Learn about ancient evidence of humans using fire; Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; and your memory on social media. We just found the earliest evidence of humans changing their ecosystems with fire by Grant Currin Nield, D. (2021). Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Ancient Human Activity Deep Inside a Desert Cave. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-the-oldest-evidence-of-indoor-human-activity-deep-inside-a-desert-cave Ratner, P. (2021, May 3). From 1.8 million years ago, earliest evidence of human activity found. Big Think; Big Think. https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/earliest-evidence-human-activity Shaar, R., Matmon, A., Horwitz, L. K., Ebert, Y., Chazan, M., Arnold, M., Aumaître, G., Bourlès, D., & Keddadouche, K. (2021). Magnetostratigraphy and cosmogenic dating of Wonderwerk Cave: New constraints for the chronology of the South African Earlier Stone Age. Quaternary Science Reviews, 259, 106907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106907 Scientists may have overcome Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by Briana Brownell Mercier de Lépinay, L., Ockeloen-Korppi, C. F., Woolley, M. J., & Sillanpää, M. A. (2021). Quantum mechanics–free subsystem with mechanical oscillators. Science, 372(6542), 625–629. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf5389 Evading the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/au-etu050521.php Ratner, P. (2021, May 15). Physicists push limits of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Big Think; Big Think. https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/breakthrough-quantum-entanglement-heisenberg Turner, B. (2021, May 15). Scientist find a loophole in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. MSN. com. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/scientist-find-a-loophole-in-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle/ar-BB1gLlgP Is Social Media Hurting Your Memory? first aired June 7, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/your-memory-on-social-media-best-workouts-and-why Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free!
Learn about ancient evidence of humans using fire; Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; and your memory on social media.
We just found the earliest evidence of humans changing their ecosystems with fire by Grant Currin
Scientists may have overcome Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by Briana Brownell
Is Social Media Hurting Your Memory? first aired June 7, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/your-memory-on-social-media-best-workouts-and-why
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free!
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/we-found-the-earliest-evidence-of-ancient-human-activity
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the earliest evidence of humans changing their ecosystems with fire; how scientists may have overcome Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; and whether social media might be hurting your memory.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
There are a lot of myths out there about quote-unquote “cavemen,” but it turns out that some of our ancestors did, in fact, live in caves. At one such cave in South Africa, researchers have uncovered evidence of the earliest human activity we’ve ever found — activity that was essential for our advancement as a species.
South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave [VONDA-vairck] in the Kalahari Desert is one of the world’s great archaeological sites. Its oldest artifacts indicate that ancestral humans were hanging out in the cave at least 3.3 million years ago, and this new research shows they’d made it a permanent home by about 1.8 million years ago. We aren’t talking cave-dwelling hermits. The evidence shows that the cave was shelter, kitchen, workshop, and more for generation upon generation of ancient humans. It was continuously occupied for thousands of years.
And get this. Since the archaeological site is sheltered by the cave, both the artifacts and the earth they’re buried in have been more or less uncontaminated. That lets archaeologists date the artifacts they find with a lot more accuracy than they can with artifacts that have been exposed to the elements.
One of the most exciting finds are what researchers call Oldowan stone tools. These are early tools that were probably made by hitting stones against each other to break flakes off and create a sharp-ish edge, for chopping. But the residents of this cave weren’t totally content with that tech. Just over a million years ago, more advanced handaxes start showing up in the archaeological record.
That’s not all. Evidence from the dig shows that another technological revolution swept the cave at about the same time: the purposeful use of fire. This is where digging in a cave becomes really important. At open-air sites, it’s impossible for archaeologists to know that ancient fires were set by humans rather than, say, lightning. But the researchers are confident that the burned bone and ash they found were a result of human activity.
These findings did not come easy. The artifacts were buried as deep as 8 feet (2.5 meters) below the surface, and the researchers relied on two techniques to date the artifacts. One method is called paleomagnetism, and it’s a very difficult-sounding technique that involves measuring the magnetism of the surrounding soil and comparing it to Earth’s magnetic field at different points in time. The second technique relied on radioactive isotopes in grains of sand that indicate how long it’s been since they were last exposed to radiation from the sun.
Research so simple a caveman could do it? Don’t get me started.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is one of the strangest things in quantum physics. It tells us that there is a hard limit to how accurately we can measure a particle’s position and momentum at the same time. Although it seems counterintuitive, this uncertainty is a fundamental aspect of physics, rather than a limitation of our technology.
But a recent paper challenges our understanding of the uncertainty principle… and may have even broken it.
The experimental set up was pretty extreme. The team used a pair of drums so small they needed photons to play it. Then, they cooled these drums to one hundredth of a degree above absolute zero. Talk about cold!
The team first pummeled the drums with photons to bring them into an entangled state. Quantum entanglement is known as “spooky action at a distance” for a reason. Two entangled objects can affect each other, even at great distances. And spooky, it is. So far, scientists have struggled to explain why this happens.
But the entanglement of the drums added a necessary aspect to the setup. It meant that the two drums beat in opposite phase to one another — one would be at its peak while the other was at its floor.
And that coordinated action is the critical part. Because they’re both beating in sync, the uncertainty across the system seems to cancel out. Scientists were able to measure both the drumheads’ position and momentum simultaneously. In other words, no more uncertainty. I’m certain Heisenberg would have something to say about that.
More research will determine if the uncertainty principle was really broken, or if the paradox can still be explained using the principles we currently understand.
But either way the experiment is an important contribution to physics. These tiny drums could be used to take extremely small measurements, and the team is hoping they can use them to study gravitational waves and dark matter. And in addition to the new information about the uncertainty principle, the researchers’ use of larger entangled objects is a promising part of the work happening with macroscopic quantum objects. In this case, the entangled drums were about 1 trillion atoms large — in quantum terms, that’s a pretty big collection of atoms to entangle. Entanglement of larger objects like this could be used in quantum computers to send and store information, which would be an important advance in technology.
So whether or not we’ve broken a fundamental principle of physics, the fact that these drums could be entangled at all is pretty exciting stuff.
ASHLEY: You can probably find some precious memories when you scroll through your old Facebook or Instagram posts. But there might be a better way to remember them. Here’s a clip we remastered from 2018 that might help you remember things a bit more clearly.
[CODY: CLIP 2:27]
ASHLEY: Let’s recap today’s takeaways
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Grant Currin and Briana Brownell.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Instead of uploading your latest selfie, why don’t you just share this podcast on social media? Don’t worry — I’m sure you’ll still remember it just fine. And then, join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!