scientific research

Stone objects collected by prehistoric hunters were effective as throwing weapons to hunt animals, research at Leeds Beckett University reveals.

The research, published in the latest edition of Scientific Reports, shows that stone objects collected by prehistoric humans could inflict considerable damage to large animals over distances of up to 25 metres.

The researchers, led by Dr Andrew Wilson, an expert in perception, action and embodied cognition at Leeds Beckett, alongside Associate Professor Qin Zhu from the University of Wyoming, Professor Lawrence Barham and Professor Ian Stanistreet from the University of Liverpool, and Professor Geoffrey Bingham from Indiana University, analysed a sample of 55 spheroids (ball-shaped stone objects found in African archaeological sites) from the Cave of Hearths in the Makapan Valley in South Africa.

The “new” plan sets a target of capturing 333 minke whales annually as part of a 12-year-long research effort "to achieve conservation of [Antarctic marine ecosystem] resources while pursuing their sustainable utilization and to understand and predict the effects of factors such as climate change."

Japan needs to have more "sampling" of whale demographic data, so they must kill more widely and extend their illegal whaling program!

"After giving serious scientific consideration, it has been concluded that age data at the annual scale can be obtained only through lethal sampling methods, and thus lethal methods need to be employed under this program," the plan said.