Technologies

Woolly mammoth extinction blamed on climate change, not human hunting

«This is a stark lesson from history and shows how unpredictable climate change is — once something is lost, there is no going back.»

About 4,000 years ago, the last majestic woolly mammoth roaming Earth vanished, and for decades, scientists believed the colossal ancestors of elephants went extinct because humans hunted them relentlessly. DNA analysis of the animals’ old stomping grounds, however, reveals a different story.

The likelier culprit, researchers now say, was rapid climate change that ultimately wiped out the creatures’ food supply. But besides solving the mystery of the disappearing mammoths, these findings may offer a glimpse into the fates of other species if our present climate crisis isn’t controlled.

«We have shown that climate change, specifically precipitation, directly drives the change in the vegetation — humans had no impact on [the mammoths] at all based on our models,» Yucheng Wang, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge and first author of the paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, said in a statement.

Co-author Eske Willerslev, a fellow at the University of Cambridge and director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen, added, «This is a stark lesson from history and shows how unpredictable climate change is — once something is lost, there is no going back.»

These gentle beings that dined on grass and flowers lived alongside Neanderthals. While many encounters might have been peaceful, the animals were a hot commodity when it came to making fur coats, musical and artistic instruments and hearty meals. That’s because of their thick, chocolate-colored fur, their sturdy, enormous tusks and their huge size.

They weighed approximately 6 tons and stood about 13 feet (4 meters) tall — as Wang puts it, woolly mammoths could «grow to the height of a double-decker bus.»

«Scientists have argued for 100 years about why mammoths went extinct,» Willerslev said. «Humans have been blamed because the animals had survived for millions of years without climate change killing them off before, but when they lived alongside humans they didn’t last long and we were accused of hunting them to death.»

It makes sense that prehistoric people were suspected to be behind woolly mammoths’ eventual demise instead of climate change. These animals somehow withstood the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago — the fanciful Disney movie Ice Age has some thoughts on that — but the new study’s researchers decided to dig a little deeper.

Over a period of 10 years, Willerslev led a team in dissecting DNA fragments collected from the Arctic soil where mammoths were known to graze. The samples were collected over 20 years and analyzed using a method called DNA shotgun sequencing.

DNA shotgun sequencing is an indirect way to create genetic profiles without requiring a person or animal to physically be there. Instead of collecting genetic information from bones or teeth, the method sequences DNA from traces of urine or discarded cells. Scientists have also used this tool to track the movement of COVID-19 by creating DNA profiles from sewage remnants.

The researchers looking into ancient mammoths discovered populations of the enormous animals — uncovered using the sequencing method — were depleted at a rate consistent with the quick speed of climate change at the time. Willerslev says it was because «as the climate warmed up, trees and wetland plants took over and replaced the mammoth’s grassland habitats.»

«When the climate got wetter and the ice began to melt, it led to the formation of lakes, rivers and marshes,» he said. «The ecosystem changed and the biomass of the vegetation reduced and would not have been able to sustain the herds of mammoths.»

Wang also notes that prehistoric humans would’ve probably spent most of their time hunting animals much smaller and easier to capture than enormous woolly mammoths, suggesting their impact on the animals’ extinction was arguably smaller than intuitively thought.

Another important aspect of the findings, Wang said, is «we have finally been able to prove that it was not just the climate changing that was the problem, but the speed of it that was the final nail in the coffin — they were not able to adapt quickly enough when the landscape dramatically transformed and their food became scarce.»

Such speed is why the researchers naturally drew parallels between what happened back then and what appears to be in store for us now. For instance, our global temperature is rising so quickly that many countries’ former goal of limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) is now considered nearly impossible by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s unless immediate, drastic measures are taken, they say.

«It shows nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the impact of dramatic changes in the weather,» Willerslav said. «The early humans would have seen the world change beyond all recognition. That could easily happen again, and we cannot take for granted that we will even be around to witness it.»

«The only thing we can predict with any certainty is that the change will be massive.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for April 28, #421

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 421 for April 28.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a very strange, long spangram, but the answers themselves are short and pretty easy to solve. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: My bad!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Uh-oh!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

NUMB, TOLE, POLE, POLES, SPIT, PITS, SOPPY, BREW, TALE, DUMB, DUMBS, ALTER, LETS, BALE, BALES.

