recent “60 Minutes” interview and Senate hearing, have set off Facebook’s most serious political crisis in years, while potentially adding momentum to efforts in Congress to toughen antitrust enforcement against U.S.-based tech giants.
The disclosures related to Facebook’s competitive landscape also could aid the antitrust lawsuit that the Federal Trade Commission launched against the company last year, which seeks to force it to split off Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp. The FTC has struggled in court to define key elements of the case, including what a social network is and how Facebook dominates that market. The new documents could help the agency fill in those blanks.
Facebook’s public filings to the SEC offer less detail on its users than its internal documents provide, including data broken down by age groups. Facebook also does not publicly provide data broken down for WhatsApp and Instagram — but these documents do.
“This is very, very strong support for the core story underneath” the FTC’s case, said a former agency staffer who reviewed the documents for POLITICO and spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid influencing the agency’s litigation. “There’s a lot to regret in these documents if you are Facebook.”
But in court papers filed this month, the company accused the FTC of cherry-picking data to portray Facebook as a monopoly abusing its power. The government’s claims, Facebook’s lawyers wrote, are “a litigation-driven fiction at odds with the commercial reality of intense competition with surging rivals like TikTok.”
And the documents Haugen provided only support Facebook’s argument, company spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in an interview Friday.
“Far from supporting the government’s case, the documents presented to Facebook firmly reinforce what Facebook has always said: We compete with a broad range of services for people’s time and attention, including apps that offer social, community, video, news and messaging features,” Sgro told POLITICO. “Consumers freely switch among these features — both within Facebook and outside it — and the FTC’s artificially narrow market definition ignores this obvious reality.”
Facebook’s users are ‘hard to lose’
An estimated 162 million U.S. adults over age 30 use the social network each month, or 78 percent of that population, according to a March 2021 presentation created for Facebook’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. Just about all 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. also use Facebook, they said.
All told, Facebook has 174 million daily active users in the U.S., according to the internal data. By comparison, Google-owned YouTube has 122 million, while Snapchat has 87.3 million and TikTok has 50 million, according to publicly available estimates. Worldwide, Facebook has more than 2.7 billion users.
While fewer U.S. teens use Facebook’s main social network, nearly all of them use Instagram; the company estimated that 22 million American teens use the service. Instagram also has reached that same high rate of usage with the under-35 crowd in France, Great Britain and Australia.
Once users sign up, they rarely leave, another presentation found.
“Social apps often stop growing but rarely shrink,” the research concluded based on data from nearly a dozen apps including Facebook, Twitter, Snap, South Korea’s Kakao and Japan’s LINE messaging app. “Once you get a user on your app, it’s hard to lose them.”
Facebook’s enormous reach is central to the FTC’s suit, which alleges that Facebook holds a monopoly on “personal social networking services” — online services with a joint social space to maintain relationships and share experiences with friends, family and acquaintances.
Facebook and Instagram are “the digital equivalent of a town square,” the FTC quoted CEO Mark Zuckerberg as saying in a public Facebook post, while a messaging service like WhatsApp is “the digital equivalent of [a] living room.” The suit accused Facebook of engaging in “buy or bury” strategy for crushing the competition, citing among deals its $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2012.