The other consideration was the carrying capacity of the pastures they lived on. The Eurasian steppes were ecologically quite resilient on the macro level and could sustain some pretty massive animal herds, but there's only so many animals that a stretch of grassland could sustain at a given time. When you hit that limit, your options would be to:
- Disband the tribal group and disperse so individual families could survive by looking for new pasturelands,
- Sell off the surplus animals, or
- Use your herds (particularly horses) to go to war. Archetypal steppe superpowers like the Mongols really only cropped up once every few centuries; mostly this would mean raids, extortion or seizing the pastures belonging to rival nomadic communities or frontier settlers.
The first cloned Przewalski's wild horse was apparently born last month,
paving the way for the use of cloning technology for conservation.
Local Fish Defeat the Entire Field of Evolutionary Biology, Again.
A placoderm (armoured fish) fossil in Mongolia from 410 mya, originally discovered in 2012, was found to have a cartilaginous internal skeleton and a skull made of bone.
It's previously believed that bony fishes (and all their vertebrate descendants) evolved from a common cartilaginous ancestor as sharks. But this species, named Minjinia turgenensis, clearly seems to have evolved an early bony skeleton around the time that the earliest sharks started to appear. This might potentially suggest that sharks evolved from a bony ancestor, rather than a (purely) cartilaginous one as previously thought.
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.On that note, I'd like to bring up my favourite fish meme.
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That's a couple of clades further down, IIRC. By the current classification, placoderms, cartilaginous fish (chondrichthyes) and bony fish (osteoichthyes) all descended from the same common ancestor. The last group further split up into ray-finned and lobe-finned fish, and it's the latter that descended into tetrapodomorphs, or four-limbed vertebrates.
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.So apparently there was this study a while back
where entomologists went Starship Troopers on invasive Africanised honeybee hives in Brazil, "treating" them with an insecticide (shot out from a crossbow, no less) in order to help out local populations of the endangered Lear's macaw, whom they competed with for nesting resources.
It's only a matter of time before we find frozen humans as well, I imagine.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesNew species of burrowing dinosaur found perfectly preserved in 'Cretaceous Pompeii'
"The newly described species is thought to be the most primitive ornithopod dinosaur to date."
"“It was a small, herbivorous, bipedal dinosaur, about 1.2 metres long,”
"The fossils did not retain any traces of feathers but the skeletons were incredibly preserved in three dimensions.'
"“However, certain characteristics of the skeleton suggest that Changmiania could dig burrows, much like rabbits do today. Its neck and forearms are very short but robust, its shoulder blades are characteristic of burrowing vertebrates and the top of its snout is shaped like a shovel."
Fascinating. It's like something will always fill every niche, depending on what's alive at the time.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.New species of burrowing dinosaur found perfectly preserved in 'Cretaceous Pompeii'
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Oh, never mind, I literally got that article from the post above this morning.
Edited by Redmess on Sep 21st 2020 at 3:44:43 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesOver in the politics thread, we were talking about Trump's (and other people's) belief that exercise shortens life spans because the heart only has a limited amount of beats before it stops.
About those finite heart beats, I do remember reading a scientific article where it mentions that all mammals have about the same number of heart beats before they die, and that there is a correlation between how fast a mammal's heart beats and its lifespan. I think Trump's (and others') belief about exercise depleting your life expectancy might come from there.
So is there any truth to that? Does anyone happen to know what study that was?
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesDo We Really Only Get a Certain Number of Heartbeats in a Lifetime? Here's What Science Says.
The article links the following studies:
There does seem to be some truth to it, though it is not quite as simple as "more exercise shortens your life". The specific risk factor for shortened life span seems to be an elevated resting heart rate. So that's not just when you exercise, but even in rest.
Edited by Redmess on Oct 7th 2020 at 2:26:40 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

There seems to be good evidence that the growth of historical nomadic steppe societies in Mongolia was helped along by a diet of cereals (particularly millet), obtained through trade with neighbouring agrarian societies.
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.