Science Magazine – June 9, 2023 issue: In response Covid-19 lockdowns that severely altered human mobility, with many people confined to their homes, animals such as the coyote (Canis latrans) traveled longer distances and occurred closer to roads. These changes suggest that animals can modify their behavior in response to rapid changes in human mobility.

Was a small-brained human relative the world’s first gravedigger—and artist?

Anthropologists praise Homo naledi fossils but doubt spectacular claims of intentional burial and art

A trio of papers posted online and presented at a meeting today lays out an astonishing scenario. Roughly 240,000 years ago, they suggest, small-brained human relatives carried their dead through a labyrinth of tight passageways into the dark depths of a vast limestone cave system in South Africa. Working by firelight, these diminutive cave explorers dug shallow graves, sometimes arranging bodies in fetal positions and placing a stone tool near a child’s hand. Some etched cave walls with crosshatches and others cooked small animals in what amounted to a subterranean funeral, more than 100,000 years before such behaviors emerged in modern humans.

LET THERE BE DARK

Crops grown without sunlight could help feed astronauts bound for Mars, and someday supplement dinner plates on Earth

For the first astronauts to visit Mars, what to eat on their 3-year mission will be one of the most critical questions. It’s not just a matter of taste. According to one recent estimate, a crew of six would require an estimated 10,000 kilograms of food for the trip. NASA—which plans to send people to Mars within 2 decades—could stuff a spacecraft with prepackaged meals and launch additional supplies to the Red Planet in advance for the voyage home. But even that wouldn’t completely solve the problem.