Fondos de Ayuda
El Senado de Estados Unidos votó este martes a favor de aprobar un paquete de ayuda exterior que incluía ayuda en espera durante mucho tiempo para Israel y Ucrania.
La medida, por un importe total de 95.000 millones de dólares, se aprobó por 79 votos contra 18. Tras ser aprobada por la Cámara el sábado, la legislación pasará ahora al presidente Joe Biden, quien ha indicado que la promulgará.
La mayor parte del fondo contenido en la legislación apoyará a Ucrania con un total de casi sesenta y un mil millones de dólares, según un resumen de la legislación. El paquete también proporcionaría más de veintiseis mil millones de dólares en ayuda a Israel.
El proyecto de ley también proporcionará asistencia militar por valor de ocho mil ciento veinte millones de dólares a los llamados "aliados de Estados Unidos" en la región de Asia y el Pacífico, incluida la región china de Taiwán.
Stone tools in Ukraine offer oldest evidence of humans in Europe
March 6 (Reuters) - A dating method based on cosmic rays has identified stone tools found in western Ukraine as the oldest-known evidence of human occupation in Europe - 1.4 million years ago - showing that the peopling of the continent occurred hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously known.
Korolevo quarry in western Ukraine, surrounded by archaeological sites is pictured in Korolevo, Ukraine. Korolevo stone artefacts dating to about 1.4 million years ago are considered the earliest-known evidence of human presence in Europe.
Researchers said on Wednesday the stone tools - the most primitive kind known - were initially unearthed in the 1970s near the town of Korolevo in the Carpathian foothills along the Tysa river, close to Ukraine's borders with Hungary and Romania. But their age had remained unclear.
The new method determined the age of the sediment layer containing the stone tools, making this site critical for understanding how humans first spread into Europe during warm spells - called interglacial periods - that interrupted the Ice Age's grip on the continent.
The researchers concluded that the maker of the tools likely was Homo erectus, an early human species that arose roughly 2 million years ago and spread across Africa, Asia and Europe before disappearing perhaps 110,000 years ago.
"No bones were found at Korolevo, only stone tools. But the age suggests that Homo erectus was the only possible human species at the time. We know very little about our earliest ancestors. They used stone tools for butchery and probably used fire," said Czech Academy of Sciences archeologist Roman Garba, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature.
Homo erectus was the first member of our evolutionary lineage with body proportions similar to our species, Homo sapiens, though with a smaller brain.
The tools, made of volcanic rock, were fashioned in what is called the Oldowan style. While quite simple - flaked tools such as choppers, scrapers or basic cutting instruments - they represent the dawn of human technology.
Until now, the oldest-known evidence of humans in Europe was about 1.2-1.1 million years old from a site called Atapuerca in Spain.
The Korolevo findings provide insight into the route of the first human expansion into Europe. Homo erectus fossils from 1.8 million years ago are known from a Caucasus site in Georgia called Dmanisi. Coupled with Korolevo, this suggests Homo erectus entered Europe from the east or southeast, migrating along the Danube river, Garba said.
"Korolevo is the northernmost outpost found so far of what we presume to be Homo erectus and is testimony to the intrepidness of this ancestor," Czech Academy of Sciences geoscientist and study co-author John Jansen added.
It has been notoriously difficult to determine the age of Paleolithic sites like Korolevo. The study dated the tools, left by their makers on a river bed, by determining when the layer bearing the artifacts was buried under overlaying sediment.
"Earth is constantly bombarded by galactic cosmic rays. When these rays - mainly protons and alpha particles - penetrate Earth's atmosphere, they generate a secondary shower of particles - neutrons and muons - that, in turn, penetrates into the subsurface," geoscientist and study co-author Mads Knudsen of Aarhus University in Denmark said.
These particles react with minerals in rocks to produce radioactive nuclides, a class of atoms. The sediment was dated based on the ratio of two nuclides, thanks to their differing pace of radioactive decay.
Europe was later colonized by other now-extinct human species including Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals. Homo sapiens evolved in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago, arriving in significant numbers in Europe perhaps around 40,000-45,000 years ago.
The Homo erectus pioneers encountered a Europe inhabited by large mammals including mammoths, rhinos, hippos, hyenas and saber-toothed cats.
"Most likely they were scavengers, looking for carcasses left by hyenas or other predators, but what attracted them to Korolevo was a source of high-quality volcanic rock, very good for making stone tools," Garba said.
The researchers suspect evidence of European human occupation even older than Korolevo will turn up.
"The question is not 'if' but 'when' we will find a site of similar or older age somewhere else in Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria or Serbia," Garba said.
Distant Galaxies
Galaxy cluster known as Abell 2744. The multinational project “Frontiers Fields” analyzed this area and found very interesting information, especially regarding the age and remoteness of the galaxies that comprise it.
To reach our telescopes, the light from this galaxy has traveled for around 13 billion years. This information is fundamental, because it means that we see Abell2744 as it was approximately 650 million years after the Big Bang. Which means that the observation of this galaxy can help us understand what the Universe was like in its first million years of existence.
The discovery was achieved thanks to the joint work of scientists from two Spanish institutions: the University of La Laguna (ULL), in Tenerife, and the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC).
OJOS AL ESPACIO
Sin duda la misión espacial más esperada no solo de 2024, sino del último medio siglo, será la Artemisa 2, que llevará a cuatro astronautas de la NASA —incluyendo una mujer y un hombre afroamericano— a sobrevolar la Luna, en el primer retorno tripulado al satélite terrestre desde el Apolo 17 en 1972. Será también la primera excursión del ser humano más allá de la órbita baja terrestre desde la cancelación del programa Apolo. La misión será el siguiente paso a la Artemisa 1, que en 2022 llevó una cápsula Orión sin tripulación a la órbita lunar. La NASA mantiene el objetivo de lanzar la misión en noviembre de 2024; sin embargo, analistas del sector sugieren que podría retrasarse si los daños sufridos por el escudo térmico de la Orión durante la Artemisa 1 obligaran a un rediseño sustancial.
Futuras misiones que deberán llevar de nuevo a los humanos al suelo lunar podrían también retrasarse respecto a los planes actuales dependiendo del progreso de las naves Starship de la compañía SpaceX del magnate Elon Musk, ya que Artemisa 3 utilizará una versión de esta nave para el alunizaje. Pero los dos intentos de vuelo orbital de la Starship en 2023 fracasaron, por lo que habrá que esperar los resultados de un nuevo lanzamiento anunciado para el primer trimestre de 2024. También en el campo de los operadores privados, la nave New Glenn de Blue Origin del magnate Jeff Bezos debería debutar por fin en la órbita terrestre.
Por lo demás, en el año que comienza no faltará actividad en el espacio. Aparte de Artemisa 2, la Luna será un objetivo preferente: varias sondas de la NASA, de las agencias espaciales de China y Japón y de compañías privadas tienen como meta nuestro satélite. Entre las misiones a otros destinos destaca la Europa Clipper de la NASA, con despegue previsto para el 10 de octubre y que orbitará en torno a Júpiter para estudiar su luna Europa, uno de los mundos más prometedores del Sistema Solar para la posible existencia de vida.
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