Day: April 9, 2020

Around the time the last ice age was ending, agriculture sprang up at several sites. The south-western Amazon Basin has now been revealed as the fifth site at which this great innovation occurred. The planting took place in so-called “forest islands”, patches of soil averaging just half a hectare that are raised enough above the flood plain to allow trees to flourish. There is little doubt that humans have had a major impact on Bolivia’s Llanos de Moxos savannah for a long time. Ancient earthworks and canals attest to this,…

Electric cars are giving the automotive industry a shake-up like nothing it has seen in a century. Some people, however, have dreams far bigger than simply replacing the internal combustion engine with a battery-driven motor and aren’t too fussed about little matters like practicality. Vehicle leasing company Vanarama decided to do a trawl through patents that have never come into production, and almost certainly never will. They definitely found some doozies, and even illustrated them, putting two to three patents from different sources on the same imaginary car. Many of these…

ShareTweetPin “It’s such a strange time to be pregnant. This, a time when the mom-to-be should be preparing the nursery and spending way too much time shopping for baby’s perfect take home outfit. Instead, she shifts her focus to purchasing diapers and wipes online—worried there may not be enough to go around. Typically, it’s a time when she is anticipating a baby shower with all of her loved ones to celebrate. Now, she must distance from those dear friends and family to protect her unborn child as well as herself.…