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

SLIP, SPILL, FALTER, TOPPLE, BLUNDER, STUMBLE.

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is WHOOPSIEDAISY.To find it, start with the W that’s four letters down on the far right row, and wind across, and then down.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 28, #687

Hints and answers for Connections for April 28, #687.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

As an ’80s girl, I immediately spotted the four words in the yellow category of today’s Connections puzzle. I definitely had at least three of those products in my college apartment, so that was an easy solve. And since I read a lot of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, the blue category came along pretty easily, too. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Bought at Ulta, maybe.

Green group hint: Not fancy.

Blue group hint: Nancy Drew would spot these.

Purple group hint: Yawn.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Hair products.

Green group: Austere.

Blue group: Clues at a crime scene.

Purple group: Weary.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is hair products. The four answers are gel, mousse, spray and wax.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is austere. The four answers are bare, plain, simple and spare.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is clues at a crime scene. The four answers are fiber, fingerprint, hair and tire mark.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is weary. The four answers are bore, drain, exhaust and tire.

Technologies

Step Out of the Shadows. How to Turn Off Your iPhone’s Incognito Mode

The iPhone’s incognito mode is ideal for sensitive searches and avoiding targeted ads. But there are time when you may want to turn it off.

At a time when privacy and security have become hot topics, it’s smart to look at how you’re using protections built-in your phone. The iPhone’s private browsing, also known as incognito mode, serves as a digital cloak — allowing you to surf the web without leaving traces. Private browsing works on Apple’s Safari browser and some third-party browsers like Chrome.

There are a whole range of reasons to take advantage of incognito mode. You might be using a shared device, researching sensitive topics (maybe a surprise gift idea?) or dialing your privacy precautions up a notch by working to circumvent targeted ads or third-party cookies. This is when incognito mode becomes something of a confidante, and it gives you an added layer of privacy protection.

But once you’ve finished, you might want to step out of incognito mode on your iPhone and allow your browser to remember your steps. For example, maybe you’re logged into your account on a retailer’s website and don’t want to have to log back in every time you visit the page. Let’s proceed with a step-by-step guide on how to exit incognito mode on an iPhone, using Safari and Chrome.

How to exit incognito mode on Safari

1. Open Safari: Launch the Safari browser on your iPhone. You’ll find its icon on the home screen.

2. Look for the Tabs button: At the bottom right corner of the screen, you’ll see a square icon overlapping another square. Tap on it. This button represents your open tabs.

3. View all tabs: Once you tap the Tabs button, you’ll see a screen displaying all your open tabs. These tabs might include regular browsing tabs, any Tab Groups you’ve made and any incognito tabs you’ve opened called Private Browsing.

4. Close incognito tabs: Swipe left on any private or incognito tabs you want to close. After closing all incognito tabs, you’re officially out of incognito mode! You’ll now be browsing in regular mode, and your browsing history will be saved. If you have too many tabs open and prefer not to close every single one, you can simply swipe left in the view all tabs screen from Private/incognito tabs to get back on regular mode.

How to exit Incognito mode on Chrome on your iPhone

If you use Google’s Chrome browser, you’ll follow a familiar process to leave incognito mode.

1. Open Google Chrome: Launch the Chrome browser on your iPhone.

2. Look for the Tabs Button: At the bottom right corner of the screen, you’ll see a square icon with a number on it (if you have open tabs). Tap on it. This button represents your open tabs and the number corresponds with how many tabs you have open.

3. Leave Incognito mode: After tapping on the tabs button, you’ll be able to switch between incognito browsing or regular browsing by tapping the Incognito icon or the regular browsing icon. The Incognito icon is a pair of glasses and a fedora to resemble a secret disguise. To go back to browsing on regular mode, simply tap the square button with the number on it.

How to permanently turn off private browsing on an iPhone

You can also remove the private browsing tab on Safari. In Settings under Screen Time, when you switch Web Content from «Unrestricted» to «Limit Adult Websites,» the iPhone reboots Safari and removes Private Browsing from the Tabs view. To get to the setting you open Settings, tap Screen Time, tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, tap Store, Web, Siri & Game Center Content, select Web Content and tap Limit Adult Websites.

Remember, using incognito mode isn’t foolproof — it won’t hide your activity from your internet service provider or certain extensions. But it’s supposed to offer that extra layer of privacy when needed.