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
Anthropic warns investors of AI’s ‘existential risk to humanity’ in IPO prospectus, reports say
Anthropic’s IPO filing dedicates 80 pages to the risks of AI, nearly double the 48 pages it spends discussing its business plans, according to Reuters.
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Technologies
U.S., Iran hold separate mediator talks as Mideast oil exports hit war-time high
Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire, as Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded to war-time high.
Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire.
Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February.
An outright export ban by Washington on diesel would keep roughly 1.2 million barrels a day at home, and risks overwhelming Gulf Coast storage, according to Kpler.
The building of the destroyed Shajareh Tayebeh primary school is pictured surrounded by rubble in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province on August 10, 2026. Six months on, a team of AFP journalists obtained rare access to the school which has remained largely in ruins, its collapsed walls and twisted steel now surrounded by portraits of the children killed as Iranian flags flutter above the rubble. Iran says the attack on the school involved two separate US Tomahawk missiles but neither the United States nor Israel has officially claimed responsibility for the strike. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty Images) /
Atta Kenare | Afp | Getty Images
U.S. and Iranian officials have reportedly held separate indirect talks with mediators on Monday, reviving efforts to end seven months of war as Tehran presses for a response to a revised ceasefire framework and Middle East crude exports climb to their highest level since the conflict began.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Qatari mediators in New York, where he remained after the United Nations General Assembly, and reportedly said he expects Washington’s reply by Tuesday. “We talked about ideas and how to find solutions to fulfil Iran’s conditions,” Araghchi said, adding that he planned to return to Tehran once a response arrives. “Whenever the Qataris have a response, they know how to get it to us.”
Iran’s proposal, first presented on the sidelines of last week’s General Assembly, calls for a four- to five-day U.S. timeline to release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions on Iranian oil and end the naval blockade of Iranian ports, with nuclear talks beginning within seven days. Tehran has tied any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to those steps.
President Donald Trump had on Sunday called the plan “unacceptable” and rejected it, telling reporters Iran wants a swift deal because of the economic pressure it is under. Speaking at the White House Monday, Trump said U.S. officials had spoken separately with mediators but gave no further details, adding: “We’re going to win. It’s going to go pretty quickly.”
The diplomatic push comes as physical supply data shows the war’s toll on the oil market easing. Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February, Kpler data showed. “Middle East crude exports at just under 80% of pre-conflict levels,” the tracking firm said in a note on Monday.
The Strait of Hormuz itself remains far from normal. Kpler’s real-time tracking showed total clearance through the strait at 10,591 kilobarrels a day on Saturday, against a pre-war baseline of 17,133.
Technologies
Oil prices fall as crude exports recover at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports
Saudi Arabia has restored flows through the pipeline to around 3.5 million barrels per day, according to media reports.
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