Lost Antarctic explorer’s ship found after a century
In 1915, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s expedition of the frozen tundra came to a sudden end with the sinking of his ship, The Endurance. Since then, researchers from all backgrounds have been searching for the lost ship, but it was nearly an impossible task due to the extreme cold and pressure found in the waters surrounding the Antarctic. However, on March 9, now more than a century later a research team consisting of more than 100 scientists and crew members have finally found the sunken ship at 10,000 feet below the Weddell Sea, just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. While The Endurance may have not lived up to its name during Shackleton’s failed expedition in the early twentieth century, the ship certainly did so in death, for it was found in excellent condition now more than a century later. This is due to the Weddell Sea being “a very inhospitable environment for just about everything- especially the kind of bacteria, mites and wood-eating worms that would otherwise enjoy munching on a wooden shipwreck,” said Steven Schwankert, a maritime historian, as reported by The Associated Press.
Leftist president sworn in in Chile
On March 11, roughly 30 years after gaining back a democratic government from General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, Chile took a sharp turn to the left as they sworn in Gabriel Boric, a progressivist, as president. While this is not the first time the country has elected a left-leaning president, Pinochet’s predecessor, Salvador Allende, and Chile’s first female president, Michelle Bachelet, were both socialists, at 36 years old Boric is the youngest person to be sworn into Chilean presidency. The new president’s age is not the only thing that has marked the start of his presidency as a historic one. For the first time there will be more women in Boric’s cabinet than ever before and his inauguration marked the first time representatives from each indigenous group were present at such an event, as reported by NPR.
Controversy surrounding ice age megaflora and fauna study
An eight-mile-long rock painting discovered in Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon rainforest in 2020, has recently caused controversy within the scientific community, according to a New York Times report. The rock painting has yet to be exactly dated but is suggested to be more than 12,000 years old. It depicts many large animals, many of which are suggested to be a giant ground sloth, a gomphothere, an early relative of the horse, a llama and camel type camelid and a hoofed mammal with a trunk, according to a new study published through The Royal Society by Professor José Iriarte and his team on March 7. While the research has been conducted ever since rock paintings were discovered in 2020, the current study has brought the conclusions to the forefront of slight controversy. Many archeologists contradict the findings, suggesting that the paintings may be more recent than 12,000 years and that animals such as the giant ground sloth are in fact their more recent relatives that are still found today in the region, such as the capybara.
