New research published in the Journal of Experimental Botany reveals that wheat crops are more sensitive to grain yield losses from heat waves that occur before reaching their flowering stage than those occurring later. However, exposure to heat waves early in the growing season may reduce yield losses during additional heat waves through a protective "priming" effect.
Growing leys—grass and clover—is nothing new in Swedish agriculture. But in the arable farming regions dominated by cereal production, leys are less common. One reason is that there needs to be a market for what is harvested.
Lionsgate has released an action-packed trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping—a sequel to 2023’s Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and a prequel leading into the events of the first film, The Hunger Games (2012). In addition, Laika Studios released a trailer for its highly anticipated stop-motion animated feature, Wildwood.
(Some spoilers for The Hunger Games below.)
The main protagonist is a young Haymitch Abernathy, future District 12 mentor to Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Woody Harrelson’s older Haymitch is a fan favorite who later becomes a jaded, drunken (yet secretly hopeful) cynic. Per the official synopsis:
Les banques de semences sont censées préserver une partie de notre patrimoine agricole pendant des décennies, voire bien davantage. Mais combien de temps ces graines peuvent-elles réellement rester capables de germer ? Une vaste analyse menée en Australie apporte une réponse moins rassurante...
The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old.)
If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it.
The virtual character, which is promoting its upcoming movie Misaligned, tries to evade politics by repetitively commenting on the clothes you’re wearing.
Stanford University scientists say experiments on ancient Chinesestone tools, including 15,000-year-old hand axes, have solved a longstanding mystery about the critical technological transition from rudimentary hand tools to more versatile ground-edged tools, suggesting these new technologies enabled uses beyond food harvesting.
The research team behind the new analysis said the discovery of ground-edged sickles and knives in Neolithic North China, likely used for fiber production and harvesting, combined with their replica-based experiments, highlights the growing technological capabilities of the transition between Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples.
“The combined experimental and archaeological evidence from the site of Peiligang indicates that the emergence of ground-edged tools marked a significant step in technological specialization from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene,” the researchers write in a paper detailing the work.
Mysterious Technological Transition Hidden in 15,000-Year-Old Stone Tools
According to lead author Ran Chen and colleagues, archaeologists widely regard ground-edged cutting tools like the modern sickle as “technological hallmarks of early agriculture in North China.” However, they note, the functional foundations of this advanced toolmaking capability “remain insufficiently tested.”
The research team also noted that most analyses of the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Early Neolithic (ca. 15,000–8,000 BP) in ancient China have viewed tools through “the lens of food production.”
“Within this framework, cutting tools, including early flakes and blades and later ground-edged sickles and knives, are often interpreted primarily as implements for harvesting cereals through cutting stems and leaves,” they explained.
The researchers said these earlier findings made them wonder whether this “food-focused perspective” could have led researchers to miss the broader range of plant resource exploitation possibilities in some of the 15,000-year-old stone tools previously discovered, prompting their replica-based experiments.
“The development of stone tool technology in North China provides a framework for reassessing this long-term relationship between plant use and technological change,” they explained.
Experiments Reveal Ground-Edged Tools Were Multifunctional Implements
To test their hypothesis, Chen and colleagues analyzed 140 stone artifacts previously collected from the Peiligang site in Henan Province, China. This included some 15,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic flaked stone tools and several more advanced Early Neolithic flaked and ground-edged stone tools.
Rather than test irreplaceable artifacts, the study authors created realistic experimental replicas.
A researcher demonstrates the use of an experimental sickle replica to harvest velvet leaf (Image Credit: Ran Chen).
Testing the effectiveness of the oldest, most rudimentary stone flake designs and the more technologically advanced ground-edged tools for harvesting seed-bearing grasses, the researchers found little measurable advantage between the two designs.
However, when the researchers compared the 15,000-year-old stone flake tools against ground-edged tools made thousands of years later, they found the more technologically advanced tools were “significantly more efficient at cutting thick-stemmed weeds and fiber-yielding plants.”
“Upper Paleolithic flaked tools were multifunctional implements used for processing diverse plant and animal materials, and Early Neolithic flakes continued to serve similarly flexible roles,” the study authors explain. “In contrast, Early Neolithic ground- edged tools show marked specialization in plant- related tasks.”
More Advanced Tools Emerged Through Broader Functional Demands
When discussing the experimental results, the team noted that their findings were supported by microfiber and starch residues found on some of the ancient tools, suggesting that “ground- edged sickles and knives were used not only for plant foods but also for harvesting and processing fibrous plants.”
“These findings indicate that ground- edged cutting tools emerged through broader functional demands, including fiber production, and potentially vegetation clearance, rather than cereal harvesting alone,” they explained.
Beyond the food-harvesting uses of ground-edged tools, Chen and colleagues said their identification of non-food plant labor like fiber production as an important driver of technological evolution and specialization “reframes the emergence of ground- edged tools as part of a broader technological and economic reorganization in early Holocene East Asia.”
“These findings identify nonfood plant work as an important contributor to the adoption of ground-edged cutting tools and show that tools conventionally linked to early agriculture were shaped by broader demands than food production alone,” they explained.
Finally, the study authors suggested that their analysis of 15,000-year-old Chinese stone tools could “invite renewed attention” to ancient fiber-based economies and nonfood plant use during forager–farmer transitions and in early farming societies beyond China.
Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Station Eleven, turned her into something of a pandemic prophet. Her new novel, Exit Party, imagines two possible American futures—totalitarian state and post-civil-war chaos.
The distinctively British RPG is returning courtesy of the makers of Forza Horizon – with comedy talent such as Richard Ayoade and Natasia Demetriou voicing sweary characters. We had our first play and spoke to its developer
When Playground Games was founded in 2010, its objective was straightforward: to make the best cars in video games. Operating out of an unassuming white building in Leamington Spa, the studio sought to challenge Gran Turismo with its critically acclaimed British racing alternative: the acclaimed free-roaming Forza Horizon series. Yet as the team grew, so did their ambitions. Now they are making the most intriguing British fantasy game we have seen in many years.
For those who have never ventured into Albion, Fable is a quintessentially British role playing game. Created by Lionhead Studios for the original Xbox in 2004, it boasted cheeky charm alongside world-altering player choices, and its droll writing was brought to life in later iterations by national treasures such as Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg. Thanks to its unique blend of farce and fantasy, Fable grew into a globally beloved franchise – before Microsoft unceremoniously shuttered Lionhead in 2016, after mandating that the studio turn its star series into a multiplayer game. The result, Fable Legends, was never released.
The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich
Burning Man, the infamous arts festival in the Nevada desert, turned 40 this year, and it’s showing some distinct signs of middle age.
It’s not just the tech billionaires who show up to party, the chartered flights straight to the desert or the HBO documentary about behind-the-scenes power struggles. The tens of thousands of people who assemble each year to create a tent city in the wilderness appear to be growing older, and it doesn’t seem that they’re being replaced by as many younger “burners”, as festival participants are called.
Au début du XXe siècle, il reste encore sur Terre des endroits capables de nourrir tous les fantasmes d’exploration. Parmi eux, un désert blanc où le moindre choix peut décider de la survie. Plus d’un siècle après une course devenue mythique, une bande dessinée replonge dans cette aventure où...
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