A Viking Wonder Woman
Historical accounts of female Viking warriors are often discounted as myths. But new DNA tests of a warrior buried in Sweden more than 1,000 years ago provide the first genetic evidence that some women held powerful, high-status positions in Viking culture. The 10th-century grave site, which was uncovered in the 1880s, contained a sword, arrows, a battle knife, a spear, shields, and two horses. The Viking, who stood 5-foot-6, was also buried with a set of game pieces—an indication of the deceased’s expertise in battle tactics. The archaeologists who uncovered the grave 130 years ago assumed it belonged to a high-ranking male warrior. “I think that’s a mistake that archaeologists make quite often,” archaeologist Becky Gowland tells The Guardian. “When we do that, we’re just reproducing the past in our image.” A recent DNA analysis revealed that the Viking leader lacked a Y chromosome— confirming that “he” was actually a “she.”
dramatically alter the delicate balance of ecosystems around the world, The New York Times reports. An international team of scientists mapped the global distribution and habitats of 457 different species of parasites and analyzed how climate change could affect them. Up to 30 percent of parasite species, they concluded, may be extinct by 2070. A mass die-off could produce many undesirable consequences: Where parasites help control their hosts’ populations, those populations could grow out of control, the way deer did when wolves left their habitats. Other parasites might flourish in the absence of competition. Still others could migrate to new ecosystems, invading new species. An example: the mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus spreading north into the U.S. Colin Carlson, lead author of the study, said parasites are “a huge and important part of ecosystems,” and warned that extinctions will have consequences we can’t foresee.
and ability to control thoughts and emotions. “Hatha yoga and mindfulness meditation both focus the brain’s conscious processing power on a limited number of targets, like breathing and posing, and also reduce processing of nonessential information,” the study’s co-author, Peter Hall, tells ScienceDaily.com. That mental training, he said, apparently enables people “to focus more easily on what they choose to attend to in everyday life.”