MI weekly selection #138
Ancient tooth shows signs of early dentistry
One of the first examples of dentistry has been found in an ancient molar. Researchers say the 14,000-year-old tooth had been infected and was partially cleaned using flint tools. It predates any undisputed evidence of dental and cranial surgery, currently represented by dental drillings and cranial trephinations dating back to the Mesolithic-Neolithic period, about 9,000-7,000 years ago.
Birth order not strongly related to IQ, personality
A large-scale study revealed that first-born children had a higher IQ and often showed different personality traits than their siblings, but the differences were so small as to be meaningless. The findings were based on an analysis of 377,000 high-school-age students.
More adventures await New Horizons after Pluto flyby
New Horizons’ flyby of Pluto is now behind it, but the spacecraft’s job is far from over. It’s busy collecting data about the dwarf planet’s night side, then it will continue its journey deeper into the Kuiper Belt, sending even more discoveries back to Earth. Researchers speculate it could continue operating well into the 2030s and will one day break through to interstellar space.
The mountain jutting out of hole on Charon
A new photo taken as New Horizons began its flyby of Pluto shows a mountain looming out of a big hole on the dwarf planet’s moon Charon. Researchers hope to learn more about the strange feature when closer images are received from the space probe in the coming days, a feature that has geologists stunned and stumped.
A strange new feathered dinosaur
A newly discovered carnivorous, feathered dinosaur with birdlike wings has been described. Zhenyuanlong suni lived about 125 million years ago, and researchers say it looked more like a bird than a dinosaur, though its wings were used not for flight, but more likely for display or to brood eggs.